WhatsApp competitor Telegram Messenger is now available for Windows Phone

It was only last week when we learned that Ngram, an unofficial Telegram Messenger app, would become the official one, receiving approval from the Telegram team. Fast forward a few days and the changeover has now occurred in the Store, as the links to Ngram show the re-branded app as Telegram Messenger Beta v 0.14.5.27.

The whole story started a few months ago when the Telegram team decided to open source their app development in a pseudo-contest, letting numerous Telegram clone apps onto the Store (see app our roundup). Presumably the one that they liked the most becomes re-branded as the official app for Windows Phone. It’s a cool use of the talented Windows Phone developer pool, and we wish more companies would take such opportunities.

Telegram

Telegram (telegram.org) is a decentralized, cloud-based and encrypted messaging service that promises to be the fastest and most secure out there (it supports RSA 2048 encryption and Diffie–Hellman secure key exchange). It’s supposed to compete with WhatsApp and users of that service will find that Telegram feels very similar. Except it has more features, which is a damning statement about the status of WhatsApp development these days.

If Telegram Beta sounds like something you’ll want to try, just grab the link below. All Windows Phones supported.

Thanks, Zapella T., and others for the tips!

QR: Telegram

Daniel Rubino
Editor-in-chief

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central. He is also the head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007, when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and watches. He has been reviewing laptops since 2015 and is particularly fond of 2-in-1 convertibles, ARM processors, new form factors, and thin-and-light PCs. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.