The past month has not been a successful one for the creators of Telega, the unofficial alternative Telegram client. First it turns out that the messenger monitors users and can even read all their correspondence. Telega was then removed from the App Store, considering it to be spyware. And recently it became known that the application can turn the iPhone into a “brick”. Meduza recounts what happened to the Telega client over the past month, and once again reminds us that it is better not to use it.
The unofficial alternative Telegram client Telega was released at the beginning of 2025. In the fall of the same year, it began to rapidly gain popularity. All because it gave users the opportunity to communicate without a VPN. By then, the official Telegram client had already been under Roskomnadzor’s restrictions for a few months – the agency blocked voice and video calls on it.
Experts almost immediately had doubts about Telega’s safety. they I noticedThat the developers from Kazan, who launched an alternative client, may be closely related to VK. The creators of Telega themselves He did not deny itThey use a number of VK technologies, but insisted that their project remain independent.
Despite the skepticism, the surrogate agent continued to gain an audience. At the end of March 2026, approximately 7.5 million people used it monthly, books Kommersant with reference to search data from MTS. Journalists noted that Telega became the main alternative to the official Telegram application, which at that time had already been subject to strict censorship rules for several weeks.
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Then, in March, new cases began to appear guide Communications between Telega and VK. At the end of the month, two studies were published at once (Firstly unknown, second – from ), who claimed that this client was spying on users. Moreover, their owners can view all user activities in Telegram, and can read correspondence and transmit it to intelligence services upon request.
Telegram responded to this and It has been removed Check the verification box on the official Telegram channel Telega. However, the channel itself continues to work and gain popularity – in one month, its audience has increased by almost 650 thousand subscribers. The channel did not comment on the accusations of spying on users.
Many users were confused as to why Telegram was not involved in any way in running such a dangerous alternative client. In particular, this question addressed to Pavel Durov was one of the most popular questions in the recent Meduza poll. The only thing the official messaging team did was He added In your application there is a warning that the interlocutor is using a third party client and messages are now less secure.
Apple has also unexpectedly joined the fray. On April 9, it removed the Telega app from the digital app store (it is still available on Google Play). A week later, iOS device owners began to be warned about the dangers of the messaging program. The system message indicates that the application contains malicious code and should be removed.
Telega developers had to respond. Firstly they are maleThis removal from the App Store may be due to the sharp increase in negative reviews. They, in turn, appeared because of the introduction. “This increase in reviews could have been misinterpreted by App Store moderation,” the client’s creators suggested.
However, after a few days certainThe reason for deletion is the “misclassification” of the Messenger. The company has flagged two domains of the Telega project as spyware, which is why the app’s certificate has been revoked. He explained Telegram channel “Beware of news”.
Creators of Alternative Agent claimThey have already passed all the necessary independent checks and proven that their messenger is not dangerous. But, according to them, Apple verification takes longer, which is why Telega is not yet back in the App Store.
On April 19, Telega faced a new problem. iPhone owners have started complaining that the app is causing a critical failure while updating the operating system. As a result, the process stopped and the device was completely blocked, turning into a useless “brick”.
The fact is that the update failure is due to the presence of Telega messenger on the device, Durov Code published I mentioned Employees in several service centers simultaneously. However, at first the editors ignored this information, considering it not reliable enough. It is also still unknown how widespread this problem is.
Later, technical blogger Sergey Romantsev booksHe conducted an experiment and updated three working iPhones. In one of them – with Telega messenger installed – the described failure actually occurred.
Application developers refute This information, indicating that the issues have nothing to do with the presence of their clients on users’ iPhones. They supported their statement connection To the official Apple website, which states that third-party applications are separate from system files and cannot make changes to the operation of the device. The creators of Telega also hinted that such posts could be part of “PR attacks” directed against their messenger.
romantic PresumablyThe problem lies in the update itself, or rather in Apple’s message about the presence of malware in the system. Perhaps this is why the malfunction occurred. It turns out that the company forces the user to get rid of Telega, because after restoring the smartphone from a backup, the messenger simply does not load, because it is not in the App Store.
In a way, this is just one of the reasons I don’t use Telega. Even if the messenger is returned to the App Store, as the developers claim, questions (and very serious questions at that) regarding the security of the messenger still remain.