Telegram: Telegram rolls out new features to take on WhatsApp – Times of India

Instant messaging app Telegram has announced a new update to its app through which it will add support for new features for its users. Telegram is arch-rival to WhatsApp and recently seen a surge in its popularity ever since WhatsApp announced its new privacy policy.
As part of the new update, the app is adding support for features like auto-delete, expiring invites, new emojis, improvements in chat imports and reporting system and more. Here’s a look at each of them in detail:
Auto-delete
After this update, Telegram users will be able to enable an auto-delete timer in all Telegram chats. This will automatically erase messages for all participants after sending. Users will get to choose from two expiry limits — 24 hours and 7 days.

Readers must note that the auto-delete function will work only for messages sent after the timer is set and earlier messages will stay in the chat history.
Once this setting is enabled, all messages will show a countdown to their deletion time.
Expiring Invite Links
As part of this update, users will be able to send invite links that come with a limited duration, a number of uses, or both.

Additionally, invite links can be converted into a scannable QR Code for easy sharing. Users will also be able to see which users joined using each invite link. This, as per the company will help them find out where new members came from or which format has been most effective for growth.
This is especially handy now that groups that are close to the limit of 200,000 members now convert into Broadcast Groups that allow unlimited members.
More emojis
The new update also comes with support for new emojis.
Improvements in chat imports and reporting system
After this update, imported messages appear sorted by their original date if added to a Telegram chat that is new or has fewer than 1000 messages.
As for the reporting, the app allows users to select specific messages when sending a report. Further, all reporting options allow users to add a comment to give more context.