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overtake / TelegramSwift

Source code of Telegram for macos on Swift 5.0
https://macos.telegram.org
GNU General Public License v2.0
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Censorship is enabled on non-appstore version of Telegram #1110

Open V0V4N opened 5 months ago

V0V4N commented 5 months ago

Hi everyone.

Just received an update 10.12.262578 Stable

Unfortunately it features the same censorship that's present on Google Play/App Store versions of Telegram - certain channels are unavailable on my device, yet on web version/official android app they work fine.

Just to point out again that my client IS NOT downloaded from App Store, it was originally installed via distribution from the official website, and updated with my consent via its own on-the-air upgrade system.

A specimen of a censored channel would be this one.

Screenshot 2024-04-26 at 10 30 48
d4rky-pl commented 4 months ago

@V0V4N it works in the beta version, just need to reenable the "Disable filtering" switch

TheSorceressOfCastleGrayskull commented 4 months ago

@V0V4N it works in the beta version, just need to reenable the "Disable filtering" switch

Version 10.12.2.263953 Beta

I have this problem too. Five channels are censored completely and on some others it's only the comment section/channel group.

Filtering was disabled the whole time and even if I turn it off and on again it doesn't change anything, the channels and groups are still censored like on iOS. I am always on the latest non-AppStore beta version and it already began about 2 month ago. At first I thought they just forgot to remove AppStore code but there were many updates in the meantime.

I even removed every trace of Telegram from my Mac and did a clean install, what also didn't help.

In the other "light" non-AppStore version nothing is censored. But I don't want to switch after using this one for about ten years now. :(

Sadly I subscribed to a year Premium shortly before noticing the censorship and even gifted it three times. If I knew before, that this is on purpose or doesn't get fixed, I hadn't paid for anything.

The volunteer support chat doesn't answer to my question from several weeks ago and they didn't even read the one from about 10 days ago. :(

V0V4N commented 4 months ago

Sadly I subscribed to a year Premium shortly before noticing the censorship and even gifted it three times.

@TheSorceressOfCastleGrayskull do you still have premium account by any chance? Mine ended just a few month ago so I couldn't reach out to the maintainer of this project.

He mentioned in another issue #1060 that his account is https://t.me/vihor, so perhaps you could reach out to him about the issue that we're discussing in this topic.

I'm stuck with using Telegram Web for these censored channels at this point.

TheSorceressOfCastleGrayskull commented 4 months ago

@V0V4N

Thank you. I still have Premium and can try to contact him maybe tomorrow.

There is also another non-AppStore client for Mac called Telegram Desktop that is hidden in Linux/Windows on telegram.org, what is similar to the web version if you don't like to use it in the browser. Just click here https://desktop.telegram.org/ and then on "Get Telegram for macOS" or "Beta version".

You can use both versions at the same time, they have separated folders in the macOS Library. It just have to be renamed, because both apps are called Telegram. In the AppStore it's called Telegram light.

d4rky-pl commented 3 months ago

@overtake could you confirm if this is on purpose?

TheSorceressOfCastleGrayskull commented 3 months ago

@V0V4N

He mentioned in another issue #1060 that his account is https://t.me/vihor, so perhaps you could reach out to him about the issue that we're discussing in this topic.

Sorry, I can't contact him anymore. I wasn't fast enough and my account got banned a few days later without any warning after 7 years. I think because I changed my phone number to one of those where everyone can see incoming sms on a website and there were too many login requests every day. Ironically I did this because I feared to lose access to my account with a phone number in it that doesn't exist anymore, because I already got logged out one time after an update and only came back into my account by downloading the older version again. And also I wanted a foreign number to buy Premium.

Now my Premium is gone after just two month (I paid for 12) and I can't purchase it again with a German number. There seems to be a workaround, but I don't want to pay double for censorship and especially not for banning my account. The support (contact form on telegram.org) doesn't even answer when I asked why I got bannend and the chat support simply ignored questions in that case.

I don't like the other Desktop App for Mac or using it in the browser, what is almost the same. I somehow can't use this bubble mode view option because of health issues and have to stay with this App what I am using almost since ten years now.

Before I purchased Premium I never saw any Ad on Telegram. I thought this was on pupose because there is no Premium in Germany to get rid of those Ads. But now they are everywhere with my new German number.

@d4rky-pl

Did you get any confirmation anywhere? The Chat Support says it's because of Apple and didn't understand that this version is also not from the AppStore and the censorship started years later than in the AppStore version. It seemed they didn't even know they have two macOS versions on their own website for direct download. Those voluntary support people generally seem to know less about Telegram than myself and can't answer any question correctly or just ignore them. This had been much better until at least 2017. In the meantime I didn't need support anymore until now.

d4rky-pl commented 3 months ago

@TheSorceressOfCastleGrayskull I don't even try to contact Telegram support because even if anyone answers, the people that do have no idea how anything works and they don't seem to have any direct line to the Telegram staff anyway. And as far as I'm aware @overtake here checks the repository from time to time but the issues reported on GH are very low priority. The other thing I reported (#840) has been happily sitting untouched for almost two years now.

I think at this point it's clear that it's a game where the only solution is not to play.

TheSorceressOfCastleGrayskull commented 3 months ago

Strange, I thought I commented here yesterday but it's gone... Maybe I was just too tired and deleted it before I could finish.

@V0V4N @d4rky-pl

Is just found out that 10.10.2.262033 Beta from April 11th is the last version without censorship. That's the first beta build of 10.10.2. Censoring starts in the second beta build of 10.10.2 what already had been released on the same day.

I'll stay downgraded to that version for now. Seems to be no problem. Only the Update Button is annoying. Maybe the last (beta) build of 10.10.1 is more stable if this version has any problems.

I you like to try for yourself, you can find it here. But those are all beta builds, the "stable" ones doesn't appear there:

https://install.appcenter.ms/users/keepcoder/apps/Telergam-Beta-Updated/distribution_groups/public

d4rky-pl commented 3 months ago

@TheSorceressOfCastleGrayskull open Telegram.app (right click, "Show Package Contents"), then edit Info.plist and replace https://api.appcenter.ms/v0.1/public/sparkle/apps/4ff72ee6-40ca-438b-a068-7ba14a53e288 in SUFeedURL with https://api.appcenter.ms/v0.1/public/sparkle/apps/non-existent-key.

This will prevent the app from getting the info about newer versions and from displaying the update banner.