Mastering the Installation of Telegram Chat Client on Linux: A Comprehensive Guide

Key Takeaways

Various methods are available for installing Telegram on Linux, such as Snaps and Flatpaks, DEB and RPM files, as well as a distribution-agnostic binary. Select the installation method that best fits your requirements.

The Telegram Client, Security, and Privacy

Privacy and security are distinct concepts. Privacy encompasses the ability to control personal information and data, allowing individuals to determine who has access to it. Security, on the other hand, serves as a means to preserve one's privacy. Another effective approach to maintain privacy is through making informed decisions.

It is widely known that if an online service is free, the users themselves become the product. The cost of utilizing the service is concealed within the terms and conditions. By utilizing the service, individuals grant permission to the service provider to collect any data it desires pertaining to them, and to utilize that information as it sees fit, even sharing it with the provider's "trusted partners."

Data profiling is commonly employed for targeted advertising, which is relatively harmless. However, there are instances where it can be more sinister, such as the notorious Cambridge Analytica scandal. In this scandal, personal information from 87 million Facebook users was exploited to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election in favor of two candidates.

Choosing the platforms you sign up for is of utmost significance. While some platforms may have robust security measures to safeguard your data from unauthorized access, if they engage in unethical or dubious practices with your information, it would be wise to seek an alternative service.

Telegram uses its own protocol for end-to-end encryption, which is not open source like Signal's encryption protocol. Therefore, only Telegram has reviewed it. Additionally, messages are not automatically encrypted. To achieve a higher level of protection, users must utilize the secret chat feature.

The amount of information collected by Telegram depends on the specific functions that users choose to use. For example, if users want to provide a recovery email address, they will need to disclose their email address. Developers have the ability to create small in-app services called bots, and if users utilize these bots, they will be sharing some data with the developers.

Telegram collects a larger amount of data compared to Signal, but considerably less when compared to WhatsApp. To understand the type of data Telegram collects and its usage, you can refer to their Privacy Policy.

Related: What Makes Telegram Worth Exploring and Giving It a Go?

Installing Telegram on Ubuntu

On Ubuntu 23.04, using the expected command line command to install Telegram actually installed a Snap package instead. But even that option seems to have been removed now.

sudo apt install desktop-telegram

If you prefer not to use a Snap, you have the option to install Telegram from a DEB file by adding a personal package archive (PPA) and utilizing the apt command. In our case, we successfully installed Telegram 4.9, which was the most up-to-date version at the time of writing. It is worth noting that PPAs may occasionally be abandoned by their maintainers, resulting in the installation of outdated software versions. Fortunately, that does not appear to be the situation in this instance.

To install the PPA, execute the following command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/telegram

We need to refresh our software lists so that the software available in that PPA is available to the apt command.

sudo apt update

Now, we can issue the command to install the Telegram desktop client.

sudo apt install telegram

Press the Super key located between the left-hand Ctrl and Alt keys on your keyboard. Open the GNOME search bar and begin to type 'Telegram'. As you type, you will notice the appearance of the Telegram icon.

To launch Telegram, simply click on the icon. By right-clicking it, you can choose the option "Add to Favorites" to add Telegram to your dock.

Upon launching Telegram, you will be able to connect to your pre-existing Telegram account. However, if you don't have a Telegram account yet, you need to install and set it up on your cell phone beforehand.

Click the blue “Start Messaging” button to begin.

Installing Telegram Natively on Fedora

To install Telegram on Fedora as a regular RPM installation, first enable the RPM Fusion community-maintained repositories on your system.

sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/free/fedora/rpmfusion-free-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

There’s a free and a non-free repository. We need to enable them both.

sudo dnf install https://mirrors.rpmfusion.org/nonfree/fedora/rpmfusion-nonfree-release-$(rpm -E %fedora).noarch.rpm

Now we can use dnf to install the desktop client.

sudo dnf install telegram-desktop

The version installed was 4.8.4, so it was a few versions behind the most current at the time of writing.

Installing Telegram Natively on Manjaro

Installing the Telegram desktop on Manjaro and other Arch-based distributions is as simple as issuing any other pacman command.

sudo pacman -S install telegram-desktop

The version we installed was 4.9, which was bang up to date at the time of our tests.

Installing Telegram as a Snap

Installing Telegram Desktop from the Ubuntu Software store installs a Snap.

You can also install a Snap version of Telegram on the command line of any distribution that has the snapd package installed, including Ubuntu.

The command is straightforward:

sudo snap install telegram-desktop

We can use the snap info option to look at the details of the installed software.

snap info telegram-desktop

The publisher of the Snap is Telegram itself. Scrolling down through the (rather long) description we find the version number.

Not surprisingly, as this Snap is maintained by Telegram, it contained the latest version of their desktop client.

Related: How to Work With Snap Packages on Linux

Installing Telegram as a Flatpak

If you’d prefer to use Flatpak instead of a native install or a Snap, Telegram has you covered for that, too. That is, as long as you have the flatpak system installed.

To install the Flatpak version of the Telegraph desktop client, use this command.

flatpak install flathub org.telegram.desktop

As with the Snap version, the Flatpak contained the current latest version of Telegram.

Related: What is a Flatpak in Linux and How Do You Install One?

Installing a Distribution Agnostic Linux Binary

To obtain Telegram for Linux x64, you can choose the last alternative which involves downloading and installing a distribution-neutral binary. Simply visit the Telegram website and click on the prominent blue button labeled "Get Telegram for Linux x64".

Next, navigate to the directory where you saved the downloaded file. In most cases, this will be your "Downloads" directory if you haven't modified your browser's settings. Identify the file name, wherein the numbers indicate the version number of the Telegram desktop client.

cd ~/Downloadsls

To unpack the file, use the tar command with the correct filename for your download. You may utilize tab completion to ensure accuracy in the command:

tar -xJvf tsetup.4.9.9.tar.xz

After extracting the downloaded archive, it is necessary to transfer its contents to the "/opt" directory. Within the "/opt" directory, a new folder named "telegram" should be created, and the extracted files must be placed there.

sudo mv Telegram /opt/telegram

Create a link to "/usr/bin/telegram" from the downloaded files, allowing us to start the Telegram client using the command "telegram" in a terminal window. Use the following command:

sudo ln -sf /opt/telegram/Telegram /usr/bin/telegram

Let’s try it out.

telegram

The Telegram desktop client starts, and its icon appears in the dock.

Right-click the icon and select “Pin to Dash” to always have the icon in your dock, so that you can launch it with a single click.

Privacy for Everyone

The desktop client provides you with a larger screen, an improved keyboard, and access to exclusive desktop features like keyboard shortcuts. No matter your packaging system preferences or personal likes and dislikes, there is a method to install Telegram on your preferred distribution.