WhatsApp and Telegram are similar, but if you are looking for maximum privacy and chat protection, then you should know that one service is better than the other. A useful comparison.
Whatsapp is the most widespread and appreciated instant messaging service in the world. Its main competitor is Telegram, the app developed in Russia that is recommended by all those users who claim greater privacy protection and innovative features.
Both functional, simple to use and feature-rich, in general they are very similar, but they have some distinctive characteristics for which, according to your needs, one is better than the other. Between WhatsApp and Telegram which one is safer and why? Which one protects privacy and chats better? If you still have doubts whether it is better to use Telegram or WhatsApp, below you will find all the clarifications of the case.
WhatsApp and Telegram in comparison
We start from the features in common: both WhatsApp and Telegram are free, available for iOS and Android, and present in the PC version with WhatsApp Web and Telegram Web respectively.
Both are intuitive and easy to use, show contact lists and chats in use, but also active sessions on different devices, which you can decide to end with a single click.
Why use Telegram
When we hear that Telegram is the perfect messaging app for those who particularly care about their privacy (and why not, has some secret to hide) is because it offers the ability to start secret chats that self-destruct (you can set a timer that it goes from 1 second to 1 week) where there is a block of message forwarding.
Unlike WhatsApp, Telegram does not have end-to-end encryption as a default, so in case of a hacker attack on servers, user data and content exchanged will not be safe from prying eyes. In any case, even if protected by end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp chats can be spied using WhatsApp Web or other methods.
Always on the protection of privacy, on Telegram you can use the fingerprint or a passcode as a security measure to protect the chat, so every time you open the app to enter you must unlock it with the code or with the digital recognition. Moreover, unlike WhatsApp, it does not show the time of a user’s last access, but only gives a vague indication like “a few minutes ago”.
Other Telegram pros missing on WhatsApp are: the possibility of using an avalanche of funny stickers, the possibility to create discussion channels that go beyond the “groups” and to add a phone number, which at the moment WhatsApp does not allows you to do as you can not use two numbers on the same phone.
Why use WhatsApp
Although Telegram is now very popular, as for the diffusion in World WhatsApp has no competition: it is much easier that your friends and acquaintances have installed and use WhatsApp daily rather than Telegram, and this is already a good reason to prefer the first to the second.
WhatsApp has read receipts (which however can be deactivated), while Telegram can not know if a message has been delivered: here the double blue check can indicate both “read message” and “delivered”. On the contrary, Telegram has a better system for reading confirmations in group chats, while on WhatsApp these are a bit confusing.
WhatsApp, however, offers an important advantage, namely the ability to make both calls and video calls (Telegram allows only calls) and also group video calls. Again, WhatsApp shows the exact time of the last access (a useful feature for the curious) and allows you to make Stories as a profile image.