Telegram celebrates 10 years with biggest update to date, here is what's new

Telegram celebrated its 10th birthday at the beginning of the week and released its biggest update yet. Apart from making Stories available to everyone, not just to Premium users, this week's Telegram update brings a bunch of interesting new features and a bucketload of improvements.

But let's start with Stories, by far the most-requested feature in the history of Telegram, the company says in a blog post. After launching Stories for Premium users not long ago, Telegram is now making the feature available to everyone.

Telegram users can now experiment with Stories, which are displayed in an expandable section at the top of the screen, allowing them to see the full length of their chat list and folders. Stories can be shared with just a quick tap, or you can hold down to use reactions.

Another interesting new feature added this week is a Dual Camera mode, which allows users to take photos or videos with both the front and rear cameras simultaneously for their stories.

Also, Stories now support captions where creators can include longer text description, tag friends or add links. The new feature allows users to add multiple images from their gallery or use search to find GIFs and pictures from the web.

Privacy and security are very important for those using social apps, and Telegram delivers. Those who post their stories on Telegram can choose from four privacy settings: Everyone, My Contacts, Close Friends, and Selected Contacts.

Each of these options can be fully customized allowing users to include or exclusive any users. It's also possible to disable screenshots to prevent viewers from saving or sharing it if you want to keep a story more private.

According to Telegram, this is a first for a social media app. Apparently, you can now update any element of a story at any time. For example, you can change a story's visibility, caption, on-screen text, stickers or just about anything else, without having to delete and repost it from scratch.

Furthermore, stories can now be posted on your profile, even though they will only last up to 48 hours. If you have multiple stories posted, they will be arranged in a grid pattern.

Last but not least, Telegram users are getting detailed view statistics. Whenever a user opens a story, they will appear in a list of viewers that is only visible to the creator. You will now be able to see the list, which can be filtered to show just your contacts, and sort by recent views or reactions first.

And if you're a Premium user, you can now enable Stealth Mode to erase views from any stories opened in the past 5 minutes and hide what you plan to view in the next 25 minutes.