telegram-cli

Command-line interface for Telegram. Uses readline interface.

Anti-Features / Problems:

• Requires a Cell-Phone

  Mobile phones are not software but they have inherent anti-features which made a lot of people avoid them like fire. For example, the way mobile phones connect to the mobile network, through towers, by design, makes it a surveillance system. And the SIM card companies keep the data of where the phone goes. Notice how for this surveillance, the software on the phone is irrelevant. It could be Free or it could be Non-Free. Surveillance is done in a different way. So requiring a cell phone is a big issue.

• Non-Free Network

  A lot of software connects to internet servers in order to work. It means that some of the work of this software is done on the server. And not on the user's computer. Meaning, the user looses some control over the computation. The server could be Free Software as well. Meaning, if users don't like something about the server, they can start another one, fixing all their problems. And connect to it instead. But other servers might be proprietary or secret. In this case, you are on the mercy of the server maintainers.