Free and Open Source Software @beehaw.org Sub_dermal @beehaw.org 9 mo. ago

Anyone here used franz before?

I'm interested in giving franz a try (predominantly for WhatsApp and Facebook messenger on the desktop) and wanted to know if anyone had any experience with, or guidance about, the app?

Since the app appears to require an account I thought I'd check I wasn't signing up for something terrible first.

10 comments

I did use franz at some point but eventually switched to ferdium, which doesn't require an account. That being said I haven't used either for a while now.
- Can I use Whatsapp in Ferdium without having the app installed on my mobile? I stopped using Whatsapp because I was not OK with its snoopiness and privacy issues.
  
  i discovered WhatSie, and it does what i want. seems to work nicely!
  
  IIRC you have to have the app installed on your phone and be in the same network, but it's been a while.
- Thanks for recommendation - that looks perfect; will try it out!
As @ccryx pointed out, Ferdium is a fork that doesn't force an account to be created. There is also Tangram with a slightly different approach.
- Your link to Tangram also points to Ferdium. I assume you wanted to link there: Tangram
  
  Oops! Thanks for the redirection.
Another vote for Ferdium. Although my use case is primarily for Google Chat, since I dislike it being in a browser tab. And since I don’t use Chrome I can’t/won’t install their PWA.
I switched from Franz to Ferdi to Ferdium and then I noticed all it's doing is creating PWAs in profiles, which made me use Chromium with some cookie deletion and privacy add-ons and just install the applications I needed as PWAs. You can start Chromium with a separate profile and auto open all of the apps which you can't install as PWAs in tabs, and you can move the tab bar to the left side. Then you basically have Ferdium with extra steps and better efficiency.

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