Du Rove's Channel

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👉Announcing a $200,000 giveaway! 🪙\n\nTo celebrate our new feature, I’m hosting a giveaway of 10,000 Telegram Premium subscriptions 🤑\n\nIn a week, 10,000 random subscribers of my channel will receive a Telegram Premium subscription for 6 months 🤱\n\nI have already prepaid for this giveaway on Fragment with $200,000-worth of \nToncoin I bought on a cryptoexchange. Enjoy! ☕️

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When Telegram said goodbye to TON last year, I expressed the hope that future generations of developers would one day carry on with our vision of a mass-market blockchain platform.\n\nSo I was inspired to see the champions of Telegram\'s coding contests continue developing the open TON project, which they rebranded to Toncoin.\n\nI\'m proud that the technology we created is alive and evolving. When it comes to scalability and speed, TON is still years ahead of everything else in the blockchain realm. It would have been a shame to see this project not benefitting humanity.\n\nUnlike the original TON, Toncoin is independent from Telegram. But I wish its team the same success. Coupled with the right go-to-market strategy, they have all they need to build something epic 💪

2018 was a great year for Telegram, but 2019 is going to be by far the most important one in our company\'s history.\n\nIn 2018, more and more people discovered Telegram and switched to it from services run by ad-selling IT monopolies.\n\nAs a result, Telegram became one of the few messaging apps that are enjoying significant growth globally.\n\nBuilding on the success of the last year, this year we are going to implement many long-awaited product changes you have been asking for. \n\n2019 will be the time when feature-related wishes of our users come true.

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Happy Winter Solstice! May your wishes come true ✨🌟

Hackers could have full access (!) to everything on the phones of WhatsApp users. \n \nThis was possible through a security issue disclosed by WhatsApp itself last week. All a hacker had to do to control your phone was send you a malicious video or start a video call with you on WhatsApp. \n \nYou are probably thinking "Yeah, but if I updated WhatsApp to the latest version, I am safe, right"? \n \nNot really. \n \nA WhatsApp security issue exactly like this one was discovered in 2018, then another in 2019 and yet another one in 2020 (tap each year\'s link to see the corresponding vulnerability). And yes, in 2017 before that. Prior to 2016, WhatsApp didn\'t have encryption at all. \n \nEvery year, we learn about some issue in WhatsApp that puts everything on their users\' devices at risk. Which means it\'s almost certain that a new security flaw already exists there. Such issues are hardly incidental – they are planted backdoors. If one backdoor is discovered and has to be removed, another one is added (read the post "Why WhatsApp will never be secure" to understand why). \n \nIt doesn\'t matter if you are the richest person on earth – if you have WhatsApp installed on your phone, all your data from every app on your device is accessible, as Jeff Bezos found out in 2020. That\'s why I deleted WhatsApp from my devices years ago. Having it installed creates a door to get into your phone. \n \nI\'m not pushing people to switch to Telegram here. With 700M+ active users and 2M+ daily signups, Telegram doesn\'t need additional promotion. You can use any messaging app you like, but do stay away from WhatsApp – it has now been a surveillance tool for 13 years.

😝 Next month, channel owners on Telegram can start receiving financial rewards from their work. \n\nBroadcast channels on Telegram generate 1 trillion views monthly. Currently, only 10% of these views are monetized with Telegram Ads — a promotion tool designed with privacy in mind.\n\nIn March, the Telegram Ad Platform will officially open to all advertisers in nearly a hundred new countries. Channel owners in these countries will start receiving 50% of any revenue that Telegram makes from displaying ads in their channels.\n\nTo ensure ad payments and withdrawals are fast and secure, we will exclusively use the TON blockchain. Similar to our approach with Telegram usernames on Fragment, we will sell ads and share revenue with channel owners in Toncoin. This will create a virtuous circle, in which content creators will be able to either cash out their Toncoins — or reinvest them in promoting and upgrading their channels 🤑

🚀 5 million users are now subscribed to Telegram Premium — just 1 month (!) after we reached 4 million subscriptions.\n\n🥳

Telegram for VisionOS 😎

Now every channel on Telegram can host FAIR giveaways. \n\nWhat’s a giveaway? ❓\n\nIt’s when someone promises to give out prizes to random followers 😏😏😏\n\nMany giveaways on social media were scams. There was no way to prove the winner was chosen fairly 😐\n\nUntil now. Telegram is the first social media platform to natively support giveaways with guaranteed random selection + prepaid prize funds 🤑\n\nCheck out the demos here: https://telegram.org/blog/giveaways

I\'m really impressed by the success of the auction TON recently conducted for their domain/wallet names. Wallet.ton was sold for 215,250 Toncoin (~$260000) while casino.ton was sold for ~$244000. \n\nIf TON has been able to achieve these results, imagine how successful Telegram with its 700 million users could be if we put reserved @ usernames, group and channel links for auction. In addition to millions of catchy t.me addresses like @storm or @royal, all four-letter usernames could be made available for sale (@bank, @club, @game, @gift etc). \n\nThis would create a new platform where username holders could transfer them to interested parties in protected deals – with ownership secured on the blockchain via NFT-like smart-contracts. Other elements of the Telegram ecosystem, including channels, stickers or emoji, could later also become part of this marketplace.\n\nWhen it comes to scalability and speed, TON probably has the best technology to host such decentralized sales. Our team can write bullet-proof smart contracts for TON (since it was us who invented its smart-contract language), so we are inclined to try out TON as the underlying blockchain for our future marketplace. \n\nLet\'s see if we can add a little bit of Web 3.0 to Telegram in the coming weeks.

It’s been 23 years since I first used a private messaging service, and 16 years since I first built my own. The number of electronic private conversations I’ve had over those years is enormous. I am certain this is also the case for you.\n\nOver the last 10-20 years, each of us exchanged millions of messages with thousands of people. Most of those communication logs are stored somewhere in other people’s inboxes, outside of our reach. Relationships start and end, but messaging histories with ex-friends and ex-colleagues remain available forever. \n\nIt’s getting worse. Within the next few decades, the volume of our private data stored by our chat partners will easily quadruple.\n\nAn old message you already forgot about can be taken out of context and used against you decades later. A hasty text you sent to a girlfriend in school can come haunt you in 2030 when you decide to run for mayor. We have to admit: Despite all of our progress in encryption and privacy, we have very little actual control of our data. We can’t go back in time and erase things for other people.\n\nWell, we couldn’t. Until today. Starting today, we are allowing every Telegram user to delete any message in a private conversation from both sides. It doesn’t matter who sent the message and when – you have complete control over it. You can even wipe out the whole conversation from both sides if you want to. No trace will be left on either side.\n\nWe know some people may get concerned about the potential misuse of this feature or about the permanence of their chat histories. We thought carefully through those issues, but we think having control over your own digital footprint should be paramount.\n\nLooking through my Telegram inbox now, there’s not much I would want to delete for both sides. And yet, for the first time in 23 years of private messaging, I feel truly free and in control.

🎆 A major Telegram update with 11 new features is out, just 4 weeks after the previous one. \n\nAmong my favorite new features are Similar Channels and Story Reposts. Both give content creators new ways to grow their channels organically within Telegram.\n\nCheck out all the features in the blog post: https://telegram.org/blog/similar-channels\n\nWhile our iOS users can already enjoy the new features, Android users are still waiting for the Google Play version to be reviewed by Google. If you use Android and don’t want to wait, you can download the direct version of Telegram. This version offers faster updates, fewer restrictions, and the lowest price for Telegram Premium subscriptions 🤫

🔥🔥🔥🔥\n\n📝📝📝📝📝\n\n📝📝📝📝\n\n📝📝📝📝📝🛑\n\n📝📝📝📝📝📝📝📝\n\n🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Until recently, 70% of all Telegram usernames had been reserved in inactive channels by cybersquatters from Iran. This created a graveyard of dead usernames that cluttered search results and prevented millions of Telegram users from selecting appropriate public addresses for their accounts, groups and channels.\n\nUsers who wanted to acquire these reserved usernames often received no response or ended up being scammed.\n\nFortunately, this situation has started to change. In mid-August, we withdrew all public Telegram addresses linked to channels that were empty or inactive for the last year. We will gradually reintroduce 99% of these addresses into public use, this time with algorithmic and geolocation limitations so that more users, and not just a select few, can benefit.\n\nAs for the highest-valued short usernames, the most efficient and fair way to distribute them seems to be by the auction I mentioned in my previous post. This way, those who acquire these catchy links will be motivated to put them to good use and bring value to our users with original content hosted at recognizable t.me addresses.\n\nI don\'t doubt that those who hoarded Telegram usernames are disappointed, but this change will benefit the vast majority of our users. I look forward to seeing how millions of great Telegram addresses will be revived and finally start serving our community. \n\nP.S. In anticipation of the things to come, today we are adding support for dedicated links like username.t.me for every username on Telegram (in addition to t.me/username). These web sites are already functional in any browser.

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I see 3 million new users signed up for Telegram within the last 24 hours. \n\nGood. We have true privacy and unlimited space for everyone.

🎆 I wish all our users peace, happiness, prosperity and inspiration in the new year. I have a very good feeling about 2024 ✨ \n\nToday we launched a new version of Telegram to let you congratulate your loved ones using our new, beautiful voice calls. The update contains a few surprises that we didn\'t cover in the blog – let\'s see if you can discover them 🎁\n\nP. S. Stay healthy and don’t drink alcohol — don’t forget about the gym tomorrow 💪

More about Telegram Stories

I hear Facebook has an entire department devoted to figuring out why Telegram is so popular. Imagine dozens of employees working on just that full-time.\n\nI am happy to save Facebook tens of millions of dollars and give away our secret for free: respect your users.\n\nMillions of people are outraged by the latest change in WhatsApp Terms, which now say users must feed all their private data to Facebook’s ad engine [1]. It’s no surprise that the flight of users from WhatsApp to Telegram, already ongoing for a few years, has accelerated.\n\nAt about 500 million users and growing, Telegram has become a major problem for the Facebook corporation. Unable to compete with Telegram in quality and privacy, Facebook’s WhatsApp seems to have switched to covert marketing: Wikipedia editors have recently exposed multiple paid bots adding biased information into the WhatsApp Wikipedia article [2].\n\nWe have also detected bots which spread inaccurate information about Telegram on social media. Here are the 3 myths they are pushing:\n\nMyth 1. “Telegram’s code is not open-source”. In reality, all Telegram client apps have been open source since 2013 [3]. Our encryption and API are fully documented and have been reviewed by security experts thousands of times. Moreover, Telegram is the only messaging app in the world that has verifiable builds both for iOS and Android [4]. As for WhatsApp, they intentionally obfuscate their code, making it impossible to verify their encryption and privacy.\n\nMyth 2. “Telegram is Russian”. In fact, Telegram has no servers or offices in Russia and was blocked there from 2018 to 2020 [5]. Telegram is still blocked in some authoritarian countries such as Iran, while WhatsApp and other “supposedly secure” apps have never had any issue in these places.\n\nMyth 3. “Telegram is not encrypted”. Every chat on Telegram has been encrypted since launch. We have Secret Chats that are end-to-end and Cloud Chats that also offer real-time secure and distributed cloud storage [6]. WhatsApp, on the other hand, had zero encryption for a few years, and then adopted an encryption protocol funded by the US Government [7]. Even if we assume that the WhatsApp encryption is solid, it’s invalidated via multiple backdoors and reliance on backups [8].\n\nIn 2019 alone, Facebook spent almost 10 billion dollars on marketing [9] (I guess this includes paid bots on Wikipedia and other sites).\n\nUnlike Facebook, Telegram doesn\'t spend any money, let alone billions of dollars, on marketing. We believe that people are smart enough to choose what is best for them. And, judging by the half a billion people using Telegram, this belief is justified.\n\n[1] – WhatsApp Gives Users Ultimatum – Share Data with Facebook or Lose Access \n[2] – In December 2020, the Wikipedia article about WhatsApp had the label “This article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments, a violation of Wikipedia\'s terms of use”. Related investigation is discussed here. \n[3] – Telegram Source Code\n[4] – Reproducible Builds for Telegram Apps\n[5] – On Digital Resistance in Russia\n[6] – On Telegram Encryption \n[7] – U.S. Government Funded The WhatsApp Encryption\n[8] – Why WhatsApp Will Never Be Secure \n[9] – Facebook Marketing Spending from 2010 to 2019

In the first week of January, Telegram surpassed 500 million monthly active users. After that it kept growing: 25 million new users joined Telegram in the last 72 hours alone. These new users came from across the globe – 38% from Asia, 27% from Europe, 21% from Latin America and 8% from MENA.\n\nThis is a significant increase compared to last year, when 1.5M new users signed up every day. We\'ve had surges of downloads before, throughout our 7-year history of protecting user privacy. But this time is different.\n\nPeople no longer want to exchange their privacy for free services. They no longer want to be held hostage by tech monopolies that seem to think they can get away with anything as long as their apps have a critical mass of users.\n\nWith half a billion active users and accelerating growth, Telegram has become the largest refuge for those seeking a communication platform committed to privacy and security. We take this responsibility very seriously. We won’t let you down.\n\nThose of you who have used Telegram for the last several years know we’ve been consistent both when it comes to defending private data and to improving our apps. For those of you who just joined and are wondering what Telegram stands for, I’d like to quote my post from 2018:\n\nYou – our users – have been and will always be our only priority. Unlike other popular apps, Telegram doesn’t have shareholders or advertisers to report to. We don’t do deals with marketers, data miners or government agencies. Since the day we launched in August 2013 we haven’t disclosed a single byte of our users\' private data to third parties.\n\nWe operate this way because we don’t regard Telegram as an organization or an app. For us, Telegram is an idea; it is the idea that everyone on this planet has a right to be free.

The day has come. Telegram channels can now post Stories!\n\nStories on Telegram are more visible than in most apps, because they are displayed right on the main screen. Obviously, we couldn’t let channels flood users with Stories without reasonable limits: this would create too much noise in your Chats.\n\nThis is why we designed the Boost system. With Boosts, users can give their favorite channels the ability to post stories. More boosts mean more stories per day for a channel. Every 24 hours users can reassign their boost.\n\nIn the future, boosts will also unlock other features for channels, such as custom reactions, emoji statuses or custom backgrounds. We’ll also introduce more ways for channels to get Boosts.\n\nTo prevent abuse, only Premium users can boost channels. It shouldn’t be hard to collect Boosts for channels with real subscribers, while those with fake followers may struggle (larger channels need more Boosts to unlock stories).\n\nLet the Boost Hunt begin! 🏹

Telegram\'s mission is to preserve privacy and freedom of speech around the world. \n\nIn cases where local laws go against this mission or impose technologically unfeasible requirements, we sometimes have to leave such markets. In the past, countries like China, Iran and Russia have banned Telegram due to our principled stance on the matter of human rights. Such events, while unfortunate, are still preferable to the betrayal of our users and the beliefs we were founded on. \n\nIn Brazil, a court requested data that is technologically impossible for us to obtain. We are appealing the decision and are looking forward to the final resolution. No matter the cost, we will stand up for our users in Brazil and their right to private communication.

📹 We\'ve made some great improvements to video message recording on iOS. Now, you can enjoy clearer video quality, switch between front and back cameras more quickly, experience less camera shake, and have the ability to pause and resume recording. Plus, we\'ve introduced one-time video messages. \n\nHowever, a minor bug was identified during the feature\'s initial launch two days ago. If you\'re encountering any issues with video message recording, please make sure your Telegram app is updated.\n\n💫 For our Telegram Premium subscribers, there\'s a mighty update: you\'ll now be able to see the \'last seen\' of other users who share this information, even if you choose to keep your \'last seen\' hidden. The same logic now applies for the ‘read’ times in private chats.\n\nThere are more new features in this update — they will remain secret until our official blog post is out later this month 🤫

✨ Launched less than one and a half years ago, Telegram Premium has become the fastest-growing paid subscription in the history of messaging apps. \n\nThe number of Premium subscribers has doubled in just 5 months and quadrupled in the last 12 months. Today it exceeded 4 million users. \n\nA big thanks to everyone who signed up for Premium! We add great new features every month for our Premium subscribers — check them out at @premium 💝

If you follow my posts, you know that on my Mom\'s side, I trace my family line from Kyiv. Her maiden name is Ukrainian (Ivanenko), and to this day we have many relatives living in Ukraine. That\'s why this tragic conflict is personal both to me and Telegram. \n \nSome people wondered if Telegram is somehow less secure for Ukrainians, because I once lived in Russia. Let me tell these people how my career in Russia ended. \n \nNine years ago I was the CEO of VK, which was the largest social network in Russia and Ukraine. In 2013, the Russian security agency, FSB, demanded that I provide them the private data of the Ukrainian users of VK who were protesting against a pro-Russian President. \n \nI refused to comply with these demands, because it would have meant a betrayal of our Ukrainian users. After that, I was fired from the company I founded and was forced to leave Russia. \n \nI lost my company and my home, but would do it again – without hesitation. I smile with pride when I read my VK post from April 2014, which shows the scanned orders from the FSB and my trademark response to them – a dog in a hoodie. \n \nWhen I defied their demands, the stakes were high for me personally. I was still living in Russia, and my team and my old company were also based in that country. \n \nMany years have passed since then. Many things changed: I no longer live in Russia, no longer have any companies or employees there. But one thing remains the same – I stand for our users no matter what. Their right to privacy is sacred. Now – more than ever.

🇦🇷⚽️🏆🤷‍♀️

💳TON outperforms other systems by a margin in transactions per second (TPS). Source — \nhttps://blog.ton.org/100000-transactions-per-second-ton-sets-the-world-record-on-its-first-performance-test

Thanks for the birthday wishes. However, I decided to cancel turning 38 due to the uneasy times in the world 😭\n\nSo I am\n🔤🔤🔤🔤🔤\n🔤🔤🔤🔤🔤🔤\n🔤🔤🔤🔤🔤☕️

🎉 Amazing news – Apple has just successfully reviewed our latest update for Telegram iOS, and we were able to ship a new version with long awaited fixes and improvements to the AppStore.\n\nThank you, Apple! 🍏

🔍This month we changed how searching public channels and groups works on Telegram.\n\nPreviously, public channels with more subscribers would appear higher in the search results. That system worked fine for a while, but was increasingly getting abused by spammers. That\'s why we now only count genuine subscribers of channels for ranking.\n\nFor example, channels with more Premium subscribers will generally rank higher. However, if a specific Premium subscriber joins too many channels, they won\'t give those channels as big of a search ranking boost. Of course, the new search also prioritizes results from your country.\n\nThe feedback on this change is overwhelmingly positive. Channels with an inflated subscribers count have become less visible, while useful groups and mini-apps are now attracting more users. 🚀

2022 has been a successful year for Telegram. Telegram reached 700 million active users and solidified its position as one of the top 5 most downloaded mobile apps in the world.\n \nThis year was also the first year of monetization for Telegram. The results exceeded our expectations and have allowed us to lay the financial foundation for future growth. \n\nIn 2022, we shipped dozens of new features, which changed how messaging apps work and how billions communicate. We shall relentlessly continue on that trajectory in 2023. \n\nAt Telegram, we are lucky to be able to do what we love. I wish everyone the ability to follow their passion in the New Year 💫

It has been a year since Telegram started its monetization, but the results have already exceeded our expectations. \n\nUnlike other apps, we took a privacy-conscious approach to ads: we decided that no personal data should be used for targeting and that promoted messages should only be shown in public one-to-many channels. Despite that, our ads have significantly outperformed the market and put Telegram on a steady path towards financial sustainability.\n\nTelegram Premium, which we introduced just 5 months ago, quickly surpassed 1 million subscribers and has become one of the most successful examples of a social media subscription plan ever launched. While it still represents just a fraction of Telegram’s overall revenue, Telegram Premium is growing steadily every day, and one day may even rival our ads.\n\nThe future looks exciting. The additional monetization strategies I discussed in my previous posts are already bearing fruit, and the features we are working on now will set the foundation for further financial growth for Telegram in 2023.\n\nThanks to successful monetization, Telegram will be able to pay for the servers, traffic and wages necessary to keep building new features and supporting existing ones. While some other apps consider their users a tool to maximize revenue, we consider revenue a tool to maximize value for our users.

🚀 TON set the record for the fastest blockchain in the world!\n\n😎We were right to choose TON as the blockchain platform for Telegram. From a technological standpoint, competitors are years behind in scalability. Bitcoin is likely to stay, but other general-purpose blockchains look obsolete 👎\n\nhttps://coincodex.com/article/33968/toncoin-ton-blockchain-breaks-record-for-worlds-fastest-network-beating-solana-polygon-visa-and-mastercard/

As Telegram approaches 500 million active users, many of you are asking the question – who is going to pay to support this growth? After all, more users mean more expenses for traffic and servers. A project of our size needs at least a few hundred million dollars per year to keep going. \n\nFor most of Telegram’s history, I paid for the expenses of the company from my personal savings. However, with its current growth Telegram is on track to reach billions of users and to require appropriate funding. When a tech project reaches this scale, typically there are two options – start earning money to cover the costs, or sell the company. \n\nHence the question – which path will Telegram take? I’d like to make a few points to clarify our plan:\n\n1. We are not going to sell the company like the founders of Whatsapp. The world needs Telegram to stay independent as a place where users are respected and high-quality service is ensured. Telegram must continue to serve the world as an example of a tech company that strives for perfection and integrity. And, as the sad examples of our predecessors show, that is impossible if you become part of a corporation.\n\n2. Telegram is here to stay for a long time. We began developing our apps for our personal use over 8 years ago and have come a long way since then. In the process, Telegram changed the way people communicate in several aspects – encryption, functionality, simplicity, design, speed. This journey has just started. There’s much more we can – and will – bring to the world. \n\n3. In order to make points 1 and 2 possible, Telegram will begin to generate revenue, starting next year. We will do it in accordance with our values and the pledges we have made over the last 7 years. Thanks to our current scale, we will be able to do it in a non-intrusive way. Most users will hardly notice any change.\n\n4. All the features that are currently free will stay free. We will add some new features for business teams or power users. Some of these features will require more resources and will be paid for by these premium users. Regular users will be able to keep enjoying Telegram – for free, forever. \n\n5. All parts of Telegram devoted to messaging will remain ad-free. We think that displaying ads in private 1-to-1 chats or group chats is a bad idea. Communication between people should be free of advertising of any sort. \n\n6. In addition to its messaging component, Telegram has a social networking dimension. Our massive public one-to-many channels can have millions of subscribers each and are more like Twitter feeds. In many markets the owners of such channels display ads to earn money, sometimes using third-party ad platforms. The ads they post look like regular messages, and are often intrusive. We will fix this by introducing our own Ad Platform for public one-to-many channels – one that is user-friendly, respects privacy and allows us to cover the costs of servers and traffic.\n\n7. If Telegram starts earning money, the community should also benefit. For example, If we monetize large public one-to-many channels via the Ad Platform, the owners of these channels will receive free traffic in proportion to their size. Or, if Telegram introduces premium stickers with additional expressive features, the artists who make stickers of this new type will also get a part of the profit. We want millions of Telegram-based creators and small businesses to thrive, enriching the experience of all our users.\n\nThis is the Telegram way.\n\nIt will allow us to keep innovating and keep growing for decades to come. We will be able to launch countless new features and welcome billions of new users. While doing that, we will remain independent and stay true to our values, redefining how a tech company should operate.\n\nUPD: More on this topic – https://t.me/durov/153

🍭Merry Christmas, Telegrammers! The newest Telegram update lets you celebrate in style and congratulate your loved ones in new ways ❤️\n\nWith this update, you can also forward messages from channels to stories. Check out the full list of new features in our blog! 🧦\n\nThese are not all of our presents for you this festive season. Another major Telegram update is coming in the next few days 🛷\n\n🎏

🎂 As I am turning 37, I put together a list of 3 undervalued and 7 overvalued things in life. \n\n3️⃣ Undervalued\n\n1. Sleep. Sleep gives a boost to immunity, creativity and psychological well-being. \n\n2. Nature. Nature is the environment that we are biologically designed to feel good in. \n\n3. Solitude. Being alone offers the freedom to make spiritual and intellectual breakthroughs. \n\n7️⃣ Overvalued\n\n1. Big cities. Big cities are sources of pollution, crime and noise. It\'s good to have access to their resources, but advisable to live outside their borders.\n\n2. Restaurants. Restaurants offer the slowest and least efficient way to eat. Cooking at home allows for healthier diets and more control over ingredients.\n\n3. Hot weather. Sunny weather can bring about not only a lax attitude, but also a risk of cancer and faster aging. Colder temperatures, on the contrary, clarify spirit, body and mind.\n\n4. Fashion. The endless quest to conform with ever-changing trends is expensive and unnecessary. Focusing on comfortable clothes makes life simpler and frees space for things that matter.\n\n5. Real estate. Buying real estate often limits one\'s choices and is a questionable investment. Renting gives more freedom to move and explore different locations.\n\n6. Social media. The incessant flow of junk cluttering our minds from social media decreases our happiness and creativity. Disconnecting from these internet services is the best thing we can do on any given day.\n\n7. Celebrity advice. Famous people often give unwarranted advice outside their fields of expertise. For all important things in life, it\'s best to rely on hard science and expert opinion.

🔤🔠🔤🔤❗️Update Telegram to the latest version to see how replies and link previews should work in 2023. Since we invented these formats several years ago, the industry must have been waiting for us to show them the next step. The wait is over! 👿\n\nhttps://telegram.org/blog/reply-revolution\n\nBonus: you can now rewind / fast forward Stories by holding and sliding sideways (I wonder why other apps that have had stories for years hadn’t done this before 🤌 — there must be some dark secret we’ll uncover soon 🔮).\n\nBonus Bonus: our beloved Premium users (almost 3.5 million of them already) get to choose the color of their name and quotes in chats. Go orange this Halloween! ❤️

🏆 In the last 5 years, Telegram surpassed Facebook Messenger to become the most popular cloud-based messaging app. Telegram is now second only to WhatsApp and is closing the gap year by year. No wonder our competitors are concerned! 🔥

The New York Times uncovered that Apple is involved in large-scale surveillance and censorship at the behest of China. It is sad, but not surprising: big tech companies often choose profits over freedoms. \n\nApple is very efficient at pursuing their business model, which is based on selling overpriced, obsolete hardware to customers locked in their ecosystem. \n\nEvery time I have to use an iPhone to test our iOS app I feel like I’m thrown back into the Middle Ages. The iPhone’s 60Hz displays can’t compete with the 120Hz displays of modern Android phones that support much smoother animations.\n\nThe worst part of Apple’s tech though is not clunkier devices or outdated hardware. Owning an iPhone makes you a digital slave of Apple – you are only allowed to use apps that Apple lets you install via their App Store, and you can only use Apple’s iCloud to natively back up your data. \n\nIt’s no wonder that Apple’s totalitarian approach is so appreciated by the Communist Party of China, which – thanks to Apple – now has complete control over the apps and data of all its citizens who rely on iPhones.

In 2022, Telegram is again among the top 5 most downloaded apps in the world (just like in 2021). Of these top 5 most popular apps, Telegram is the only one that doesn\'t spend billions on marketing to buy downloads. In a way, we are the only app that is on the list purely because it is genuinely loved by the people❤️‍🔥

Yesterday Telegram experienced a record increase in user registration and activity.\n\nThe daily growth rate of Telegram exceeded the norm by an order of magnitude, and we welcomed over 70 million refugees from other platforms in one day. I am proud of how our team handled the unprecedented growth because Telegram continued to work flawlessly for the vast majority of our users. That said, some users in the Americas may have experienced slower speed than usual as millions of users from these continents rushed to sign up for Telegram at the same time.\n\nI ask our existing users to say hi to their newly arrived friends, help them unpack, and let them know what we have in stock. Make sure they stick around and see why Telegram is light years ahead of the competition.\n\nFor the new users I’d like to say this – welcome to Telegram, the largest independent messaging platform. We won’t fail you when others will.

Every day, Telegram\'s moderators and AI tools remove millions of obviously harmful content from our public platform. However, tackling war-related coverage is seldom obvious.\n\nEarlier this week, Hamas used Telegram to warn civilians in Ashkelon to leave the area ahead of their missile strikes. Would shutting down their channel help save lives — or would it endanger more lives?\n\nIt’s always tempting to act on emotional impulses. But such complex situations require thorough consideration that should also take into account the differences between social platforms.\n\nUnlike other apps that algorithmically promote shocking content to unsuspecting people, on Telegram, users receive only the content to which they specifically subscribed. As such, it\'s unlikely that Telegram channels can be used to significantly amplify propaganda. Instead, they serve as a unique source of first-hand information for researchers, journalists, and fact-checkers.\n\nWhile it would be easy for us to destroy this source of information, doing so risks exacerbating an already dire situation.

It seems that we had an issue with emails going between our telegram.org corporate addresses and the Brazilian Supreme Court. As a result of this miscommunication, the Court ruled to ban Telegram for being unresponsive. \n \nOn behalf of our team, I apologize to the Brazilian Supreme Court for our negligence. We definitely could have done a better job. \n \nWe complied with an earlier court decision in late February and responded with a suggestion to send future takedown requests to a dedicated email address. Unfortunately, our response must have been lost, because the Court used the old general-purpose email address in further attempts to reach us. As a result, we missed its decision in early March that contained a follow-up takedown request. Luckily, we have now found and processed it, delivering another report to the Court today. \n \nBecause tens of millions of Brazilians rely on Telegram to communicate with family, friends and colleagues, I ask the Court to consider delaying its ruling for a few days at its discretion to allow us to remedy the situation by appointing a representative in Brazil and setting up a framework to react to future pressing issues like this in an expedited manner. \n \nThe last 3 weeks have been unprecedented for the world and for Telegram. Our content moderation team was flooded with requests from multiple parties. However, I am certain that once a reliable channel of communication is established, we\'ll be able to efficiently process takedown requests for public channels that are illegal in Brazil.

Since my last post, the already massive influx of new users to Telegram has only accelerated. We may be witnessing the largest digital migration in human history. \n\nFollowing this global phenomenon, two presidents started their Telegram channels:\n\nThe President of Brazil – @jairbolsonarobrasil \nThe President of Turkey – @RTErdogan\n\nThey join a list of other heads of state already present on the platform:\n\nThe President of Mexico – @PresidenteAMLO\nThe President of France – @emmanuelmacron\nThe Prime Minister of Singapore – @leehsienloong \nThe President of Ukraine – @V_Zelenskiy_official\nThe President of Uzbekistan – @shmirziyoyev\nThe President of Taiwan – @iingtw \nThe Prime Minister of Ethiopia – @AbiyAhmedAliofficial\nThe Prime Minister of Israel – @bnetanyahu \n\n(Note that such verified accounts typically show a blue check mark in your chat list and search results.)\n\nWe are honored that political leaders, as well as numerous public organizations, rely on Telegram to combat misinformation and spread awareness about important issues in their societies.\n\nUnlike other networks, Telegram doesn’t use nontransparent algorithms to decide whether a subscriber will see content they subscribed to or not. As a result, Telegram channels are the only direct way for opinion leaders to reliably connect with their audiences. \n\nBy removing the manipulative algorithms that have become synonymous with 2010s technology platforms, Telegram channels restore transparency and integrity to public “one-to-many” communication.

🥳✨ 2021 was a phenomenal year for Telegram. It became the most downloaded app in the world in January, managed to welcome 70 million new users in just one day in October, and was declared the fastest growing app of the year in December.\n\nWe know we owe this growth to you – our users – so we carefully listened to your feedback and kept making Telegram better for you throughout the year. Yesterday we released our 12th major update this year, packed with the features you requested – like reactions and message translation 👌\n\nWith each update we try to not simply add a missing feature, but instead expand its boundaries and redefine how it looks, feels and works. We hope that this approach can improve the quality of human communication and bring more efficiency, happiness and joy to the world 💫\n\nThe spoiler animations we just rolled out are pure magic, while the custom animated QR codes in this update make QRs sexy again. The newly added message reactions are already spectacular, but it\'s just the start: we are now busy finding ways to make them even more stunning 🔥\n\nI\'m grateful for your love of Telegram and excited by what we can do for you in 2022. Thank you – and have a glorious New Year! 🎄

🕯 Happy 🥳 birthday, Telegram!\nhttps://telegram.org/blog/stories

We’ve just started Instant View 2.0 Competition – our crowdsourcing contest with a prize fund of $300,000, ending on the 4th of April. \n\nThe goal is to create sets of rules (“templates”) that are used to generate beautiful “Instant View” previews for links shared on Telegram. Anyone with an understanding of HTML/CSS can participate. Participants get $100 for each correct template + $10,000 and $5,000 to top 2 contributors.\n\nCheck out the rules here – https://instantview.telegram.org/contest\n\nWe’ll launch more similar competitions for developers soon. Eventually there’ll be a competition for everything we do (Android, C++, voice calls etc). Winners get mighty prizes and a chance to join our dev team. \n\nStay tuned – we’ll announce the next competition within 10 days.