Is there a way to watch a telegram channel on Windows or Android without logging into Telegram?

[Wally J]

Is there a way to watch a telegram channel on Windows
(or Android) without needing to create a Telegram account?

One specific channel I'm trying to watch is this one.
https://t.me/s/pilotblog

It's related to this youtube channel which gives daily updates.
https://www.youtube.com/@DenysDavydov

But he says his real-time videos cannot be uploaded to YouTube.
Just to Telegram.

[Joel]

Wally J <walte...@invalid.nospam> wrote:

>Subject: Is there a way to watch a telegram channel on Windows or Android without logging into Telegram?
>
>X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5512

You might excuse your issue with running Telegram for Windows, by the
OS you're running, but on the Android phone? Needless to say, you're
living in a reality that, if it ever existed, no longer does.

--
Joel Crump

[Wally J]

Joel <joel...@gmail.com> wrote

> You might excuse your issue with running Telegram for Windows, by the
> OS you're running, but on the Android phone? Needless to say, you're
> living in a reality that, if it ever existed, no longer does.

If I knew the answer, I wouldn't have asked the question.

I don't understand what you're trying to say but if you're simply saying
that it's impossible, then that's why I asked here - to find out if it's
possible since I never claimed to know everything about Windows or Android.

Most of the time, maybe 95 out of 100 times, what most people think is
impossible is not at all impossible - you just have to know how to do it.

Sometimes, rarely - but sometimes - people here know a lot more than I do.
I'm trying to find one of those people. That's why I asked the question.

[Joel]

I hear you, but running Telegram isn't the end of the world, if you
were not, say, relying on greater than 20-year-old tech.

--
Joel Crump

[D]

using Tor Browser 12.5 to open this link "https://t.me/s/pilotblog", it
appears to open normally, and without using bridges; clicking on several
video "play" arrows, and "VIEW IN TELEGRAM", also appears to work albeit
loading times are predictably longer than when not using tor; also, the
youtube links would typically display "Our systems have detected unusual
traffic from your computer network"; overall though, interesting website
which, afaict, does not require user registration or anything like that;

Tor Browser v12.5 (2023-6-22):
https://blog.torproject.org/new-release-tor-browser-125/
https://www.torproject.org/
https://www.torproject.org/download/

[D]

naysayers are commonplace, but "95 out of 100"? could be pollyannaish;
as with this example, using the popular freeware Tor Browser obviously
does what these "armchair quarterbacks" would have the unwary believe
impossible, or at least impractical, unrealistic, etc... c'est la vie

[Andy Burns]

Wally J wrote:

> Is there a way to watch a telegram channel on Windows

> https://t.me/s/pilotblog

That URL lets me watch the videos in firefox, just scroll up to see
older ones in the feed and click play

[Wally J]

Joel <joel...@gmail.com> wrote

>>Sometimes, rarely - but sometimes - people here know a lot more than I do.
>>I'm trying to find one of those people. That's why I asked the question.
>
> I hear you, but running Telegram isn't the end of the world, if you
> were not, say, relying on greater than 20-year-old tech.

I hear you also (although I wasn't sure what lesson you were trying to
teach me due to my confusion)... but I think Andy Burns had the answer.

As you can tell, I don't have any logins to Google or Telegram or Facebook
or Reddit or any of the woke channels that most kids have logins for.

I was using the Epic Privacy Browser to watch the YouTube videos, and I was
using the ClipGrab/yt-dlp/NewPipe methods to download the age-restricted
(and/or country-code restricted) YouTube videos without a Google Account.

The reason I use the "hardened" Chromium-based Epic Privacy Browser is
simply that I never see YouTube ads when I use that specific web browser.

But it didn't occur to me that I could watch the Telegram videos without an
account using Firefox instead of the "hardened" Epic Privacy Browser.

Apparently you don't need a Telegram account to watch videos on Telegram
that can't be uploaded to YouTube - you just need a "weak" web browser.

Since I've rarely interacted with Telegram, I didn't know that trick!

[Wally J]

Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote

I never (almost never) use Firefox because it's not hardened, so it didn't
even occur to me that a "normal" Firefox could be used to watch videos.

Normally I use the "hardened" Epic Privacy Browser to watch the YouTube
videos on Windows as I never see YouTube advertisements that way, and I was

using the ClipGrab/yt-dlp/NewPipe methods to download the age-restricted
(and/or country-code restricted) YouTube videos without a Google Account.

But it didn't occur to me that I could watch the Telegram videos without an

account using a "weak" Firefox instead of a "hardened" web browser setup.

It looks like I need to use a combination to see "Media Too Big" videos
https://t.me/pilotblog/5047

Using the combination techniques below, all the videos are now available!

YouTube without advertisements => Epic Privacy Browser with its adblockers
YouTube restricted videos => ClipGrab/yt-dlp/NewPipe on Windows/Android
Telegram channels & videos => Normal "weak" Firefox (non-hardened version)
Media-Too-Big Telegram videos => ClipGrab/yt-dlp/NewPipe on Windows/Android

[Andy Burns]

Wally J wrote:

> it didn't
> even occur to me that a "normal" Firefox could be used to watch videos.

I would expect other "out-of-the-box" browsers (chrome, edge) to work
too, nothing special about firefox.

> It looks like I need to use a combination to see "Media Too Big" videos

yes the did say that a few were 'too big' for inline streaming to me too.

[wasbit]

Works for me too in Pale Moon (32.2.1).

--
Regards
wasbit

[D]

On Sat, 1 Jul 2023 03:32:59 -0400, Wally J <walte...@invalid.nospam> wrote:
>Apparently you don't need a Telegram account to watch videos on Telegram
>that can't be uploaded to YouTube - you just need a "weak" web browser.

best to "err on the side of caution", especially when visiting "red flag"
types of websites; using Tor Browser is more likely safer than so-called
"hardened" browsers, but even onion routing w/bridges is nowhere near as
secure as careful use of "whole message encryption" (although that won't
enable website browsing, but could help in some ways to communicate with
a potential adversary); see https://www.danner-net.de/omom/tutorwme.htm

>OmniMix * Tutorial * Whole Message Encryption (WME)
>It's obvious to prevent your normal e-mail correspondence from being spied on ...
>
> Pros and cons of different communication methods
>
> Ordinary PGP WME Remailing Remailing Nym Nym
> Mail + WME + WME
>Contents Protection No Reduced* Complete* No Complete* No Complete*
>Reply Capability Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes Yes
>Anonymity towards an external observer No No No Yes Yes Yes Yes
>Anonymity between the correspondents No No No Yes No Yes Yes
>Latency Low Low Low Medium Medium High High
>Reliability High High High Medium Medium Low Low
>
> * Reduced: Net data only / Complete: Data + structure
[end quote]

any websites involving militaries, storefronts, etc. should generally be
avoided beyond neutral "window shopping" . . . "it's a jungle out there"

[Wally J]

wasbit <was...@nowhere.invalid> wrote

>>> Is there a way to watch a telegram channel on Windows
>>> https://t.me/s/pilotblog
>>
>> That URL lets me watch the videos in firefox, just scroll up to see
>> older ones in the feed and click play
>
> Works for me too in Pale Moon (32.2.1).

Thanks for testing those telegram videos with Pale Moon.
https://t.me/s/pilotblog

The only thing that doesn't seem to work (yet) are the "Media too big"
videos. Here is one example from that channel https://t.me/pilotblog/5047

Can you get Pale Moon or ClipGrab/yt-dlp to display the telegram Media too
big videos without needing to create a telegram account on Windows/Android?
https://t.me/pilotblog/5051

[Andy Burns]

Wally J wrote:

> Can you get Pale Moon or ClipGrab/yt-dlp to display the telegram Media too
> big videos without needing to create a telegram account on Windows/Android?

I doubt it, the client can't get what the server is unwilling to give,
for the "too big"videos, there doesn't seem to be a URL of the video on
the CDN ...