tdesktop

tdesktop is literally just the official Telegram desktop app in source code form — if you’ve used Telegram on a computer, this is what’s running behind the scenes, and yeah, they actually open-sourced the whole thing which is pretty rare for a chat giant. The MTProto protocol is Telegram’s whole security flex, and being cross-platform with portable and package builds means it runs everywhere without the browser wrapper bloat. 30.9k stars is serious muscle for an open-source project that’s essentially just a desktop skin over the mobile app, but hey, if you want the real deal with no middleman, this is the move.