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Possibly the biggest disadvantage Telegram has over more popular messages is simply that: popularity. Despite its hundreds of millions of fans, Telegram is still leagues behind WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WeChat in active monthly users. Telegram allows you to customise your app interface to your liking. To achieve that, users can choose from a number of themes and colour combinations in the app. These will change elements like the colours of chat backgrounds and messages too. While we are going to release more exciting features for Premium subscribers, we will keep implementing free features available for everyone, and do it faster than any other massively popular app. This update is no exception – it adds join requests for public groups, an animated screen for external sharing, improved bot descriptions, and more.

The aforementioned secret chats are where you can take part in end-to-end encrypted messaging with a contact. But that’s not its only benefit: Secret chats also don’t allow a person forward messages from there or take screenshots. Of course, someone could take a picture of the screen with another device, but it’s still discouraged, and it’s bolstered by another feature: self-destruct timers. To do this, head over to Telegram settings and choose ‘Folders’. Here you can create as many folders as you want and add both personal chats as well as groups and channels to any of the folders. You can also order the folders you just created, but note that the default ‘All chats’ folder will always be the first one. To lock your messages, go to “Settings”, “Privacy and Security” and tap on “Passcode Lock”. You will be asked to set a four-digit passcode and confirm it. Once you do that, you will find additional options to “unlock the app with fingerprint” and “auto-lock” it after a specific duration. This is incredibly useful for keeping track of an important URL, getting an image to another device without cloud storage, or keeping a record of important information. Tap the title bar at the top to browse by media type and make it easier to find past messages you saved.

Open Telegram Links in Your Favorite Browser Verification Badges in Chats That’s far from saying Telegram will protect you from all privacy terrors the online world presents — you should check out our Android privacy guide for a broader look at that. Telegram just offers a good marriage of popularity and security for those with concerns over other messaging apps. Improvements for Everyone

Set Reminders A recently introduced feature, Telegram’s new Group Voice Chats allow users in a group to initiate a common group voice chat for all members. However, users can choose to drop out of the ongoing group chat and re-enter at any given point. To make use of this, head into any group of choice and tap on the group name. Now head to the three-dot menu on the top right and choose Start Voice Chat.