Franz 5

One desktop app for (almost) all of your messaging apps

8 followers

One desktop app for (almost) all of your messaging apps

8 followers

Social Networking

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Messaging apps

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Slack apps

Franz is your open source messaging app for �WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Slack, HipChat, �Telegram and many many more.

Launch tags:Slack•Telegram•Productivity

Launch Team

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Promoted

Though Franz has been great, Station can still be considered as one of the strongest competitors, but I still think Franz is striking a better balance: what you need is all at your hand and what you may not or don't is just not in sight. Station indeed provides more options (such as keeping multiple Slack accounts online simultaneously) but personally I think they still need to polish the multi-account settings and controls.

Anyway, Franz has been doing a great job being a relatively light-weighted IM integration tool. WeChat being available alongside other IM services is highly appreciated :D Also, liked the cute loading sentences such as "twisting my mustache" and "playing the trumpet" etc.

Pros:

Feels better than other web-app-integration tools I tried before.

Cons:

hmmm sometimes have to refresh manually to force chats to update. (Guess this is a thing with all webapps?)

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9yr ago

FirstQuadrant

You can have multiple Slack accounts in Franz too. I'm not sure what you mean by online, I haven't really checked whether the not focused ones go offline, but I don't think that should be the case.

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9yr ago

Software Product Management Stack

The fact that you have to refresh to update messages makes it quite useless. As the purpose of chat apps is to receive messages live.

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9yr ago

Hi @smalzner, I want to say that I have been using Franz for almost an year now and have recommended it to a lot of people around me as well. One thing which I noticed always was how much CPU/Memory it used to hog so I moved back to using just the browser or relying on my phone for notifications. You must imagine that when I saw Franz 5 being hunted today I got really excited and hoped that finally the memory/CPU issues were fixed. I went through the changelog and I saw that there is indeed a commit which reduces max CPU load (64ad918). Has Franz been using my computer to mine one of the cryptos(Monero) without me knowing about it - as it does not say that on the site at all?

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9yr ago

Franz Messenger

Maker

@raz0r oh no, not at all. There is/was an opt-in monero miner integrated as an alternative payment option for the premium plans. Currently this option is disabled for new users. I'm aware that Franz is still not the most CPU/Memory efficient app. I'm looking into options and alternative platforms to get rid of this problem long term.

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9yr ago

@smalzner Thanks for the clarification Stefan. Will give Franz 5 a try to see if I can live with it. It definitely is a great solution.

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9yr ago

@raz0r @smalzner I feel stupid for never having considered that legit apps might be doing this. Thank you for transparency. I wonder if my gazillion chrome extensions are mining.

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9yr ago

Franz Messenger

Maker

Hey @milann thanks for hunting! ✌️ Product Hunt! After a turbulent journey, I'm super excited to be back with Franz 5. With the help of the amazing Franz community we did a complete rewrite of Franz 5 and added a lot of exciting and shiny new things like the Account synchronization, a Service Marketplace and many many more. This for example allows us things like new services and service updates on a daily basis. Stay tuned as we will add a lot of new features in the upcoming days, weeks and months. 🎉

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9yr ago

Wireframe Components Kit

@milann @smalzner I think I speak for everyone when I say that I thought you were done with this product. Awesome to see you back!

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9yr ago

@smalzner thanks for keeping working on product. Excited to see the new features.

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9yr ago

Retime

@milann @smalzner since you have Trello, please add Asana too

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9yr ago

@milann @smalzner I thought the product was slowly dying ! The king is dead, long live the king 🙌

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9yr ago

Ghost Browser

@milann @smalzner Nice comeback! Congrats on Releasing Version 5!

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9yr ago

Wildcard (Pre-launch)

Hunter

One of my most useful tools on the mac 💻, I always recommend it when I see people struggle with all the web messaging interfaces of social messaging apps. Just open it all at once, and close it when you want to get some work done. In a way, it's a lifehack on it's own ha ha ha! 😅 Except from some visual improvements on the interface, Franz 5, is (finally!) open source. The source code is available on Github under the Apache 2 License. You are more than welcome to file file bugs, create feature requests or support the project in general 👉 https://www.github.com/meetfranz... Also, Franz 5 offers built in service synchronizations and is coming soon with VPN/Proxy and team management support. Great job @smalzner with shipping awesomeness! Also, during MOVEMBER! What are you asking the community to bring or contribute to this great new release?

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9yr ago

Franz Messenger

Maker

@milann thanks again for hunting! That is a great question. The most valuable thing right now is our users opinion and their ideas. The community also supports the project in so many amazing ways like translating the app (http://i18n.meetfranz.com), Fixing bugs (https://www.github.com/meetfranz...) or just helping other users (http://slack.franz.im) I'm looking forward to get in touch with you!

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9yr ago

Documents by Readdle

Looks like really solid and helpful solution. However, a lot of services are connected to my Facebook account and I'm not ready to type in my login and password of Facebook account in an unverified piece of UI. It would be great if you can offer some proves that I'm on the real Messenger website and it's not a fishing. I'm okay with messenger.com experience and I'm ready to try something new only if I'm sure that my data is in safe

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9yr ago

Franz Messenger

Maker

@plokhoj great point, this is definitely something to improve. However, every Franz recipe (a service integration) that is distributed via the app is reviewed for malicious code before it will be published. The very first service page that is displayed in Franz is _always_ the official page from the recipe config. This check does not apply to any self-installed 3rd party recipe. You can get more information about the Franz recipes here: https://github.com/meetfranz/plu...

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9yr ago

FirstQuadrant

@plokhoj @smalzner I do think this is a valid point. If there's any way that the authentication can be done in the browser, and then open Franz when completed, people will feel confident about phishing. I'm not sure if it's even possible or would be considered borderline session highjacking when copying cookies or something.

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9yr ago

@plokhoj I think you need to to your due diligence on Franz and Stefan before committing to Franz. If you don't trust the software, don't use it. I agree though that at least on the login screens, we should be able to see the full URL.

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9yr ago

Pakible

Love Franz! A bit confused...does this live inside Slack now? Or just look a lot more like Slack instead of the past UI? 🤔

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9yr ago

Franz Messenger

Maker

@nwkwan well, the Franz 5 design changed a bit. (maybe it's inspired by Slack, maybe not. I'm not telling) ;) A future Franz version will introduce more customization options for the tab bar like position, size, ...

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9yr ago

@smalzner I have been using Franz since the first launch. Absolutely love it although it can be a huge distraction to have all chatting apps in one place. I try to use it sparingly! I was curious I am currently using version 4.04 and when I go to check updates it doesn't show that there has been a new update? So I need to do a clean install?

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9yr ago

Franz Messenger

Maker

@arintoker I totally love to hear that! the reasons why it's not rolled out via updater are stated in @dickensons's thread. but tldr; a clean install it is.

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9yr ago

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Reviews

Pros:

Feels better than other web-app-integration tools I tried before.

Cons:

hmmm sometimes have to refresh manually to force chats to update. (Guess this is a thing with all webapps?)