WhatsApp vs Telegram vs Signal: Which One is More Secure?
Currently, WhatsApp is the largest messaging app in the globe with approx 2 Billion monthly active users. Followed by Telegram with 400 million downloads and at last but not least Signal with 15–20 million monthly active users.
Here firstly we discuss some features which are provided by the Above mentioned Apps, through which we decide which app is best as per our need also stands with Security.
WhatsApp:
- Group video calls (8 users at any time)
- WhatsApp Status feature.
- Photos, videos, and audio files can be shared up to 16 MB
- You can share live location with your contacts
- Restore and Backup data and messages via cloud services like Google Drive
- WhatsApp uses end to end encryption (E2E) for communication: messages, video calls, voice calls, photos, and everything.
WhatsApp uses E2E protocol same as Signal(developed by Open Whisper Systems).
Telegram:
- Telegram offers support to groups with more than 100,000 members
- The limit for sharing files on Telegram is up to 1.5 GB
- Telegram supports E2E only secret chats feature
Signal:
- Supports self-destructing messages
- Up to 150 members are added to a group
- View Messages details
- Signal uses a back-end user-facing encryption service
- It implements end-to-end encryption(powered by open-source Signal Protocol)
- Signal also encrypts your metadata purpose for multiple levels of security
- Not Support Broadcasting of messages at a particular point.
When we want to add a contact to a group. Firstly People are sent an invite to join a group unlike WhatsApp where if anybody has your number they can directly add you to the group.
Security: This is our main concern around which this discussion is revolved, so step by step firstly we discuss how much and which data is collected by these 3 Applications.
WhatsApp:
- Device ID
- User ID
- Advertising Data
- Phone Number
- Email Address
- Contacts
- Crash Data
- Performance Data
- Payment Info
- Other User Content
Telegram:
- Contact Info
- Contacts
- User ID
Signal:
- Only stores your phone number
So after discussing all the features and how much data are stored by all these Applications we will make a decision which app is more secure, So we know that most of the data which WhatsApp are going to share with Facebook are already taken by Facebook and Instagram from many Years(not talking about payments). So now the main point is that why we concern and for data we are concern about, is it our Messages(which already end to end encrypted).
This is not the first time when companies are using our data for their Profit Purposes when we know that Facebook uses their user's data for their advertisement, even in Messanger messages are not end to end encrypted, then where we go to save a pinch of Data from WhatsApp.
We all need to understand one thing in the current time, if we are connected to the Internet there is no such thing as Privacy.
