I honestly prefer to use Telegram than WhatsApp because it offers me many options. It also uses open protocols and there are many interesting options. However, I have to admit that WhatsApp is much more popular than Telegram especially in Latin America and part of Europe. The truth is that nothing prevents me from using both services, so if you use both, you may need Franz. Today, I will tell you about this great program that allows you to have several messaging accounts in a single application.
I must admit that Franz is one of my indispensable applications on my Linux desktop. It is a fantastic application that allows to have in one place many accounts of the most popular services such as Gmail, WhatsApp, Telegram, Google Keep, Slack and many others.
Franz allows you to add each service many times. This makes it the perfect tool to manage multiple business and private accounts all at the same time.
Franz Features
there are many features that make it a benchmark for desktop communications. Some of its features are the following:
- It is open source (Apache 2 Licence) , which means that you can examine its source code and detect errors.
- Multiplatform. This guarantees that you can use it in many computers. There are versions for Windows, Linux and Mac.
- Supports a lot of communication services. Most of them very popular worldwide.
- It is available in many languages such as English, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, Japanese and many more. It is very likely that you have the application in your language.
So, let’s install Franz.
Installing and using Franz on Linux
If you use Ubuntu or Debian there are two ways to get Franz on your computer. First, you can do this by downloading and installing the .DEB package. However, not everyone uses these Linux distributions. For them there is the appimage format.
The AppImage format is a kind of portable application for Linux. This greatly facilitates the distribution of applications on Linux. It does not require special execution permissions and even novices will feel comfortable with this format.
So you have to go to the download section and choose the AppImage option.
Once the file is downloaded, assign it execution permission and open it by double clicking.
:~$ chmod +x file_name
When you run it, you will see the image above. An advantage of Franz is that he allows you to have an account and in it you can add the services you need. If you don’t have one, you can create it for free, although there is a paid version.
Once you’re logged in, it’s a good idea to first review the options so you can configure it to your liking. Click File -> Settings.
In the following image, I show you the services I currently have configured. Click on Your Services section.
And you can add a service. There are many options.
When you decide to add one, you will be asked for credentials in order to access it. Then you can enjoy it.
One of the main advantages of using Franz on Linux is that you can take advantage of native notifications for your messages. In addition, you can use WhatsApp from the desktop, since there is no official Linux client.
Conclusion
Franz helps us to have many online ditches in one place. Being created with Electron makes it multiplatform and the way to get it is really simple.
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