Telegram is the latest name in the list of instant messaging apps. It is created by the founders of Russia's most popular social network vkontakte (VK). You can think of Telegram as a combination of Email and SMS. Telegram for Windows lets you send normal text messages, photos, videos, music, and any type of files to your contacts in Telegram from your laptop or desktop PC.
Telegram is an open-source encrypted messaging service that was born and brought up in Russia. It is preferred by privacy-centric people who value their data and security. Telegram is available on the web and popular mobile and desktop operating systems. But it is far from perfect and the web app often doesn’t work for many people. Telegram Desktop is a powerful, cross-platform messenger app that enables you to get in touch with other users without worrying about data interception and stealing. Focusing on security, it encrypts all conversations and shared files and stores them in the cloud, allowing fast synchronizations and quick access to the message database from. Welcome to the Web application of Telegram online messenger.
The user interface of Telegram for PC is simple and sleek with the main focus on user's privacy and security. You can use Telegram for Desktop to securely send and receive messages, photos, videos, and other types of information and files from your friends and people in your Telegram contacts. Although, regular chats in Telegram for Windows are encrypted, you can use the Secret Chats features on Android for added security. Currently, the secret chats feature is not available in Telegram for Windows. The secret chats feature might be added in Telegram for PC in future.
In this guide, we will show you how to easily download Telegram for Windows and install it on your desktop PC. We will also review some of the main features of Telegram app.
Download Telegram for Windows and Install It on Your PC
Since Telegram does not currently provide any official client applications for Windows, we are using the unofficial application for using Telegram on Windows. You can download Telegram for Windows PC or Mac from https://tdesktop.com.
To install the Telegram desktop client on Windows, double click on the downloaded file and follow the instructions. We have included the screenshots of the steps below.
After the installation has been finished, start the client. You will see the application windows as shown in the image below. Click on the Start Messaging button.
Enter your phone number for SMS activation
In the next step, Telegram will ask you to select your country and to enter your phone number.
After you have entered a valid number, Telegram will send you an SMS activation code. Now, enter the activation code which you have received in SMS and click on the Next button. After verification, you can start sending messages.
Congratulations, you have installed Telegram for Desktop on Windows. Now, you can start messaging. If you want to know how to use Telegram on Windows, you can see our guide on how to use Telegram on Windows PC.
Important Features in Telegram
Regular chats in Telegram
In Telegram, ordinary chats are encrypted and stored in the cloud, and you can access ordinary chats from other devices including your laptops and computers. In another popular instant messaging app WhatsApp, messages are stored on the device on which it is running and not on the server, so the messages cannot be accessed from other devices.
Secret chats and self-destructing messages in Telegram
The most noticeable feature of Telegram is the secret chats. Secret chats are different from ordinary chats in many ways. Unlike ordinary chats, secret chats are not stored in the cloud. Secret chat messages are encrypted on the device of the sender and then sent to the device of the recipient, where it is decrypted. (This is called end-to-end encryption).Telegram claims that secret messages cannot be intercepted or deciphered.
Telegram Desktop Themes
Secret messages are self-destructing, and you can set the time after which the messages will disappear from both the sender's and the recipient's device. (The timer starts after the message is displayed on the recipient's device)
Free and open source client
Telegram
Unlike most instant messaging clients, the source code of Telegram's client(app running on your iPhone Android, or Desktop) is open, and the service is completely free (they might charge for non-essential paid options in future). Currently, Telegram provides official clients for iOS and Android. There are some unofficial apps for Windows, Mac, and Linux which are also open source.