Telega instead of Telegram: what kind of messenger is it and is it safe?

Telegram advertises the Telega messenger with unblocked calls: what is this product and is it safe?

A new Telega messenger has appeared in application stores, fully compatible with the popular Telegram. The application is also actively advertised on Telegram itself. The developers offer to download their product in the App Store, Google play and Ru Store.

Users are promised stable work without a VPN, calls that bypass Roskomnadzor blocks, parental control over children’s accounts, and a convenient “wall” for combining telegram channel feeds.

However, the messenger already has a built-in “black list” of unwanted TG channels, bots and users, which can be turned on at any time.

“Layout” is looking into whether the new messenger has anything to do with Pavel Durov , whether it really won’t be blocked and how safe it is to use?

In order not to miss new texts from “Layout”, subscribe to our telegram channel

Telega is not Telegram, Durov is not responsible for it

Telegram is partially open source and allows third-party developers to use its technical protocol. This means that any competent programmer can try to write and offer to others an alternative client for Durov’s messenger.

A number of requirements are put forward for developers of third-party clients - their source code must be open and available for study, the data processing policy must comply with the messenger policy, and the interface must not repeat or resemble Telegram.

The protocol's guidelines state that Telegram is a customer privacy-focused platform and all third-party apps must protect user privacy. Detailed instructions have been written for developers on how to use the protocol safely. But this does not make Pavel Durov responsible for the new clients - some of them openly violate the rules established by his company, for example, AyuGram allows you to store correspondence in the chat that was deleted by your interlocutor and receive messages without a read notification. Telegram explicitly states that it is not responsible for third-party clients (“Vorstka” sent the company questions about Telega, which did not respond at the time of publication).

Who is the developer of Telega?

The author of the messenger is the Kazan company Dal, its founders are 34-year-old entrepreneurs Fanis Sadykov and Alexander Smirnov. They met in 2013 at the pro-Kremlin youth forum “Seliger”, which was attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sadykov and Smirnov are best known for creating Movika, a platform for creating and viewing interactive videos, in 2017, which was sold in 2022 to one of the subsidiaries of VK, Russia's largest state-controlled Internet company.

An analysis of Cart, conducted by one of the former members of the messenger development team, Dmitry Tarasenko, showed that Cart uses the VK infrastructure, in particular, voice calls go through Odnoklassniki servers, which also use VK Calls and the MAX messenger .

These technical traces raised suspicions that the project was affiliated with VK. The creators of Telega in an official commentary claim that the project is independent, and VK solutions are used “on standard commercial terms”, without access to user data. However, the source code of the modules responsible for calls, filtering and analytics is closed, which makes it impossible to verify these claims.

How safe is Telega?

Formally, the messenger connects to Telegram and displays the same chats and contacts. Telegram uses end-to-end encryption in secret chats , but if an alternative client does not implement this protocol correctly or stores the keys on its servers, the correspondence could theoretically become accessible to third parties.

Plus, parental controls and a shared channel wall mean the app reads your feed and can collect data about the communities you watch. And the built-in blacklist allows the company controlling the messenger to create its own ban on displaying content, separate from Telegram. The application developers claim that this function was created for testing purposes. However, independent analysts claim that the “black list” can be activated at any time.

Without an independent audit and an open data processing policy, it is impossible to talk about security. Probably, the creators comply with Russian laws, which means all this information can be stored on servers within the country and transferred to law enforcement agencies upon their request.

Will Telega really help you bypass call blocking via Telegram?

Yes, in most cases, voice and video calls do work through Telega, even if Telegram is blocked in your region or calls cannot go through it. This is achieved through a built-in proxy and the use of a third-party server solution for communication - calls are not made through Telegram, but through the infrastructure of a company close to the state. Therefore, the application can be useful if you are unable to make calls through official Telegram without a VPN . This feature has already made the new messenger popular in the Caucasus, where Telegram was blocked for the first time in Russia.

That is, the use of this client is permissible under one condition: the user must clearly understand who he trusts with his data. In the case of Telega, confidentiality guarantees remain in words and there is reason to believe that they may be available to the state.

Photo: Official promotion of the Telega messenger. Official website of the messenger

Support “Vestka” - it’s important and safe →