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This is the English mirror of @tginfo. Ask Questions & Discuss: @tginfochaten Beta Channel: @betainfoen TON: @infotonen Other Languages: @tginfoall Feedback & Commecrial: @infowritebot
Issue with Link Snippets in Telegram
Users report that messages containing links are no longer generating preview cards or Instant View articles.
When composing a message, instead of displaying link information, the messenger shows an indefinite loading status. The issue only affects links that have not been previously shared on Telegram and are not cached on Telegram's servers.
UPD. Some developers also report issues with sending files and media in bots.
UPD 20:30 UTC: Link previews and media in bots are functioning again. Some messages sent during the outage have been retroactively updated with preview cards.
#outages
Unigram Has Been Updated to Version 11.2
The Unigram client for Windows 10 and 11 has been updated with new features.
What's new:
• Reworked interfaces for personal calls and live broadcasts, improvements to group calls.
• Gifts.
• Verification codes from businesses.
• New flow for reporting content.
• Keyboard shortcuts that allow to control video playback speed via Shift < and Shift >.
• The New Message button in the search bar has been reworked into a popup. You can no longer start a new secret chat from this button. However, secret chats can still be initiated from the user's profile.
• The app now follows the default microphone, camera, and speaker settings as defined in Windows.
• Buttons to create a new group and new channel have been added to the side menu.
• Reworked the Picture-in-Picture (PIP) mode video player.
• Initial support for the chat/channel selector button in bots.
• On the login screen, the app can now suggest changing the interface language.
• A new Leave Chat button has been added to the supergroup menu inside chats.
Improved:
• The filter in Recent Actions has been enhanced: event types are now grouped into categories.
• The Saved Messages preview in the chat list now shows the source of forwarded messages.
• Call history and contact lists have been redesigned as popups.
• Chat/channel creation pages are now displayed as popups.
• The app's header, which shows media playback or active calls, has been improved.
• When scheduling a message, the default time is now set to 10 minutes ahead instead of 1 minute.
• After creating a channel, you are immediately taken to the channel settings.
• Design improvements for the payment window.
Fixed:
• Media spoilers weren't respected when editing messages.
• Displaying birthdays.
• Changes in reaction settings now appear correctly in Recent Actions.
• The self-destruct account option now correctly sets the timeframe to 2 years, instead of 18 months as previously mislabeled.
• Fixed crashes when viewing emoji call codes.
• Screen readers now read out whether a message in notification was sent silently.
• Bot display order in the side menu.
• Message editing in Telegram for Business settings.
• Opening the color picker window in the theme editor.
• Background changes when switching themes.
• Chat archive updates are now shown in the chat list.
• Improved the display of time and message status for right-to-left languages.
• Other improvements and fixes.
Download: Microsoft Store
Version 11.2 is not available as a Direct download yet.
#update #Unigram
Limited Gifts in Telegram
In addition to the usual gifts, version 11.2 of Telegram introduced two "limited" gifts, released in limited quantities:
🍭 — 500,000 lollipops priced at 15 stars each;
🌸 — 100,000 cherry blossoms priced at 25 stars each.
The total value of the entire offering of these two gifts amounted to 10 million stars, which is around $150,000 based on the exchange rate on Fragment.
In the announcement, Pavel Durov mentioned that this year Telegram will introduce the ability to convert limited-edition gifts into NFTs based on TON: users will be able to auction and trade these tokenized gifts outside of Telegram.
After this, the limited gifts were completely sold out within a few hours.
Once users have bought all the "limited" gifts, they will no longer be available to send. Those who received them will have unique gifts, at least until they decide to exchange them for "stars". This way, users can collect gifts marked as "limited".
#Gifts
New Reasons For Reporting Content
Users can now report content for more different reasons than was previously available.
The content report menu now includes reasons such as “Illegal goods”, “Personal data”, “Copyright”, and some others.
Some items in the report menu, such as “Scam or spam”, are now sections in which the user can specify more detailed reason for the complaint.
When selecting some reasons, the application prompts the user to add a text comment. It is noteworthy that when selecting reasons ”I don't like it” and “It's not illegal, but it must be taken down”, it is impossible to specify a comment.
#update
Telegram for Android and iOS Updated to Version 11.2. Telegram Desktop Has Been Updated to Version 5.6.0
Here are new features:
• Star gifts: Users can now send to other users not only pure stars, but also star gifts. Each star gift is a special sticker with a number of stars attached to it, as well as an optional text comment. The gift can be sent either on your own behalf or anonymously, and you can pay for it my your stars.
• New Reasons For Reporting Content: users can now report content for more different reasons than was previously available. Some items in the report menu, such as “Scam or spam”, are now sections in which the user can specify more detailed reason for the complaint.
Other new features: RTMP-streaming, new «My stars» design, Verification Platform, Redesigned Video Chats on iOS
Blog: https://telegram.org/blog/gifts-verification-platform/
Download new version
• Android: Google Play, APK from the official website, or the verified channel.
• iOS: App Store.
• Windows: from the official website or from GitHub.
• macOS: App Store.
#update #Android #iOS #desktop #macOS
How to get back into the chat and how to get the ownership again?
We continue our FAQ-articles series with two new materials, closely related to each other:
1. What to do if a Group or Channel is Left Without an Owner?
tginfo.me/how-to-get-ownership-back-en/
2. How to Return to a Group or Channel After Leaving?
tginfo.me/how-to-comeback-en/
#FAQ
Telegram Data Center Is Unstable
According to our subscribers' reports, some data centers are have been unstable starting 17:00 UTC. Sending messages, loading pinned messages and media have been taking long.
UPD 17:25 UTC: Performance significantly improved, lags still remain.
UPD 17:35 UTC: Problems still remain, with performance deteriorating or improving at different times; Media loading issues seem to be fixed.
UPD 17:42 UTC: Issues seem to be fully fixed.
UPD 17:46 UTC: DC4 still unstable.
#outages
Telegram has expanded the conditions under which it will disclose users' IP addresses and phone numbers to authorities
Pavel Durov spoke about how Telegram is ramping up its fight against illegal content. In his statement, the founder of the messaging app said:
"We’ve updated our Privacy Policy to make it consistent globally. We’ve made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those violating our rules may be disclosed to the appropriate authorities in response to valid legal requests.”
Premium Subscriptions Won Through Giveaways Can No Longer Be Transferred to Other Users
Our subscribers report that winners of Telegram Premium subscription giveaways, organized on channels, no longer receive activation codes for the subscriptions. Instead, the subscription automatically appears on their account.
The @tginfo editorial team has no information about the reasons for the change in the giveaway process, nor what happens if the giveaway winner already has an active subscription that they purchased themselves.
#premium #giveaways
Telegram Desktop Has Been Updated to Version 5.5.4
What's new:
• QR code generation has been added for public links for users, groups, and channels (5.5.3).
• Added a button to generate a QR code for your username in Settings.
• Fixed a bug due to which new posts in a channel might not be displayed until the user opens this channel.
• Other improvements and fixes.
Download:
• Windows: from the official website or from GitHub.
• macOS: App Store.
#update #desktop #macOS
Bot API Updated to Version 7.10
• Bots now receive updates when users purchase paid media.
• A payload parameter was added for paid media purchases to be used for internal purposes.
• Giveaway class obtained a new field specifying type of giveaway and number of star prizes.
• Mini Apps can now display and control a secondary button at the bottom of their interface.
The full list of changes is available on the official website.
#update #BotAPI
Telegram for Android and iOS Updated to Version 11.1
The new update offers users the following features:
- Star Giveaways on Channels: Channel and group admins can now hold star giveaways among subscribers, similar to how they previously could give away Telegram Premium subscriptions.
- Reader Mode in the In-App Browser: Users can now view any web pages using the built-in browser in a simplified mode.
Additionally, numerous bugs have been fixed, and the "People Nearby" section has been removed from the app.
Article: http://telegram.org/blog/star-giveaways-iv-in-browser
Download:
- Android: Available on Google Play, via APK from the official website, or through the verified channel.
- iOS: Available on the App Store.
- macOS: Available on the App Store.
#update #Android #iOS #macOS
10 Million Telegram Premium Subscribers
Telegram has announced a notable milestone in its blog, revealing that the number of Telegram Premium subscribers has surpassed 10 million. This figure represents a doubling of subscribers in less than eight months.
In January, Telegram Premium had 5 million subscribers, highlighting a substantial increase in user engagement with its premium subscription.
#Statistics #Premium
Pavel Durov has published a post on his channel about future changes to the platform:
❤️ Thanks everyone for your support and love!
Last month I got interviewed by police for 4 days after arriving in Paris. I was told I may be personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram, because the French authorities didn’t receive responses from Telegram.
This was surprising for several reasons:
1. Telegram has an official representative in the EU that accepts and replies to EU requests. Its email address has been publicly available for anyone in the EU who googles “Telegram EU address for law enforcement”.
2. The French authorities had numerous ways to reach me to request assistance. As a French citizen, I was a frequent guest at the French consulate in Dubai. A while ago, when asked, I personally helped them establish a hotline with Telegram to deal with the threat of terrorism in France.
3. If a country is unhappy with an internet service, the established practice is to start a legal action against the service itself. Using laws from the pre-smartphone era to charge a CEO with crimes committed by third parties on the platform he manages is a misguided approach. Building technology is hard enough as it is. No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools.
Establishing the right balance between privacy and security is not easy. You have to reconcile privacy laws with law enforcement requirements, and local laws with EU laws. You have to take into account technological limitations. As a platform, you want your processes to be consistent globally, while also ensuring they are not abused in countries with weak rule of law. We’ve been committed to engaging with regulators to find the right balance. Yes, we stand by our principles: our experience is shaped by our mission to protect our users in authoritarian regimes. But we’ve always been open to dialogue.
Sometimes we can’t agree with a country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country. We've done it many times. When Russia demanded we hand over “encryption keys” to enable surveillance, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Russia. When Iran demanded we block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Iran. We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money. We are driven by the intention to bring good and defend the basic rights of people, particularly in places where these rights are violated.
All of that does not mean Telegram is perfect. Even the fact that authorities could be confused by where to send requests is something that we should improve. But the claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue. We take down millions of harmful posts and channels every day. We publish daily transparency reports (like this or this ). We have direct hotlines with NGOs to process urgent moderation requests faster.
However, we hear voices saying that it’s not enough. Telegram’s abrupt increase in user count to 950M caused growing pains that made it easier for criminals to abuse our platform. That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard. We’ve already started that process internally, and I will share more details on our progress with you very soon.
I hope that the events of August will result in making Telegram — and the social networking industry as a whole — safer and stronger. Thanks again for your love and memes 🙏
Photos and Videos in Telegram Ads
Advertising agencies can now include photos and videos in their ads.
The minimum budget is €20,000 per month for photo banners, €20,000 per month for videos, or €30,000 per month for both.
Back in April, we refuted rumors that the advertising platform would support photos and carousels. At that time, a source close to Telegram stated that there were no such plans to add media and carousels; however, media has been introduced, but not carousels as we previously mentioned.
#ads #TelegramAds
Fraudsters pretend to be @Wallet support
Over the past few days, there have been more and more cases of fraudsters pretending to be @wallet support. The user receives a message in a private chat stating that they urgently need to go through the verification procedure(“KYC”) in Wallet, and if they do not do this, they will lose access to their account.
After the victim follows the link, they receive a one-time authorization code. It can come either from a Telegram service account or by email. Having given this code to the attackers, the user soon discovers that their sessions has been terminated. And when trying to log back into their account, the user receives a message stating that their phone number has been blocked, or ends up in a new account.
Remember: if the "BLOCK" button is displayed at the top of a new private chat, it means that you have been contacted by fraudsters: there will be no such button in dialogues with Telegram service accounts.
Here are some of our articles that are related to hacking accounts:
• What to do if Your Telegram Account is Stolen? https://tginfo.me/how-to-retrieve-telegram-account-en
• What to do when my phone number gets banned on Telegram?
https://tginfo.me/phone-number-is-banned-en
• How to log in to your Telegram account if you don’t have access to your SIM card?
https://tginfo.me/no-sim-en
#fraud
Announcement of Improvements for Message Editing, Hashtags, and Gifts
On his channel, Pavel Durov announced several new features: improvements for gifts and hashtags, edit times displayed on messages, as well as the ability to add media to messages after they’ve been sent.
As a reminder, the edit time for messages can already be seen by users of Telegram Desktop, Telegram for macOS, and Telegram X.
According to Durov, the designers prepared mockups the same day he shared his ideas, and internal builds with these features were created the very next day.
#Gifts #Search
Telegram Desktop Has Been Updated to Version 5.6.0
What's new:
• Star gifts.
• Improved Reporting Interface.
• Allow resizing the window used for web apps and games.
• Add mention / hashtag autocomplete in media and GIF caption field.
• "Include muted chats in folder counters" notifications setting.
• Auto-select URL suggested from clipboard when creating a custom link.
• Update emoji to Unicode 15.1.
Download:
• Windows/macOS/Linux: the official website or GitHub.
• macOS: App Store.
#update #desktop
Star Gifts
Users can now send to other users not only pure stars, but also star gifts.
Each star gift is a sticker with a number of stars attached to it, as well as an optional text comment. The gift can be sent either on your own behalf or anonymously, and you can pay for it by your stars.
A user who has received a star gift has two options:
1. Pin a gift to their profile. In this case, other users will see this gift when they open the profile screen. However, stars from such a gift will not be credited to the recipient's balance.
2. Convert the gift to stars: transfer stars from a gift to their balance. A gift from which stars were transferred to the balance cannot be pinned to a profile, and if it was pinned there earlier, it disappears from there. When transferring stars from gift to your balance, you need to pay a 15% commission.
Another important change is that user can now pay for star gift by stars which are already on their balance. Let us remind you that previously, even if the sender had stars available on his balance, he still had to buy new ones to send them to someone as a gift.
#update
Changes in global search
At the end of August, many users noticed that the search algorithms in Telegram had changed.
We tell you everything we know about this in the article https://tginfo.me/search-rules-change-2024-en/
#FAQ
Telegram Is Unstable
Since 10:50 UTC, users face malfunctions in the Telegram platform. Delays occur when sending messages and when switching between application screens.
UPD 12:10 UTC
Issue is resolved
#outages
Enhanced Moderation of Telegram Search
In early September, channel administrators began noticing changes in Telegram’s search algorithm. In his latest message, Pavel Durov confirmed that the messaging app's team has started moderating search results:
“In recent weeks, a dedicated team of moderators, using AI, has made Telegram search much safer. All problematic content we found in search is no longer accessible.”
Telegram Desktop Has Been Updated to Version 5.5.5
What's new:
• Suggest URL from clipboard when creating a custom link.
• Fix animated topic icons in topic info page.
• Fix excessive getChannelDifference requests.
Download:
• Windows: from the official website or from GitHub.
• macOS: App Store.
#update #desktop #macOS
Telegram Again Displays The MAU of Bots
About one day ago, users noticed that Telegram had once again started displaying the number of monthly active users (MAU) of some bots.
Observations from our subscribers indicate that the MAU is only displayed when this value exceeds 10,000. However, there are exceptions: for example, the @wallet bot, which undoubtedly has many more users.
The @tginfo editors have no information about whether the platform really uses this value as a limit, or whether there are other factors that affect the display of MAU.
#bots
Unigram Has Updated to Version 11.1
The Unigram client for Windows 10 and 11 has been updated with new features.
What’s new:
• Support for Telegram Stars giveaways.
• View star reactions and subscriptions in the transactions window and “My Stars” menu.
• Full author profiles can now be displayed in channels (Super Channels).
• Added a button to open the privacy policy in bots.
• Support for Star Reactions
• The auto-delete account period can now be set to 18 or 24 months.
• You can now forward messages to forum topics.
• Added support for Quick Replies from Telegram Business feature set.
And Also:
• The “People Nearby” menu has been removed.
• The delete drafts button has been moved to storage settings.
• Numerous bugs have been fixed.
Updating from Unigram version 10.x:
This does not apply to users who installed Unigram from the Microsoft Store. Starting from version 11, Unigram has changed its digital signature. Version 11.x will install as a new app. You will need to log in again and manually remove the old version.
You can find the data from the old version of the app here:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\TelegramFZ-LLC.Unigram_1vfw5zm9jmzqy\LocalState
Telegram is Replacing "People Nearby" with "Businesses Nearby"
In Telegram version 11.1, the "People Nearby" feature was removed. Pavel Durov revealed that only 0.1% of users actually used this feature. Durov acknowledged issues with bots and scammers, which contributed to its removal.
In the same statement, Pavel Durov announced that Telegram is working on a replacement feature called "Businesses Nearby." According to Durov, the new feature will only include genuine, verified businesses. It's reported that businesses will be able to publish product catalogs and easily accept payments through this feature.
#peopleNearby #businessesNearby
Telegra.ph Disables File Uploading from Devices
In a recent blog post, Pavel Durov announced that Telegra.ph has been forced to disable the ability to upload photos and other file types from devices due to misuse by "anonymous users." Telegraph is a publishing service integrated with Telegram, which does not require a Telegram account to be used.
Currently, users can only include images and videos in Telegraph articles via links from other websites. A Telegram representative mentioned that the file upload feature may be reinstated in the future.
Even when accessing Telegraph through Telegram, the option to upload files remains unavailable.
#Telegraph
Telegram Clarifies FAQ Changes Amid Privacy Concerns
In the updated FAQ, Telegram has revised sections related to submitting complaints, placing a stronger emphasis on how to report issues for residents of the European Union and other regions.
Many users have noticed that the phrase regarding the privacy of personal and group chats disappeared from a section of the Telegram FAQ page. This led some to speculate that the messenger had changed its message handling policy.
A Telegram representative responded to these concerns on Twitter:
You could always report messages from any group to moderators, acts like forwarding. Private chats are still private too – although you could always report a new incoming chat to moderators by using Block > Report. Anyone can check our code and see there were no changes. The FAQ change made it clearer how to report things, including via DSA."
Promote Your Channel Using Incentivized Traffic
From September 1st to 7th, Flyer can help you attract an audience of any size at a fixed rate of less than 3 U.S. cents per subscriber.
Flyer is an affiliate network that attracts an audience to channels via bots: users are prompted to subscribe to channels in exchange for free bot features.
Advantages:
• Flyer brings real people, it doesn't just inflate your follower counter with bots.
• The cost per subscriber is lower compared to regular ad campaigns.
While not every new subscriber will actively engage with the channel, the lower cost makes Flyer a great complement to traditional advertising, helping to better balance your budget.
Flyer's main feature is audience targeting based on interests. This increases the proportion of genuinely interested readers.
Try it out: @FlyerServiceBot
#ad
Korea now?
According to the Yonhap news agency, the South Korean police have launched an investigation against Telegram third-party bots that create deep fakes and distribute incriminating materials against individuals.
The head of South Korea's National Police Investigation Agency claims that Telegram is not providing the data they need to speed up their investigation.
#courts #Korea