All-in-One Messaging Application Franz 5 Sees First Stable Release

After 24 beta releases, Franz, an all-in-one messaging application, has reached version 5.0.0 stable.

Besides being the first Franz 5 stable release, the latest 5.0.0 version brings automatic spellcheck language detection, an option to quit Franz from the Windows taskbar, updated Electron to version 4.0.4 (from 4.0.2), and small bugfixes and improvements.

Franz is a free Electron application for Windows, Linux and Mac that combines almost 70 chat and messaging services into a single window that can run in the background, with multi-account support, notifications and a system tray, spell checking, and other useful features.

Using it you can have from WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, Discord, Slack, HipChat, WeChat, Android Messages, and Telegram, to Gmail, Proton Mail or Google Keep grouped in a single window, each in its own tab. This helps clean up some tab clutter that you'd normally have if you'd keep these open in a web browser, with the added benefit of being able to sign in to the same service with multiple accounts.

As for privacy, since Franz is just a wrapper, very close to a web browser, it does not need direct access to external service APIs, so it does not store your service login credentials. The only things it stores are cookies and the browser cache, just like a regular web browser. If you opt in to sync your Franz session data between computers, the data is stored encrypted on the Franz servers, with the encryption happening on your computer.

With Franz 5, the application went open source under the Apache 2 License, and is free with unlimited services. To support the developer, premium or enterprise licenses can be purchased, and signing up for a Franz account is required to be able to use the application, even with a free license.