As of March 2025,update Telegram has more than 1 billion monthly active users, with India as the country with the most users. Learn about personal, business, and creator accounts and how to optimize them for client acquisition. Learn how to prevent WebRTC Whoer Android leaks and inaccurate Whoer results to improve anonymity and cybersecurity. Optimized the detection results of Whoer on Android devices, solved the WebRTC leakage problem, and improved privacy protection. The article also highlights the importance of being active in the game and running Z nodes for enhanced security and governance. The content discusses the X protocol, an entertainment-focused blockchain, and its game Smash Quest.
Messages users send and receive are tied to their numbers and custom usernames, not the device. In March 2025, Pavel Durov announced that Telegram surpassed 1 billion monthly active users. In July 2023, Telegram surpassed 800 million monthly active users, later reaching 900 million in March 2024 and 950 million in July 2024. On 19 June 2022, Telegram announced that it had reached 700 million monthly active users.

  • For example, an article titled “Telegraph (blog platform)” published on 17 November would receive the URL /Telegraph-blog-platform-11-17.
  • Third parties were asked to break the service’s cryptography and disclose the information contained within a secret chat between two computer-controlled users.
  • Nonetheless, in comparison with Telegram, WhatsApp is dependent on phone-based identity and local storage and does not allow using it on many devices independently.
  • It is estimated that the bot contains data from 26 million Ukrainians registered in the Diia application.
  • Telegram stated that it does not have access to the data, while the platform will share the information only with the authorized recipient.
  • The post included a screenshot showing an internal email sent by the App Store to developers, demanding the takedown of content related to Navalny.

Related platforms

Far-right and white supremacist communities on Telegram have spread videos of the Christchurch and Halle shootings in groups and channels after the original livestreams were taken down by Twitch. The company only partially fulfilled a court request for personal data on two antisemitic Telegram groups, which authorities considered an intentional lack of cooperation. After the 2021 coup d’état in Myanmar, the junta used Telegram channels to spread propaganda and organize misinformation campaigns against pro-democracy groups. In 2023, Saudi Arabia’s Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology (Etidal) reported that in collaboration with Telegram, over 59 million pieces of extremist content had been removed from the platform since 2022.

  • Security company Group-IB suggested SS7 mobile signalling protocol weaknesses, illegal usage of surveillance equipment, or telecom insider attacks.
  • Signal is notorious for having a very conservative stance on privacy and security, and it attracts those users who prefer a minimum amount of metadata and end-to-end encryption at all scales.
  • Any Telegram user can join the affiliate program and be rewarded for referring others to the bot or mini app by receiving a commission from purchases made by the people they referred.
  • In terms of privacy, Telegram has offered secret chats that are end-to-end encrypted, have timers to self-destruct, and are also saved on the phone.
  • Telegram clients can turn off media autoplay and automatic downloads for both WiFi and mobile data, adjusting them for media type and size.

Puerto Rico “Telegramgate”

They were removed in 2024, with Durov saying that they had had “issues with bots and scammers”. Reactions were first added to Telegram in 2021 and expanded to include more emoji options for Premium users. Telegram comes with one default sticker pack, and users can install additional sticker packs provided by third-party contributors. Telegram introduced affiliate programs in December 2024 that allow developers to create an affiliate program for their bot or mini app. Interfaces can be adjusted to match the app’s theme even if it changes while interacting with the bot. In April 2022, bots gained support for customized interfaces and inline page loading.

About this app

Third parties were asked to break the service’s cryptography and disclose the information contained within a secret chat between two computer-controlled users. In July 2024, ESET reported a vulnerability allowed malicious files being sent to users masked in multimedia. The organization was favorable to Telegram’s secure chats and partially free code but Kiekka Casino criticized the mandatory transfer of contact data to Telegram’s servers and the lack of an imprint or address on the service’s website.

Stickers, emoji, reactions and effects

On 26 April 2023, Telegram was temporarily suspended in Brazil and fined R$1 million (2023) (US$185,528.76) per day for not complying with a Federal Police investigation into neo-Nazi activities on the platform. In response to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights call to prevent such abuse, Telegram reportedly banned 13 accounts related to or supporting the Myanmar military. In France, initial investigations of a terrorist act revealed the perpetrators used Telegram to communicate, though follow-up research suggested that the extent of the app’s use was “unclear”. ISIS has used Telegram for recruiting attempts with some cells recommending the app to their followers. Moldovan president Maia Sandu denounced that Telegram refused any collaboration with the Moldovan state authorities against illegal activities taking place in its platform such as vote buying.

Privacy and security features

The phone does not require being connected to desktop applications, as is the case with other messaging applications. Individuals who do not want to install an app can make use of Telegram Web, which mirrors cloud messages in real-time. Simply said, Telegram has numerous options to choose from, and users choose the extent to which they would explore each of them. This allows the user to move between phones, tablets, computers, or web versions without having the worry of making backups.

Forwarded messages also maintain reply formatting, able to show which messages in a thread are replying to others. Users can schedule messages to send at a particular time or when their conversation partner comes online, as well as choose to send a message “without sound” without a notification. Some stickers feature full-screen effects that play out when first sent or when tapped. Phone numbers are hidden by default, with only a user’s contacts able to see them. In October 2014, South Korean government surveillance plans drove many of its citizens to switch to Telegram from the Korean app KakaoTalk. Users can use Telegram’s transparency bot to check how many legal requests from their country it has processed.