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A further privacy blunder is that Telegram notifies your contacts when you join it — unless you don’t give it permission to access your contacts. The app doesn’t warn you it’s about to ping your contacts, and that’s a big caveat for those who want to use Telegram to keep a low profile. While it’s great to set a nice profile and win praise from your friends and loved ones, there are times when you might want to hide your profile from certain people. Fortunately, Telegram offers you the needed control over the visibility of your profile. After that, hit the More button (triple-dot icon) and choose Enable Auto-Delete in the popup menu. Next, choose the desired period of time like 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month. If you would rather want to go with a custom period of time, tap Other and then adjust the time.

Auto-download and Auto-play Media Another security feature that adds usability is usernames. Instead of giving people your phone number, you can simply give them your username. This gives you better control over what information is out there, and how people can contact you in the future. Admins can reach out to users who want to join and have a chat to cover the rules, make sure they're a good fit or even plan a welcome party. When an admin reaches out, Telegram lets the user know they're reaching out as a group admin. Premium No Ads

Perhaps the most important and the best feature of the Telegram app is its security. It is based on the MTProto protocol that is built upon time-tested algorithms. It enables high-speed, reliable message delivery on weak connections. The company also makes its API publicly available for free and invites developers to create clients on other platforms. Users can also create custom bots, themes, stickers, and more free of charge. Read also: How to protect your privacy using Android If you don’t want messages in your secret chats to hang around forever, Telegram lets you set self-destruct timers to permanently remove them. After a message is received, it remains in the chat for a predetermined period — you can choose times between one second and one week – before disappearing.

Buying a new 5G smartphone? Here’s what to keep in mind In general, Telegram is as safe or safer than most other chat apps. It could be argued that WhatsApp’s end-to-end encryption on all messaging is a better approach, but the company’s ties to Facebook/Meta may turn off privacy advocates.