Facebook fell yesterday not one or two but six hours.
And without Facebook, there is no instagram or, most importantly, whatsapp.
For a company with such an important pillar of the current connected society, this can be catastrophic.
What if people start looking for alternatives to whatsapp?
There are a multitude of alternatives to WhatsApp in Google and Apple app stores and, like her, they are free, allow you to create groups, send voice recordings, make video calls, wear stupid stickers and gifs …
The two main alternatives to whatsapp are clear and a lot of people know them: Telegram and Signal.
There are others less than used in Spain, but in other parts of the world they are very important.
From messages on iPhone to Wechat mobiles in China, also passing by line in countries such as Korea or Japan.
But we will focus on the first two because they are the most known in our country.
Telegram offers many functions and has always been the most direct alternative, walking at the same time what whatsapp during the last years, when not directly overtaking with more personalization options.
Such has been the influence that the Facebook application has been implementing new features that Telegram already included.
On the other hand, Signal, which is somewhat less known, it is much safer and is more recommended for those who want a ferrous control over who and how much their messages are read.
Share some ideas and ways to function with Telegram, are in terms of data linking each user.
Both are available in the PLAY STORE and the App Store, have group chat functions, have multiplatform messaging (you can use them on your mobile or on the PC) and allow you to exchange files, photos and videos.
They also share the encryption for text, voice and video calls.
While in Telegram, end-to-end encryption is only activated in the case of using the ‘secret chats’, whatsapp and signal comes by default in all conversations.
So what type of encryption does Tecogram use in conventional conversations?
Telegram displeases the data and stores them on servers in different countries, also separating encryption keys (codes with which a message is decoded, making it readable) of the data.
In this way, they would lack judicial orders from all countries where telegram information is stored to deliver some specific data.
WhatsApp is by far the application that more data links each user, not only personal but even habits and consumption.
For example, link the phone number to the ID, contacts, device ID, shopping history, phone number, location, mail, among others.
On the other hand, Telegram links the user ID with a phone number, contacts and the name of the account (a nickname that you can use to communicate with other people without having to provide them with your phone number).
That links contacts can be useful for when you change the device or use it on the computer, speed up access.
In the case of Signal, the only fact that links to the user’s account is the phone number.
It has its pros, if you change a lot of device can be somewhat uncomfortable, but in terms of privacy, it is almost unmatched.
Both whatsapp and telegram and signal, share a multitude of functions, so the migration is quite simple, thanks to interfaces that will be familiar with each other.
Although, for example, there is a peculiar function with which you count signal that you will not find in any other, the pixeling of faces.
The application itself offers the option to blur the faces of the people that appear in a photograph.
From the main Signal interface, select the camera-shaped icon from the lower right, take a photo or selection of the gallery, press the pixelated circle that looks like it has a cross inside and the application will offer you to select the face
What you want to blur or do it automatically.
This function also serves to pixel posters, marks or tattoos.
Specifically, the characteristics that you will not find in Signal are: Video notes, animated stickers, canals and massive groups (up to 200,000 participants).
These functions if telegram includes them, although it has an inconvenience that has been receiving complaints from the creation of the application.
When you create a Telegram account for the first time, this is notified to all your contacts, which are already registered in the application, through a direct message.
Something quite indiscreet and uncomfortable.
This option can be deactivated, but it is activated by default.
Taking into account that Signal has most functions you found in WhatsApp, some aspects can cause the balance to tilt to one side or another.
For example, contacts, that is, the application that decides to use your family, your friends, your co-workers and even your bosses.
WhatsApp was coming as the majority application, so now it will be necessary to see what alternative application they are picking up your nearby circles or taking the initiative to comment on which advantages each one (or share this same article).
By deepening beyond the functions and chassis of these applications, that is to say, pull the thread and analyze their origins, it is normal to drown in a sea of shopping, names of large companies, founders who migrate from one to the other.
That whatsapp is Facebook property is something that the application itself declares nothing else to start it.
For the part of him, Signal, previously known as TextSecure, was created in 2010 by Computer Safety Specialist, Matthew Rosenfeld, also known by the pseudonym of him Moxie Marlinspike and Stuart Anderson, a robotic specialist.
Years later, he was purchased by Twitter and his main creator then founded the new Open Whisper Systems, with the purpose of continuing with the developments.
The Open Whispers Systems Encryption System was so efficient that whatsapp itself adopted it.
Later, one of the founders of Whatsapp, Brian Acton, left Facebook and invested 50 million dollars in Signal.
In the end everything is related between the technological giants.
Telegram, however, goes a little at its air, is an open source application founded by two Russian brothers, Nikolai and Pavel Durv whose development team, currently, has its base in Dubai, since the regulation of the technologies of the
Information in your country, Russia, requires delivering information about its users and the founders did not accept.
Telegram operating protocols are open, that is, that the computer code can be known on which the application is based and how it has been developed.
A philosophy that shares with Signal, whose code is available in Github both in its mobile versions (Android and iOS) and in its desktop version.
In the case of whatsapp, this type of information your code is what is called a ‘black box’.
All their ‘guts’, algorithms and their operation are opaque and inaccessible for both users and the common mortals.
