Free Press Journal : Nov 06, 2019, 01:16 PM
It looks like WhatsApp’s honeymoon is finally over. The most popular messaging service in the world appears to be going through a downturn of sorts with Signal and Telegram the major beneficiaries.According to a report in Business Standard, between October 26 and November 3, WhatsApp downloads fell by 80% in India from the previous nine-day period.The numbers before the NSO group revelation was 8.9 million between Oct 17 and 25, and the week after was 1.8 million. On the other hand, Signal, an end-to-end encrypting messaging app, saw downloads rise by 63% and Telegram’s downloads rose by 10% to 920,000.According to Sensor tower, these figures are ‘unique downloads as per Google account or Apple ID’. These figures represent unique downloads, defined as "one download per Apple ID or Google account.”What is Signal?This application is very safe, trustworthy and user-friendly. All traffic is encrypted end-to-end with Signal. They also offer extended protection against MITM attacks, where hackers try to intercept your traffic.Signal also uses SSL/TLS protocols and doesn’t keep any user logs. You can choose whether or not you give the app access to your contact list.Moreover, your chat history is encrypted and saved on your device. This way you prevent leaking any information when your telephone is lost or stolen.What is Telegram?This is probably the best-known alternative and it already has 200 million active users around the world. Telegram was the first chat service to use end-to-end encryption.They use the secure 256-bit symmetric AES encryption. Furthermore, Telegram is a very fast messenger service because they have servers all around the globe.Telegram has a lot of platform options; you can use the service on almost all devices and operating systems. Telegram also has some other interesting functions.They offer the option to create a group chat that up to 100.000 people can join. Moreover, there is no limit to the number of pictures or files you can share.