Unite all messengers. All messengers in one application. What about my favorite %messenger_name%
Nowadays, it is rare to find a person who does not use a computer, gadgets, is not registered on social networks, does not use instant messaging programs, the so-called Messenger, and does not have a mailbox (e-mail). When using them, we perform a lot of manipulations in order to open one site, watch the news, then go to another program to reply to a message, go back to the next one to upload a new photo, etc. etc. , - here is a way out! First things first.
All messengers in one application for Windows
Franz
Install the utility and you will get everything you need for your communication in one place. Each messenger has its own tab and primary view. This makes it easier to use and avoid getting confused. Several profiles can be used at once. Franz is constantly updated, attracting more and more services at its disposal.
There are no special settings as such. Select a service and enter your data. All.
Click on the required tab at the top and start your communication.
For Android
OL PORTAL
By installing it on your smartphone or tablet, you immediately receive all social networks and messengers in one place. Now you don’t need to download each one separately: VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Facebook, Telegram, Skype, WhatsApp... filling the gadget with them. And how much free space will appear immediately!!!
For MAC
Rambox
Using this program, you will no longer need to move from one window to another during correspondence. Essentially, this is an independent application that has the ability to both open in full screen and minimize to tray.
The interface is simple. Each tab is equipped with a specific service. It is important that there is synchronization of user accounts and settings, as a result of which there is no question of connecting your accounts from time to time if you change your computer. By the way, you can block Rambox for safe operation.
Multimessengers are programs that combine several instant messengers and different applications for social networks. Such programs allow you to make working with instant messengers much more convenient - using them, you will not get confused in numerous shortcuts and bookmarks, all instant messengers will be available in one place.
There are not very many such services now, but we tried to collect the most interesting and convenient of them.
1. Rambox
To download it from the official website, click the blue rectangle on the landing page.
Be prepared for the extension icon not to appear in the browser. But you can install a shortcut on your desktop, Start menu, or taskbar. To do this, in the browser menu, go to “Additional tools” > “Extensions” > “Universal messenger” > “More details” > “Create a shortcut”, and then select the location of the shortcut.
Clicking on this shortcut will open a window displaying available applications. Click on the icon of the messenger you want to add.
Then click on the “Add” button (in this case, “Add Facebook Messenger”).
Conclusion: The extension is nice and easy to use - messengers are presented in the form of tabs, between which you can quickly switch. The only negative is that it is not displayed in the browser.
4. IM+ and IM+ Pro
IM+ is a free mobile application available on Google Play and App Store.
It allows you to exchange messages in many popular instant messengers: VKontakte, Mail.Ru Agent, Odnoklassniki, Twitter, Skype, ICQ, Yahoo! etc.
The service allows you to add several accounts of one service, view message history, set personal status, use different sound notifications and emoticons, etc.
In addition to the free version, there is a paid version of the application - IM+ Pro, which can be downloaded on Google Play for 199 rubles and in the App Store for 379 rubles.
I didn’t find any obvious differences between the applications; in addition, both versions have minor problems - for example, Facebook Messenger does not work (although it is listed in the list of supported instant messengers).
Conclusion: Considering that some of the advertised messengers do not work, I would not spend money on a paid version. But it’s worth using the free application - it supports a sufficient number of instant messengers, including VKontakte.
5. Disa
Disa is a new multi-messenger for mobile devices, the beta version of which is available on Google Play. The app will be released on iTunes in the near future.
Disa So far it only works with Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, but the developers promise that new services will be added in the future.
In the application, you can combine correspondence with a specific user from different instant messengers into one dialogue, send SMS and MMS, and also type text using a microphone.
For notifications from different instant messengers, you can set distinctive colors and sound alerts.
Conclusion: There are few messengers in the application, but it has every opportunity for development. You can use this application and wait for updates.
To use or not to use?
So, we looked at 5 multimessengers. Some of them can only be used on a computer, while others can be used on a mobile device.
Even if you use only the most popular social networks and instant messengers, your phone is still probably filled to the brim with applications: Instagram, VKontakte, Facebook, Viber, Skype, Telegram...
You would say goodbye to Skype, but your mother calls on it periodically, you would delete WhatsApp, but you have a couple of friends there who for some reason still only recognize this messenger. So you have to keep everything on hand just in case.
The idea of combining all social networks and instant messengers into one application has been in the air for a long time and worries developers. However, implementations are almost always lame: either you can only view social media feeds, or you lack the ability to post on all social networks, or the list of supported services is very small.
With the OL PORTAL application, you will be able to use all social networks and instant messengers as you are used to, only now they will be under one account.
How to use OL PORTAL
One ring to rule them all.
"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring"
1. Unite all social networks, instant messengers and contacts. Now, when you need to write to someone, you won’t need to remember where exactly you are communicating and open a specific messenger or social network. Find a person in your contact list in OL PORTAL, and you will see all the instant messengers and social networks associated with him, and then you can choose where to send the message. You can send the same message to several instant messengers or social networks at once - in case you don’t know exactly where a person views messages most often.
3. Use a single number for all social networks. When registering in the application, you are assigned an OL number to which you can link all your social networks and instant messengers. Using this number, a person can immediately find you in OL PORTAL and, accordingly, all your social networks. Access can be limited by various privacy settings.
This makes it much easier to exchange contacts: one number instead of a whole list of account names on various social networks that are not always clear to hear.
4. Use a convenient search: look through the social networks of your telephone contacts or enter the OL number of a new acquaintance in the search bar and open his entire social world on the Internet. Also, OL PORTAL will soon have a search by geolocation and photo.
5. Read all the news from social networks in one application. Remember how you usually hang out on social networks: you read Twitter, opened Instagram, then Facebook, then Twitter again (what if something new appeared there during this time?). Perhaps OL PORTAL will be your first step towards saving time while surfing on social networks: you looked at all the news and closed the application, doing other things (in the beta version, the news is presented in browser form).
The OL PORTAL application is available in beta version for Android 5.0 and higher, an iOS application and a web version are in development. Join us and help the developers improve the application with your feedback and comments. Make your communication on social networks more convenient and simpler.
More information on the website olportal.ru.
Are you tired of keeping multiple messaging programs running on different networks? Then try one of the universal messengers described in our review!
Communication in the modern world plays one of the most important roles in a person’s daily life. Technology has already reached the level where everyone can be available online around the clock. However, the problem is that there is no single means of communication...
On the contrary, every year more and more social networks, instant messaging and video calling programs appear. If earlier in order to be in touch it was enough to have ICQ and Skype on your computer, today, due to the advent of Viber, WhatsApp and other telegrams, this is clearly not enough!
The most obvious solution to the problem is to install official clients for all necessary means of communication. However, this option, firstly, is not entirely convenient, since you have to constantly switch between a bunch of windows, and, secondly, it can be very resource-intensive. Therefore, I suggest you look for an alternative solution in the form of a universal messenger.
Classic messengers
I've been a fan of the QIP messaging program for a long time. It combined almost all the communication protocols I needed: ICQ, Mail.Ru, VKontakte, GMail, and, of course, QIP itself, which is essentially a variant of Jabber. Sometimes, as an additional means of communication, it was necessary to turn on Skype, but it was still tolerable.
Recently I had to face the need to install a client for communicating on the Telegram network... And this already made me think: “Isn’t there some kind of universal messenger that would allow us not to create unnecessary programs and, according to the same QIP principle, combine all in one?"
As an old, experienced Windows user, I immediately remembered the multi-protocol messengers Miranda and Pidgin :) Since I was already familiar with Miranda, I decided to start with it, however, it turned out that the project is now going through hard times and access to plugins that If only they could expand the functionality of the program, it is currently available only on a paid basis!
I hadn’t really interacted with Pidgin before, but when I found support for the Telegram protocol in the list of add-ons, I decided to try it. The second time the addon seemed to work. I received an SMS with a code to log into the network, but after trying to send a message, Pidgin crashed with an error...
I spent some time surfing the Internet and realized that classic messengers, even with all sorts of plugins, alas, can no longer provide us with normal communication in modern messaging tools. Therefore, we need to look for alternatives. And they are, however, not entirely in perfect shape...
In fact, all of today’s alternative universal messengers are modified browsers (or add-ons to them), “tailored” to work with online versions of various messaging systems.
Their advantage over opening tabs in regular browsers is the presence of notifications about new messages, as well as simplified login, registration and account management options. The disadvantages, as you should have understood. associated with increased consumption of PC resources. For example, if a classic messenger consumes about 50 MB of memory, then a universal one will require 150 MB or more (depending on the number of connected services).
On the other hand, if we installed our own official client for each communication protocol, then resource consumption would be at the same level, or even higher! Therefore, due to greater convenience and versatility, I think using all-in-one messengers will be a good choice for modern computers.
One of the very first modern universal messengers is:
This is an OpenSource project based on the Chromium engine. It is available for all desktop operating systems (including as a portable version) and supports more than 70 popular instant messaging services and email resources. Supported ones include:
- Skype;
- GMail;
- IRC (two implementation options: IRCCloud and Kiwi IRC);
- Telegram;
- WhatsApp;
- Outlook 365 and others.
Rambox is more focused on Western audiences, so the Russian language and support for many of our popular services (for example, email or Viber, for which there are no alternative clients) are not yet available here. But it is possible to add your own manually! To do this, just click the “_Custom Service” button at the end of the list on the main page and fill out a small form:
In the form for adding a service, you must indicate the name (“Name”), address (“URL”) and, if desired, a link to the logo (“Logo”). It is better to indicate as the address not the main page, but the one where you display messages. In this case, the program will be able to intercept the appearance of new notifications and display them as an alert.
For advanced users, a useful settings section will be "Advanced", which is minimized by default. Here you can enter your own JavaScript code, which can execute any commands. For example, in this way you can set the tab refresh rate for any email service once a minute:
setInterval(function())(location.reload();), 60000);
Among the additional amenities of Rambox, it is worth noting the ability to set up a password login, support for connecting through a proxy server, functions for blocking the working window, as well as storing settings in the cloud and synchronizing them on any computer.
Franz
The closest competitor and alternative to Rambox is a program on the same Chromium engine called Franz:
Unlike Rambox, Franz has a Russian-language (though partially) interface, however, it supports fewer services (about 40 pieces)... The problem is aggravated by the fact that it cannot add new services as easily as in Rambox. Franz has its own mechanism for adding them as plugins, of which more than 20 have already been created to date.
If you are familiar with the JavaScript language, as well as CSS and HTML, then without any problems you can write your own plugin to connect the online service you need (the code is very simple). However, in my opinion, the idea of fencing such a garden for the sake of, in fact, creating a new browser tab is, at least, inconvenient...
Franz does not have any special settings or additional functions. In it you can only turn off notifications, change the interface language and enable/disable autoloading. Nevertheless, due to its simplicity and the presence of the Russian language, I think the program will find its admirers.
If the previous programs were more or less independent, then the developers of the next solution did not bother too much and made an application for Google Chrome under the loud name:
The messenger is installed from the Google Chrome Store, but allows you to create your own shortcuts on the desktop and taskbar for ease of launch and management. Due to the use of the resources of Chrome itself, the memory consumption of the kernel of this messenger is the minimum of all those discussed above (only 1 MB). True, like Chrome, All-in-One Messenger requires additional “feeding” for each new tab, which ranges from 30 to 90 megabytes (depending on the service open on it).
All-in-One Messenger has an arsenal of just over 30 services. Moreover, there are simply no ways to add new ones on your own. But it is the only one out of the box that has support for the XMPP protocol, on which Jabbeer, beloved by many users, runs. Theoretically, this makes it possible to connect any transports, however, in reality, for many there are not enough settings (there is no function for specifying ports and hosts)...
Of the popular protocols in our area, All-in-One Messenger supports WhatsApp, Skype, Telegram, ICQ and Google Hangouts. If among them there are those you need and you are a Google Chrome user, then you may like this solution.
Comparison
By tradition, we will compare the programs described in the article so that you can choose the one that is right for you:
Conclusions
Today, there are practically no truly universal messengers. As sad as it may be, we have to admit the fact that traditional instant messaging clients have practically lost their ground, falling behind technologically by at least 3-4 years...
But, with the development of online services, it has become possible to use web versions of many popular message transfer protocols. This in turn gave rise to a few but interesting solutions. Although they are essentially browsers, they allow you to conveniently combine dozens of modern popular networks for communication.
By almost all indicators, Rambox is the favorite among such universal messengers. It does not have the Russian language, but it is easy to set up, expandable and has the largest number of supported services out of the box. I think that in the near future I will switch to it, but for now it will remain adjacent to my old QIP :)
P.S. Permission is granted to freely copy and quote this article, provided that an open active link to the source is indicated and the authorship of Ruslan Tertyshny is preserved.