Telegram is an application for Android phones just like WhatsApp. The key advantages of Telegram are that it assures users that their data is not used by any 3rd party, users have more control over it, with the ability to send secret messages, self-destruct messages and complete removal if a user exits the service.
If you like Telegram, and use it on your smart phone, and you like to have all chat clients in one application on your Ubuntu Linux desktop, you can install the Telegram plug-in for Pidgin. Open a terminal window in Linux and enter the follow commands:
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8 <enter>
$ sudo apt-get update <enter>
$ sudo apt-get install telegram-purple <enter>
Once done, start up Pidgin, enable the telegram chat by entering the SMS code you receive. You will see all the contacts you have almost instantly. Note, you can also use the dedicated Telegram Desktop Application.
Note that it is far easier to setup Telegram with Pidgin than WhatsApp, due to it’s open nature and the ability of developers to use the Telegram API to build clients.
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