Interactive web messages right in the chat

The TGBetaLeak channel discovered a large experimental subsystem called HTMLBubbles in version 12.10.283300 of Telegram for macOS.

According to the description, the messaging app is testing interactive messages built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript right in the chat, without the need to launch a separate Web Mini App window.

@tginfo editors have confirmed the module’s presence in the code of that version based on a preliminary review, but the described behavior and how it works have not yet been independently verified.

The idea is to turn ordinary messages into widgets: product cards with selectable options, interactive boarding passes, or live charts.

According to the source, rendering is handled by the compact litehtml engine, while scripts run in a heavily restricted sandbox with CPU limits, network requests blocked, and external media prohibited. You can read all the technical details about these restrictions in the source post.

Editors’ concerns

Despite the extensive list of restrictions, @tginfo editors have serious security concerns about this kind of feature. Integrating web engines that support JavaScript execution — even in a heavily restricted form — directly into the chat interface poses a huge risk.

Experience shows that no matter how thoroughly developers isolate an environment, vulnerabilities are regularly found in rendering systems. The risk of malicious code running simply by viewing a chat raises serious questions about whether these widgets are worth it.

For now, HTMLBubbles is an early experimental concept being tested within the Telegram team. The feature could change substantially during development or be canceled entirely.

#macOS #beta

Telegram Is Testing a News Feed and Personalized Recommendations Again

A separate “News” tab for viewing channel posts in a unified feed has appeared in Telegram for macOS Beta 13.0 (283318). The @telelakel channel reported the discovery.

How the news feed works

The current implementation of the post feed has several key features:

• Two sections: The “News” tab is divided into two sections — “Added” and “For You”.

• Custom feed: In the “Added” section, users can manually curate their feed by adding and removing selected channels through dedicated interface actions.

• Personalized recommendations: The “For You” section curates posts based on the user’s interests. Categories of interest (each with its own name and emoji) can be selected manually and changed over time. However, it remains unknown what algorithm powers this feed and whether it will include posts from channels the user isn’t subscribed to.

• Navigation and speed: The feed interface includes a search bar, pull-to-refresh, a new posts indicator, and a button to mark posts as read. Directly from the feed, users can open individual posts and channels, jump to chats, and copy links. For faster browsing, media files, profile pictures, and stories are preloaded in the background.

Background and context

The messenger’s team has been approaching the creation of a unified feed for eight years:

• The ability to combine channels into a unified news feed first appeared in the Beta version of Telegram for macOS back in January 2018, but was soon disabled on the server side.

• In April 2022, a commit confirming the development of a news feed was spotted in the official Telegram for iOS repository, though the feature never made it to release.

• Meanwhile, between 2019 and 2021, Telegram held a series of large-scale contests focused on news ranking and data clustering, as well as identifying channel languages and topics.

• Until now, the primary way to read subscriptions sequentially in the messenger has been the gesture for jumping to the next unread channel, while algorithmic recommendations have been limited to the “Similar Channels” list and the “Channels” tab in global search.

@tginfo editors note that introducing an algorithmic feed in the spirit of X (formerly Twitter) could significantly reshape how content is consumed in the messenger. For creators, it is a potential source of free organic traffic without buying ads, and for Telegram itself — a way to boost audience engagement and increase impressions for official ads.

Currently, the news feed is disabled on the server side and remains in development — its mechanics and appearance may change by the time of release.

We share more news about features from test builds in our Beta Info channel.

#beta #macOS #channels