Archives For November 30, 1999

WeChat is one of the most popular Chinese social media (instant messaging and payment services) mobile application developed by Tencent.

For desktop computers, there’s an open-source project, electronic-wechat, allows you to run WeChat on Linux, Mac OS.

The application features:

  • Modern UI and all features from Web WeChat.
  • Block message recall.
  • Stickers showing support.
  • Share subscribed passages on Weibo, Qzone, Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, and email.
  • Mention users in a group chat.
  • Drag and drop to send photos.
  • Behaves like a native app, based on dozens of optimization.
  • Removes URL link redirects and takes you directly to blocked websites.
  • Press Esc to hide application windows.

The app is available via Snappy store for all Linux distributions. For Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 16.04, and higher, do following steps to install it:

1. Open terminal via Ctrl+Alt+T or by searching it from app launcher. When it opens, run command to install snapd daemon and snapd-xdg-open if you don’t already have them installed:

sudo apt install snapd snapd-xdg-open

Type in your password (no visual feedback while typing due to security reason) and hit Enter.

2. Then install the wechat app via command:

sudo snap install electronic-wechat

Once installed, launch the desktop app from your app launcher and enjoy!

Uninstall:

To remove the app, run following command in a terminal window:

sudo snap remove electronic-wechat