How to install Telegram on Kali Linux

 

Telegram messenger, a popular cloud-based alternative to WhatsApp is a cross-platform application that we can install on Kali Linux as well as other operating systems to Chat and access groups & Channels.

Kali Linux which is mainly used by security experts and other users who are learning hacking and penetration testing can also benefit from the Telegram Linux Desktop app; which also claims to be one of the safest ways to chat because of strong message encryption.

Telegram Desktop app installation on Kali Linux

There are two ways to install it on Kali Linux, one is using the SNAP packages (the quickest one) and the other is by manually downloading its Tar.xz file. Here we will show both.

Using SNAP packages

Those who don’t want much hassle can simply use the SNAP command for installing Telegram. Here are the steps to follow:

Install SNAPD on Kali Linux

sudo apt install snapd

Start the Snap daemon  service

sudo systemctl start snapd.service

Enable service to get started automatically with boot

sudo systemctl enable snapd.service

Also, Enable AppArmor

sudo systemctl start snapd.apparmor

sudo systemctl enable snapd.apparmor

Install Telegram on Kali using the SNAP command

sudo snap install telegram-desktop

Run it

snap run telegram-desktop

You will have Telegram on your system… 

Those who don’t want to use the Command Terminal every time to start this messaging app can create a Desktop shortcut.

On terminal type:

cd Downloads wget https://www.how2shout.com/linux/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/icon.png

Right, Click on the Kali Desktop and select the Create Launcher option.

 

In the Command section type- snap run telegram-desktop

Next, click on the No Icon and then the Application icons drop-down box. Select image files. The file explorer gets opened to choose, go to Downloads, and select the telegram icon.

 

Update the Application

In the future, if you want to update the application using snap, then the command is:

sudo snap refresh telegram-desktop

Uninstall via Snap Telegram on Kali

sudo snap remove telegram-desktop

2nd Method using Tar.xz file of Telegram

Download the compressed file of this messenger app. For that simply open the Terminal and run any of the following commands as per your system’s OS version.

• For the 64-bit version

Note: Most of the latest versions of Kali are 64-bit, thus this one is recommended.

wget https://telegram.org/dl/desktop/linux

• For 32-bit version

wget https://telegram.org/dl/desktop/linux32

Extract file

tar -xvf linux

Move the extracted folder of Telegram to /opt directory so that you wouldn’t delete it accidentally.

sudo mv Telegram/ /opt

Run the Telegram app on Kali Linux

/opt/Telegram/./Telegram

After running initially, it will create a shortcut icon to Telegram Desktop in the All Applications area. In the future, the user can simply go there and search for it to use.

 

To update

When we extract the package of this messenger, then we also get another file called Updater which is a script to download the latest updates.

/opt/Telegram/./Updater

Uninstall Telegram manually install the package from Kali Linux

To remove this one, we have to simply delete the folder we have placed in the /opt directory. For that, the command will be:

sudo rm -r /opt/Telegram

After removing the folder, log out and log in again to remove the shortcut icon as well.