While Facebook owned Whatsapp is the King of the Jungle among messengers with 2 Billion active users, the others are not far behind.
SIGNAL MESSENGER
This is an app developed by Signal Foundation and Signal Messenger LLC.
The driving force behind Signal has been to make conversations as secure and secret as possible.While Signal is not as popular as the other two messengers, it has 20 million users and counting.
TELEGRAM
Telegram is a controversial messenger in the sense that it believes in being censor free.This and the abundant messenger like features has made it a favourite among hard core users.It has 400 million users and is growing.
SECURITY ON SIGNAL MESSENGER
The Signal protocol is an acknowledged security open source protocol.The peer review for this protocol has been fantastic with Skype and Facebook messenger using this protocol for its secret chats feature.
SECURITY ON TELEGRAM MESSENGER
Telegram does not have end to end encryption as a default but is enabled when you use secret chats feature. Telegram Security has been criticized for its proprietary tool and experts have suggested the Signal Protocol as an alternative
SECURITY ON WHAT’S APP MESSENGER
Whatsapp flouts its end to end encryption model.While this is acceptable, it does not secure its meta data which means that while conversations are encrypted, the log is not.
OTHER FEATURES
Signal: This started as a privacy oriented no frills messaging service.You can create groups but does not have a broadcast option.
Telegram: In addition to groups and broadcast, Telegram has the option to form public groups up to 200,000 users.
Whatsapp: Whatsapp is the most consumer friendly of the messengers and is most used. Whatsapp has stories feature unavailable in the other two.
A comparison chart is found below for your reference.
Features Comparison | Signal | Telegram | |
Security | Most Secure | Adequate | Secure |
Group Size | 150 | 200000 | 256 |
Stories Feature | No | No | Yes for 24 hrs |
Censorship | No | No | Yes |
Track user data | No | No | Yes |
Back Up | Local | Inbuilt Cloud | Third Party Cloud |
Self Destruct Secret Messages | Yes | Yes | NO
|
Desktop App Support without phone authentication | Yes | Yes | No |
Voice plus video | Yes | Only Voice | Yes |
Group Chat Security | Yes | No | No
|
Screen Security | Yes | Only for secret Messages | No |
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