It's amazing to me that after all this time, almost all media coverage of Telegram still refers to it as an "encrypted messenger." Telegram has a lot of compelling features, but in terms of privacy and data collection, there is no worse choice. Here's how it actually works: 1/
Telegram stores all your contacts, groups, media, and every message you've ever sent or received in plaintext on their servers. The app on your phone is just a "view" onto their servers, where the data actually lives. Almost everything you see in the app, Telegram also sees 2/
@stack1a And yet after you clear the cache, the content is still visible! Your web browser also has a cache to improve page load time, that doesn't mean a web browser is anything other than a view onto a server.