A Beginner’s Guide to Telegram, the High-Security Messaging Service Biting at the Heels of WhatsApp

Telegram, a hot messaging service from Russia, is sneaking its way up the charts of free messaging apps, following the massively huge WhatsApp. This new app focuses on security, with completely private, safe and self-destructing messages.

At first glance, you might think it’s just a carbon copy of WhatsApp, whose 50-employee Cristal-sippin’ company was recently bought by Facebook in a $19 billion deal. Telegram has the same cutesy doodles in the background of your conversation; the same double checkmarks next to each message to show that it has been sent and received; and the ability to share locations, photos and documents. But what it lacks in unique design, it makes up for in its security measures.

Users have the option to start a new “Secret Chat,” a special type of conversation in which all devices involved exchange encryption keys. It’s meant to fend off anyone attempting to eavesdrop on a chat (it stops man-in-the-middle attacks). The main difference between Secret Chats and regular Telegram chats are that Secret Chats are not saved to the cloud.  

The security doesn’t stop there. For each chat, you can set a self-destructing time limit (à la Snapchat) to ensure that your communication — whether it be a sext, a shady business deal or some intensely confidential gossip about your boss — disappears within a few seconds, a few minutes, an hour, a day or a week.

The app was built by the Durov brothers, the men behind VKontakte, (aka VK), the Facebook of Russia. “The No. 1 reason for me to support and help launch Telegram was to build a means of communication that can’t be accessed by the Russian security agencies,” Pavel Durov told TechCrunch this week. The two even have a $200,000 bounty out for anyone who can crack the app’s security measures. So far, no one has. 

The importance that the Durov brothers are placing on security has resonated in other countries as well. As The Verge reports, the app began an upward climb in popularity earlier this month (even before the WhatsApp news was announced) and had been No. 1 in Spanish, Arabic and several Latin American app stores for several weeks prior. When WhatsApp went down for a few hours over the weekend, close to 5 million people joined Telegram, which is now the top free app in 63 countries. In the U.S. it’s holding the throne in the Social Networking category, looking down at well-established services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Facebook and Kik.