Which messenger is recommended?
There are numerous instant messengers around, and at first glance, they hardly differ. However, if you take a closer look, distinctive differences become apparent beneath the surface, especially as far as security and privacy protection are concerned.
Overall, if security and privacy are your main concern, Signal is by far the secure service. While all three services use end-to-end encryption, Signal takes extra steps to ensure that the metadata information of its users is kept private and does not go out of its way to collect extra data on its users. However, most of your contacts probably don’t have it installed.
- Telegram has 800 million active users (2023) worldwide.
- Signal has 40 million active users (2022) worldwide.
- WhatsApp has 2 billion active users (2020) worldwide.
When it comes to texting, everyone is out to gather your information. Your cell phone provider has copies of everything you send, everyone you call and they do not have a policy to ever remove your data. In fact, you accept a user’s agreement whenever you install an update or use their service that allow this to happen. Plus, the CLOUD Act (2018) entitles US authorities to access data from US IT service providers (even if the data is not stored in the US).
What’s the Verdict?
Unfortunately, very few people have Signal installed so it is hard to get others to switch over. With so many text programs available it is getting difficult to keep track of all of it or convince others to install “yet another Text App.”
More people have Telegram installed than any other messenger service. So, it may be easiest to convert over and find most of your contacts are already listed. Telegram like most all of the Messenger apps can comb through your contacts and find people who are already in the service.
WhatsApp is owned by Facebook since 2014. And we all know how well Facebook abuses its user’s data.
