Telegram has been in the news in recent times as having strong security that's even got the Russians worried. Telegram Messenger is the official client for all Windows phones and it's still getting decent updates, even though WP8.1 itself is now not officially supported. Which is quite impressive, perhaps speaking to the fact that an awful lot of older Windows phones are still in use around the world and that many of them don't like governments (or even Google or Apple) tracking what they want to say...(!)

The new version 3.1 has a sizeable changelog too:

• Updated the registration process. If you live in the UK or EU, you must be 16 years or older to use Telegram.
• You can now stop updating your contacts and delete your synced contacts in Privacy & Security settings.
• If you enabled link previews in Secret Chats, you can now disable them in Privacy & Security settings.
• Mark chats as Read or Unread from the long tap menu.
• Improved UX when browsing Global Search results.
• Improved censorship circumvention.

Despite the changelog mention of '16', it seems that someone forgot to check the number in the English language resource files - it still says '13'! They'll fix it... (right) the option to stop syncing contacts (again, a privacy thing) and to delete your contact data within Telegram Messenger completely.

More options in terms of links in secret chats - you can never be too paranoid, eh?! (right) a new search interface, apparently, though I can't remember what it was like before, so... Any comments?

You can grab Telegram Messenger in the Store here, it's a free download for all.

Do you use Telegram? Do you rail against people dismissing it as 'just one more messenger'? It does look immensely capable, but the real question is how many of your friends and family you can convince to use it, surely? Also, how much need do you have for its privacy and encryption?