Telegram, the messaging app has finally rolled out the paid tier, which gives users access to extra features for $4.99 / month after announcing Telegram Premium earlier this month.
All the elements are summarized in a post on Telegram’s blog, with some of its bigger draws, including faster downloads and a bigger maximum file upload size of 4GB.
Premium subscribers will also get double the limits imposed on standard users. Instead of joining up to 500 channels, subscribers are capped at 1,000 channels. The same goes for other features on Telegram — subscribers can create 20 chat folders with 200 chats each, save up to 10 stickers, pin up to 10 discussions, and add four accounts to Telegram instead of three. Premium users also get to have more extended bios with a link.
You are introducing bigger uploads, faster downloads, and exclusive stickers. Other perks include access to a library of Premium stickers with more obnoxious full-screen animations, complete emoji reactions, and animated profile pictures (sort of like the ones you see on Steam). There’s also text conversion for voice messages in case you don’t have headphones handy, in addition to chat management tools that allow you to change your default chat folder. Oh, and subscribing to Premium removes sponsored messages in public channels.
Telegram CEO Pavel Durov’s views on the platform’s freemium tier have remained unchanged since he first brought up the possibility in 2020. In line with what he said previously, Durov stated last week that free features would stay free, and new features won’t impact the Telegram experience for non-subscribers. It means free Telegram users should be able to download larger files uploaded by subscribers and view the premium reactions or emojis they use.
Durov also promised that Telegram wouldn’t stop developing features for free users either, which the platform appears to be following through on. For example, the latest Telegram update displays verified badges in chats (not just in profiles, search results, or chat lists), gives public groups the ability to enable join requests, and adds a few platform-specific improvements.
That said, Telegram Premium comes with many features, many of which will probably be attractive to the most active of Telegram’s — now 700 million strong — userbase. We like that most of Premium’s perks build off of Telegram’s existing features. The new tier doesn’t put elements behind a paywall that should’ve been on the platform in the first place.
Telegram’s default notifications are cloud-based and can be accessed on any user’s connected devices. Users can share photos, videos, audio notes, and other files (up to 2 gigabytes per file). Users can transmit messages to others individually or in batches of up to 200,000 members.
Sent messages can be reworked up to 48 hours after being sent and can be deleted at any moment on both sides. Messages in all chats, including channels and groups, can auto-delete after 24 hours, seven days, or a month. However, this will only apply to messages sent after enabling the auto-delete timer. People can react to the news by choosing from a range of emojis.
A user can only send one response; tapping on any other answer will switch to it. In groups, a list of people who responded is available. Reactions are always on in private chats but must be allowed by the admin in groups and channels, fully or partially, with fewer reactions chosen.
Telegram offers drafts that sync across user devices, such as when a user starts typing a message on one machine and can later resume on another. The draft will continue in the editing area on any device until it is dispatched or removed. All chats with groups and channels can be sorted into the user’s custom folders. In addition, users can schedule messages in personal conversations to be sent when the other side arrives online. Users can also import chat history with both media and notes from WhatsApp, Line, and Kakaotalk due to data portability, creating a new chat to carry the messages or adding them to an existing one.
Telegram users can share the live location in a conversation for either 15 minutes, one hour, or eight hours. If numerous users share their live site within a group, they are displayed on an interactive map. Sharing the ‘live location’ can be discontinued at any time.
Secret chats must be initiated and accepted thru an invitation, upon which the encryption keys for the session are swapped. Users in a secret chat can confirm that no man-in-the-middle attack has occurred by corresponding pictures that envision their public key fingerprints.
Telegram says secret chats have supported perfect forward secrecy since December 2014. Encryption keys are periodically revised after a key has been used more than 100 times or for more than a week. After that, old encryption keys are destroyed.
Channels: Users who join a channel can catch the whole message history. Users can join and leave tracks at any time. Relying on a channel’s settings, messages may be marked with the channel’s name or the username of the admin who posted them. Non-admin users cannot see other users who’ve subscribed to the track. The channel admin can view statistics about channel activity as each message has its view counter, showing how many users have noticed this message, including views from forwarded messages. As of May 2019, the originator of a channel can add a discussion group, a separate group where notifications in the pipeline are automatically posted for subscribers to communicate. It enables comments for posts in the channel.
Video and Voice Calls: At the end of March 2017, Telegram raised its end-to-end encrypted voice calls. Connection is selected as peer-to-peer whenever possible. Otherwise, the nearest server to the client is used. There is a neural network functioning on learning various technical parameters about a call to provide a better quality of the service for future uses. Users can share their screen, stream video from their camera, or do both simultaneously. Group calls support selective screen sharing, divided screen view, and improved noise suppression. In July 2021, Telegram raised the ability for up to 1000 people to watch the streaming video. Livestreams support unlimited players and third-party streaming software like supporting custom interfaces, OBS Studio and XSplit, and overlays.
Bots: In June 2015, Telegram established a platform for third-party developers to create bots. Bots are Telegram accounts utilized by programs. They can respond to messages or mentions, be invited into groups, and be integrated with other programs. Bots can also take online payments made with credit cards or Apple Pay. The Dutch website Tweakers conveyed that an invited bot could potentially read all group messages when the bot controller adjusts the access settings silently later. Telegram pointed out that it believed in implementing a feature to inform such a status change within the appropriate group. In addition, there are inline bots, which can be employed from any chat screen. To activate an inline bot, the user must type the bot’s username and a question in the message field. The bot then will deliver its content. Then, the user can choose from that content and send it within a chat.
In February 2018, Telegram launched its social login feature to its users, anointed Telegram Login. It characterized a website widget that could be embedded into sites, permitting users to sign in to a third-party website with the Telegram account. The gateway transmits users’ Telegram username, name, and profile picture to the website owner, while users’ phone number remains hidden. In addition, the gateway is integrated with a bot, which is linked with the developer’s specific website domain.
Instant View: Instant View is a mode to view web articles with zero page load. With Instant View, Telegram users can read writings from mass media or blogs in a uniform and readable form. Furthermore, instant View pages help text and media of any type and work even if the authentic website was not optimized for mobile gadgets. Instant View pages are incredibly lightweight and cached on the Telegram servers, so they load instantly on almost any connection.
Telegraph
Telegraph is a publishing tool for creating formatted posts with photos and embedded media. It is designed in a minimalist style, and the article pages do not contain controls. Every article on the website is separate; there is no chance to merge pieces into groups or hierarchies. For each article, the author selects a title and optionally a subtitle, usually for the author’s name. In addition, the title of the report indicates the date of the first publication, which the article’s author cannot influence.
Text formatting alternatives are also minimal: two levels of headings, bold, italics, quotes, single-level lists, and hyperlinks are supported. Authors can upload pictures and videos to the page, with a limit of 5Mb. When an author counts links to YouTube, Vimeo, or Twitter, the service permits you to embed their content instantly in the article. The URL has generated automatically from its title when an article is first published. Non-Latin characters are transliterated, spaces are substituted with hyphens, and the publication date is counted to the address.
Stickers and Animated Emoji: Telegram has 20,000 stickers. Stickers are cloud-based, high-resolution photos intended to provide more definitive emoji. The user is presented to send the respective sticker instead while typing in an emoji. Stickers come in pools called “packs,” and multiple stickers can be delivered for one emoji. Telegram has one default sticker pack, but users can install additional sticker packs supplied by third-party contributors. Sticker packs installed from one client become automatically available to all other clients. Sticker images employ WebP file format, which is better optimized for transmitting over the internet. The Telegram clients also support animated emojis. In January 2022, video stickers were added to utilize the WebM file format and do not feature any software needed to create.
Real-life Identification: In July 2018, Telegram introduced its online authorization and identity management system, Telegram Passport, for platforms that require real-life identification. It asks users to upload official documents such as passports, identity cards, driver’s licenses, etc. When an online service requires identification documents and verification, it relays the information to the platform with the user’s permission. Telegram noted that it does not have permission to access the data, while the platform will only share the information with the authorized recipient. However, the service was criticized for being vulnerable to online brute force attacks.
Polls: Polls are obtainable on Android, iOS, and desktop applications. Polls have the prospect of being anonymous or visible. A user can document multiple options in the survey. Quiz mode can also be promoted, where a user can choose the correct answer for their poll and go it to the group to assume. Quiz bots can be added to follow correct answers and provide a global leaderboard.