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Telegram turns 6 years today. Throughout these years, Telegram stood up for freedom and privacy. We defended what we believe in against tyrannies, kleptocracies and corporations.

Today, 6 years after launch, Telegram is the third largest global messaging app in terms of the number of countries where Telegram is in top 10 Social Networking apps.

Let us celebrate today. Tomorrow we’ll get back to building new features. There’s a lot of exciting work left to do.

Those of you who follow my posts know that I’m a big believer in self-restraint. In the last 15 years, I’ve had no alcohol, no caffeine, no meat, no pills, and no fast food. Health-wise it brought good results: I only had a fever once in the last 15 years. Typically, I just don’t get ill.

A year ago I added more restrictions to my diet: no gluten, no dairy, no eggs, no fructose. I did it to achieve higher productivity and clarity of thought, as well as to train will power and self-discipline.

Another technique I employ to improve will power is swimming in ice-cold water every winter in Finland or Switzerland. If you ever faced the necessity to stay in a lake with a thin layer of ice on top for a few minutes, you are less likely to procrastinate when it comes to starting on a boring but necessary project.

In May I limited the foods I eat to fish and seafood only. In case you have daily access to fresh wild-caught fish, I can definitely recommend this diet for boosting productivity. Unlike farmed meat or the products of agriculture, which were introduced to our diet fairly recently (like 15,000 years ago), wild fish cooked on fire is something our ancestors evolved to consume throughout the last million of years. As humans required a daily source of water, they had to live near rivers and lakes, so a seagan diet makes much more sense to me than veganism or rawism from an evolutionary perspective.

This month I’m trying something more radical, with consuming no food at all. I’ve been on a water fast for the last 6 days and am feeling great so far. Since zero food consumption improves clarity of thought, I also got many things done on the product-management side.

Fasting is a great way to allow your digestive system to clean and reboot, and also to allow your immune system to work on other things than clearing the constantly incoming food. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors had to do with no food for prolonged periods of time, so our body is not only evolved for that, but is actually expecting us to give it a break in consumption at least once a year. That’s why most religions have a tradition of fasting – it’s healthy and necessary both for the body and the mind.

Obviously, I might lose some muscle mass as a result, but I believe that if I manage to come up with new great ideas for Telegram during the fast, it will be beneficial for all of the millions of Telegram users. And making the lives of our users more enjoyable has been and will be my number one priority.

Today the Russian authorities tried to hack 4 journalists covering the Ekaterinburg protests. Fortunately, all those attempts have failed due to the 2-step verification check.

This serves as a reminder that authoritarian governments will stop at nothing to violate their citizens' privacy. We urge users in such countries to double check that they have 2-step verification set up.

Stay safe and stay strong 💪🏾

I don’t like to focus on competitors. But since people keep asking me about WhatsApp, I have just written this post. It includes my thoughts on them. It also includes my thoughts on us. Enjoy.

https://telegra.ph/Why-WhatsApp-Will-Never-Be-Secure-05-15

It’s been 23 years since I first used a private messaging service, and 16 years since I first built my own. The number of electronic private conversations I’ve had over those years is enormous. I am certain this is also the case for you.

Over the last 10-20 years, each of us exchanged millions of messages with thousands of people. Most of those communication logs are stored somewhere in other people’s inboxes, outside of our reach. Relationships start and end, but messaging histories with ex-friends and ex-colleagues remain available forever.

It’s getting worse. Within the next few decades, the volume of our private data stored by our chat partners will easily quadruple.

An old message you already forgot about can be taken out of context and used against you decades later. A hasty text you sent to a girlfriend in school can come haunt you in 2030 when you decide to run for mayor. We have to admit: Despite all of our progress in encryption and privacy, we have very little actual control of our data. We can’t go back in time and erase things for other people.

Well, we couldn’t. Until today. Starting today, we are allowing every Telegram user to delete any message in a private conversation from both sides. It doesn’t matter who sent the message and when – you have complete control over it. You can even wipe out the whole conversation from both sides if you want to. No trace will be left on either side.

We know some people may get concerned about the potential misuse of this feature or about the permanence of their chat histories. We thought carefully through those issues, but we think having control over your own digital footprint should be paramount.

Looking through my Telegram inbox now, there’s not much I would want to delete for both sides. And yet, for the first time in 23 years of private messaging, I feel truly free and in control.