Previously, the pair founded the Russian social network VK, which they left in 2014, saying it had been taken over by the government. Telegram was launched in 2013 by the brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov. Telegram has overtaken WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger to become the most popular instant messaging application in Belarus, Moldova, Jordan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Russia, and Ukraine.

The same month, Telegram Premium, an optional paid subscription with several extra features, was introduced. In June 2022, Telegram surpassed 700 million monthly active users. Research suggests that the Telegram surge in January 2021 was driven partly by the deplatforming of Parler by big-tech firms. It was the most downloaded app worldwide in January 2021 with 1 billion downloads globally as of late August 2021. In January 2021, Telegram surpassed 500 million monthly active users. Users can send text and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share an unlimited number of images, documents (2 GB per file), user locations, animated stickers, contacts, and audio files.

Cloud chats and groups are encrypted between the client and the server, so that ISPs and other third-parties on the network cannot access data. Telegram provides optional end-to-end encrypted chats. Telegram's official components are open source, with the exception of the server which is closed-sourced and proprietary. There are also two official Telegram web twin apps, WebK and WebZ, and numerous unofficial clients that make use of Telegram's protocol. Various client apps are available for Smart TV, desktop and mobile platforms including official apps for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux (although registration requires an iOS or Android device and a working phone number). The servers of Telegram are distributed worldwide with five data centers in different parts of the world, while the operational center is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It was launched for iOS on 14 August 2013 and Android on 20 October 2010 The application also provides optional end-to-end encrypted (popularly known as 'secret') chats and video calling, VoIP, file sharing and several other features. Telegram Messenger is a globally accessible freemium, cross-platform, encrypted, cloud-based and centralized instant messaging (IM) service.

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