telegram:
- very good android, ios, and desktop open-source apps they keep properly up to date (also a web client)
- stickers, emojos, gifs (and with better compression)
- useful bots (and inline bots)
- groups and good admin tools
- nicely including voice or video in chats
- now even favorites
- requires a phone number (not public)
- is not very secure (but above average)
- is centralized and not entirely open (they haven't been evil for now)
the security:
- decent c/s transport encryption (yes, good https still is a noticeable point)
- functional and easy to use 2FA (and enabled by default i think)
- session management
- local passcode
- account self-destruct function
- optional "last seen"
- half-assed end-to-end encryption (that kinda works okay afaik, but it's limited to 1:1 private chats and surely could be designed cleaner and better)
for group chats that's still way above average (but not very secure either and their marketing is a bit dishonest but then what advertisement isn't, yes those who don't advertise and stick to irc where you /query your plaintext password and the UI is so bad you become too lazy to ever use e2e encryption and 2FA is nothing anyone ever heard of and everyone blames the protocol being old for everything)
@CobaltVelvet For real, unless you have to make use of bots, Wire is pretty much better at everything Telegram advertises they do.
@CobaltVelvet 2FA isn't on by default unless they changed it recently, you need to manually set it up under Privacy and Security > 2-Step Verification