Like it or not, this web technology thing is not a fad and is going to be sticking around for the time being. I think this is great and terrible all at the same time. The great thing is, this means that I am free to use my preferred operating system for which I do my work. The negative is that web applications tend to be a bit heavy and therefore limits the hardware that can use these technologies. The other negative is, this causes me to pin a LOT of tabs in my browser which can get a bit clumsy. What Ferdium does is take these various services and allows me to pull them all to a single application as a kind of container to access and utilize them. The question I am going to answer here is whether or not Ferdium is any better than using a browser or the native app to access these various services.
Bottom Line Up Front: Yes and no but mostly yes. I have been using Ferdium now for over six months and I have it tuned to work well for me. I also want to add that Ferdium works great for more than just chat clients but also doesn’t work great with all chat clients. Overall, Ferdium has been an incredible efficiency enhancement and I will continue to use it for the foreseeable future.
Installation
The easiest and most reliable method of running Ferdium, for me, is the AppImage. I do use AppImage Launcher so that makes the AppImage integrate like a first-class app, citizen. It’s really pretty great.
Ferdium can be downloaded from here:
https://github.com/ferdium/ferdium-app/releases
Once I downloaded the AppImage, I ran it where AppImage Launcher automatically integrated it into the menu and launched it.
Start Ferdium without an account. I am considering creating a free account but for the time being, I think I would prefer to just keep everything local.
When Ferdium starts, you are greeted with a blank slate and what looks a bit like a mustache for its logo. Select “Get Started” to begin adding the various web based services.
Lots of account options available. Just about everything you might want is here, even things I have never heard of. How many of these kinds of services are out there?
Started out initially for SMS messages with Android phones. This is the biggest gain I can add for productivity. I require access to my phone for many work related reasons so having messages available on my laptop is far more useful than using the phone. I could use KDE Connect but there are often more issues with consistency in connecting when moving networks, even when using Tailscale. Ferdium makes this slightly more convenient than just using a browser.
I searched “Messages” and selected the Android variety in that list.
Setting this up is just as easy as using the web browser of your choice. Just scan the QR Code and you are off to the races. This is a fantastic feature that Google lets you use with your Android phone. Truly, I am quite grateful for this.
And that is it. Your messages will populate in the window, just like you would experience if using this in any other browser.
This is such a great feature that is provided by the Google / Android world which makes communicating via SMS so much more efficient, with a real keyboard on a laptop sized monitor.
Although just fixing this one communication portal would be enough to make Ferdium awesome, the advantage here is a collection of services.
To add a new “service,” you have three ways to get there. In the lower left part of the vertical service dock / menu which is a square with a plus in the center, under the services menu or by pressing, Ctrl+N.
The other communication application that was a must for me to add to this system is Discord. Discord is quite possibly the most irritating communication platform I use. I want to like it but it just doesn’t like me back.
I didn’t make any special modifications for this application. Though, it’s nice to know it’s there..
The simplicity with adding these web-based applications prompted me to add several others. Another client that I am not so crazy about are any of the Matrix clients. They are fine but I really didn’t need to have yet another entry in my task manager so I selected SchildiChat.
The next thing I did was to search to see what other things were available to my pleasant surprise, Home Assistant was there so I added it.
Then I thought, “Can I add other often pinned tabs from my browser?” What was of interest to me was having quick access to some forums I frequent, those include openSUSE, TuxDigital, and Framework. Using the Custom Website option as a kind of “catch-all” for anything not listed. I started adding anything I wanted. Quick access to these forums is extremely convenient for staying connected to the various enthusiast communities out there.
From here, add the name of the service and its URL.
Then I thought, how handy it would be to have OctoPrint for my 3D Printer readily available on my C64x so that when I’m sending prints, the interface is always ready and waiting for me.
So then I got a bit crazy and started adding all sorts of things. This includes Falcon Player for my Christmas / Festive Light display, the cellular uplink device for my Internet and maybe one of the most useful, Simplenote. I use the app on my mobile frequently and going to a the website or using the application was less convenient so this was the route I went with it and I think this is a perfect use for Ferdium too.
This is now my centralized hub for all the major things I use but it does lead me to ask, why use Ferdum over a web browser? That answer is convenience. I certainly do not need to use Ferdium to accomplish these tasks but I absolutely want it over the alternative options.
You could very easily create a Firefox or Chrome profile that has all of these services pinned and create a special application launcher for that profile but frankly, using Ferdium is just a far, far simpler interface to do this task. Bonus feature, you can mute ALL the notifications from these services with a simple right-click on the system tray icon. The big takeaway here is that Ferdium is convenient and a splendid, neatly crafted container for your communications applications.
Super Cool Feature
There is this Workspaces feature where you can have different arrangements of these services for different functions. I don’t use it enough and I need to figure out how exactly I should. The idea here is that one could set up a different smattering of services based on what “hat” you are wearing. Lets say you do work for a non-profit or have a side gig where you need to arrange a series of sites that you access to perform specific tasks. This might work well for that. I don’t know that I have quite figured out how I want to use this, but regardless, it is an awesome feature
What I Like
On a per application basis, there is a Dark Mode option if the application itself doesn’t support it. This is great for the awful, light themed, interface that are irritatingly blinding. Thankfully that is less common now than historically but there ARE still those that need the Dark Mode enabled.
Having persistent availability of specific, heavily used services from messaging platforms, social media like Twitter/X and Mastodon along with forums there and ready to go makes scanning through these locations far, far more efficient.
Having access to the controls to mute notifications and go “distraction free” has been regularly valuable to have. Whether I am doing a Linux Saloon live stream or getting ready to record for Linux Out Loud, perhaps the one-off videos I do from time to time, being able to mute notifications is critical.
What I Don’t Like
If I want to open a channel invite into Discord, I can’t send it into Ferdium. I will still have to open Discord in the browser. It would be nice, though I am quite certain that it would be technically quite challenging to accomplish this. I am content with the current arrangement. This is more of an edge case as opposed to a regular occurrence.
When I wake the computer up from sleep, I will have to refresh some of the services. It is not always automatic that they restore. The quick fix is pressing Ctrl+R to restore the single service or alternatively, pressing ctrl+shift+R will restart all of the services. It is only annoying when I miss some text messages or something for an extended period of time.
I tried to use Telegram with Ferdium but it was just not successful. I used it for quite some time but the web interface for Telegram is not as good as the native client. It is usable but became less enjoyable to use.
Final Thoughts
Ferdium is not the first application like this I have used. I have previously used Franz and Wavebox which are very similar but there was this account aspect of it that I found inhibiting. Ferdium doesn’t require an account and that makes it work better for me.
I have been using this regularly now for over 6 months and unless I find a better way of managing services, I will continue to use Ferdium. This makes it much easier to manage the various service in a centralized location. Having the messages outside of Firefox or Chromium also makes it a lot easier to quickly find and respond.
Ferdium is certainly not a necessary application to be productive but it does make for operating with a little more efficiency by getting rid of the hunt in the sea of windows and workspaces. Outside of Microsoft Teams and Telegram, this has consolidated everything as well as seriously cleaned up my Linux Desktop. Ferdium is pretty rad.
References
https://ferdium.org/
Ferdum App Releases
Franz | Chat Messaging Unification Application on openSUSE
Wavebox | Chat Unification Snap Application on openSUSE Tumbleweed
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