How to Install Telegram and Signal on Linux

In this detailed article we are going to discuss how we can install Signal and Telegram on our Linux System, we are using Kali Linux here. But we can use the same method on any Debian-based Linux distribution (Ubuntu, Mint, Elementary etc).

SIGNAL

The Signal is open-source privacy-focused software for private/group messaging and calls. It can be the perfect alternative to WhatsApp. Signal has almost the same interface as WhatsApp. It has encryption and a lot more privacy than WhatsApp.

Signal is available on various platforms. It is available for mobile devices Android and iOS. It also has desktop applications for Windows, Mac, and Linux. We don't give any link for Linux Download. We will show the process here.

How to install signal on kali Linux

To install Signal on Linux we can use the following method.

First of all, we need to Install Signal's official public software signing key by using the following command:

wget -O- https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt/keys.asc |\
  sudo apt-key add -

The screenshot of the command is following:

This might take some time and ask for the root password.

After this we need to add Signal's repository to our list of repositories by using following command:

echo "deb [arch=amd64] https://updates.signal.org/desktop/apt xenial main" |\
  sudo tee -a /etc/apt/sources.list.d/signal-xenial.list

We can copy and paste this command to our terminal to add the repository.

Then we just need to update our system by using the following command:

sudo apt-get update

After the updating process is complete we can install the Signal desktop app by using the following command:

sudo apt install signal-desktop

This will take some time to download (111 MB) and install.

After finishing the process we can find Signal desktop applications on our application list.

Now we just need to link our phone's Signal app with our PC by scanning the QR code. It's not like the WhatsApp Web, because in WhatsApp Web our both devices need to connect to the internet. Hereafter scanning we can use our PC as a primary device.

Our chats are saved on our device, not in their server (like WhatsApp) so we can't see the mobile chats on the PC.

TELEGRAM

Telegram is already a very popular messaging and media-sharing platform. We don't think it needs any special introduction. It also supports cross platform. It also has mobile and desktop versions.

It is also available for mobiles on Play store and app store. Also it is available for Windows, Mac and Linux (64bit and 32bit).

It is also open-source and the source code is available on their GitHub repository.

How to install Telegram

To download it on our Linux system we just need to download it from the official website. Then we can download it's Linux version (we are in 64 bit).

It will download a tar.xz compressed file. After downloading it we can find it on our Downloads folder. We need to extract the compressed file and we got two binary files as we can see in the following screenshot:

Here, we just need to double click on the "Telegram" file and it will be started. We can use it as a separate Telegram account or we can link our mobile devices via QR code. It will show us desktop notifications of new chats.

Note: This installation of Telegram does not “install” the app on our system, but it will add a ‘Telegram’ app shortcut to our system app launcher/app menu. Just remember to not delete the binary file it links to!

There are some more privacy messengers on the market (Wikr, Utopia), but these are the most wanted. So we discussed these and their installation on Linux. We usually prefer Signal more than Telegram. Tell us about your personal choice in the comment section.