Telegram is a cloud-based, cross-platform instant messaging service with optional end-to-end encryption. Account creation requires a phone number. The official client is open source, but the latest version of the code is not always released immediately. The server-side code is proprietary. Users can exchange encrypted and self-destructing messages with each other, send photos, movies, and all other types of files. The official client is available for multiple platforms, including mobile (Android, iOS, Windows Phone), desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux), and web; it also has an open API, so there are many third-party clients to choose from, many of which have Chinese built-in.

There are two types of chat pipes:

1.”General chat” mode, using end-to-end encrypted communication, but the server will have access to the key, and can be logged in through multiple devices.

Chat history is stored in the Telegram cloud and can be logged in and synchronized across multiple devices.

2.”Secret Chat” mode, which uses end-to-end encrypted communication and can only be logged in from two specific devices.

Officially, no third party, including administrators, has access to the content of a user’s communication when two users are communicating. When users are chatting in secret, messages containing multimedia can be designated as self-destructing messages, which are automatically destroyed after a specified period of time after the message has been read by the user. Like Snapchat. For secret chats using end-to-end encrypted communication, messages are not stored on the server.