Telegram upgrades interface, enables anonymous sign-ins

You no longer need to disclose your phone number on Telegram in order to chat on the messaging platform. This is great news if you’re on chat groups and don’t want to share your phone number with the rest of the group. No more “Hi, I got your number from the group” messages from those contacts who eventually end up contacting you outside the group.

Telegram this week announced that it’s dropping the SIM card and phone number requirement restriction primarily used for verification. To date, users on Telegram and WhatsApp required a phone number to sign into the platform and verify their identity. WhatsApp continues to require a phone number to sign in.

Users can generate a QR code, create an anonymous username and continue to chat without disclosing their phone numbers.

“Today starts a new era of privacy. You can have a Telegram account without a SIM card and log in using blockchain-powered anonymous numbers available on the Fragment platform,” says Telegram.

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Global auto-delete timer

Back in 2013, the platform introduced the ability to auto-delete messages. This week, the platform added the ability to set a global auto-delete timer which allows users to set a time frame to delete messages from both sides of the chats. This also applies to group chat. For groups, only users with admin rights can set the auto-delete timer.

“Telegram’s unique combination of removing messages for all participants without a trace, and controlling existing and future chats with auto-delete timers gives you full ownership of your entire message history,” says the chat app.

More upgrades

Other upgrades on Telegram include the ability for small groups, with 100 or more members, to organise discussions into topics. The feature was previously only available to larger groups.

To weed off spam on the messaging platform, admin groups on Telegram can filter spam by turning on the “Aggressive mode” for the automated spam filters.

Similar to iOS users, Android users will now also be able to see chats that are taking up the most space on their devices.

Emojis have become more interactive with more custom emoji packs, but only for premium users. iOS users can now use keywords in multiple languages to search for Emojis.  The feature was previously only available to Android users. If your language isn’t available on the platform, Telegram will let you add it.

Source: Telegram