# Telegram

> A messaging app built around the cloud, huge groups and public channels.

- Level: Basic
- Topics: Tech companies, Security
- URL: https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/telegram/
- In Spanish: [Telegram](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/es/telegram/)

**Telegram** is a messaging app launched in 2013 by the brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov, who had earlier founded VKontakte, a large Russian social network. It works like other chat apps, with text, voice notes, calls, photos and files, and it is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Its big difference is that it is built around the cloud. Ordinary chats are stored on Telegram's servers, encrypted between your device and the server, so you can open them from your phone, your laptop and a browser at the same time, with no backup to manage. The trade-off is that they are not end-to-end encrypted by default: Telegram could technically read them. For that you have to start a **secret chat**, which is end-to-end encrypted, lives only on the two devices and works one to one. Telegram uses its own encryption protocol, called MTProto, instead of the widely studied Signal protocol.

Telegram is also part social network. Groups can hold up to 200,000 members, and **channels** let one account broadcast to an unlimited audience, which made it popular with news outlets, communities and also with scammers and criminal groups. Anyone can build a bot on it through an open API. It is free, and makes money from a premium subscription and ads in large public channels.

## An analogy

A post office that keeps a copy of all your letters in a box you can open from any branch. Very convenient, but the office holds the copies. For private letters, you hand them over sealed in an envelope only the recipient can open.

## Keep in mind

- Launched in 2013 by Pavel and Nikolai Durov.
- Normal chats live in the cloud and sync across all your devices.
- Only secret chats are end-to-end encrypted.
- Huge groups, public channels and an open bot platform.

## Go deeper

- [Telegram FAQ (official)](https://telegram.org/faq)
- [Telegram (software) on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software))

## Related terms

- [Cloud computing](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/cloud-computing/): Renting computers over the internet instead of buying your own.
- [Server](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/server/): A computer whose job is to answer requests from other computers, all day, every day.
- [Encryption](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/encryption/): Scrambling data so that only someone with the key can read it.
- [Laptop](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/laptop/): A whole computer folded into one portable case that runs on a battery.
- [Web browser](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/web-browser/): The app that fetches web pages from the internet and draws them on your screen.
- [Backup](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/backup/): A separate copy of your data, kept so you can get it back when the original is lost.
- [End-to-end encryption](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/end-to-end-encryption/): Only the sender and the recipient can read a message; the service in between cannot.
- [Signal](https://tidbit.legios.com.ar/signal/): A private messaging app run by a nonprofit, built to know as little about you as it can.