I've tinkered with Telegram for years, but really dove in over a year ago when I grew tired of Skype for Business failing, Slack feeling too cumbersome, Google not having their act together with...well pretty much anything to do with messaging, and FB/WhatsApp being too ominous/stigmatized.

I have used Telegram on iOS, Android, Chrome (browser & OS), and Windows. It just works. If I could get everyone I chat with to use it instead of one of all the other ones, that would be a refreshing change.

The one app that has an advantage over it is GroupMe because of SMS mode. A person can opt into receiving and sending messages via SMS only. They lose a lot of functionality, but it's still possible and works well.

Pros:

Cross platform like almost no other messaging app. Super fast and reliable. Not tied to any ad-hungry company account. By far the best.

Cons:

No way to switch between a work and personal account on the same device, or flag conversation/contacts as such. Also no SMS mode (GroupMe).

Congratulations to the Telegram team on another fantastic update. 1. Albums – Each album can include up to 10 photos or videos, arranged in the chat as elegantly proportioned thumbnails. They will also result in one notification instead of ten on the recipient’s side. 2. Photo Order – From now on, you can control the order in which photos are sent. Each photo you choose for sharing will show its sequence number. This makes it easy to double check that your “before-and-after” pics will be sent in the correct order. 3. Multiple Profile Photos – When viewing a photo from an album, you’ll see other pictures from the same group as thumbnails in the lower part of the screen. Profile photos are now also displayed this way, which makes them much easier to navigate. 4. Saved Messages – your personal cloud storage for any messages or media you may want to send or forward there. Each saved message has a “go to” button that takes you to the right place in the chat where it was originally posted. 5. Improved Search – Speaking of finding things, we’ve upgraded the global search algorithm used for finding public channels, groups, and bots. Now you can search for public channels and bots by their titles, and most popular items will always be displayed first. 6. Pinned Messages in Channels – Channel admins can now pin messages to focus their subscribers’ attention on important announcements. This tool can also come in handy if you want to help new subscribers navigate your channel. 7. iOS: New Settings, iPhone X Support – Telegram 4.5 comes packed with goodies for iOS users. The Settings screen and the context menu in chats got a makeover. Version 4.5 also works great on iPhone X.

For an app that never limits uploads, why limit the album count to 10? 😕 Handy feature though.

Telegram is simply the best messaging app out there. Any plans for message backups ?

It’s okay. Still looks like the same era to me..

Telegram is too awesome to be real 😌 Any plans to create contact groups, @durov?

Pavel when in telegram user could create a group of user in chat list ??? Почему нельзя формировать группы(списки людей в списке чатов) Почему я должен прокручивать и искать бесконечно долго контакт, который случайно спустился в низ ? Или эти вот каналы, как спрятать их в отдельный список чатов ?

Awesome and love this feature. I was amazed when I saw this sort of feature with WhatsApp and was wondering when will this be available w.r.t Telegram and now here it is :) Kudos to the Team and kudos to @dimablover for the hunt

I love Telegram and use it as my daily work messenger. It's blazing fast, reliable, and works pretty much perfectly. My only wish is that they would support SMS so I can ditch my other messaging apps.

Pros:

Fast, Stable, Secure

Cons:

No SMS support

Finally, the global search! Thanks @durov 😍

Adore telegram. Best messenger ever ❤️

We produce HMIs since 1998 here and we think that the conversational mode made possible par this kind of tools ( Telegram being the best for many reasons that can not be easily detailed here) is a real game changer.

Pros:

Telegram is just an amazing platform. We use it for many purposes at DigitalAirways, from personal channels to professional bots.

Cons:

It would be great to be able to store pieces of conversations in folders.

can we use albums in bot API?