Franz: Make login optional when using the free features

[ruippeixotog]

Feature Description

When people want to use only the free version features of Franz, they should not be required to create and login into a Franz account.

Motivation and Context

Many people using a standalone app for messaging are concerned with the privacy of their communications. For those people, it makes no sense to create an account and log in into a third-party service when all they want is to use chat services directly.

[adlk]

I totally understand that not everyone is happy with the decision to add required Franz accounts.
I can assure you that either with or without a Franz account, your messaging stays untouched – as it always has been.

As I'm always open for concerns, I'm not going to dismiss this issue but I'm assigning it a low priority for now.
As soon as we've hit a more stable status and figured out the role of the community in the long run I'm happy to re-evaluate this in the context of the long term goals.

Please don't get me wrong, from a growth perspective alone, it might make a lot of sense but I don't want to jump lightheadedly into this.

[DarkMio]

I believe that the addition of an additional login is sore for most people, since there's no personal gain from having one account. It's at least a reason for me to switch to Rambox for now.

[rherwig]

I think, the benefit of syncing services across devices is a nice benefit. But I totally see, that some people are concerned with creating an account - which is the case at my workplace. Like 30 people said, they would not upgrade to v5.

Have you considered SSO with e.g. Google?

[ruippeixotog]

While I believe that the messages themselves are safe, even the concept of storing the list of accounts raises privacy concerns; in particular, the ability to match multiple user identities is valuable to advertisers.

In fact, for these chat client apps I always use Little Snitch to block requests to servers other than the messaging providers.

Even though I like Franz and used it for quite a while, there are enough open-source alternatives to make this new requirement a deal breaker for me...

[gcarvalho]

TBH, the whole concept of yet another account is becoming an impediment in acceptance of new projects/apps/services. Every day someone who was 100% sure their credential db's were safe and private has to go through the embarrassment of publicly admitting they were hacked.
Please, at least offer the option of accepting a trusted 3rd party service for authentication or, even better, no account unless it's needed to provide a requested service, such as synchronization across devices.
If the user doesn't want synchronization or a similar server-side functionality, let them not have an account.

And, before you dismiss this message as lacking in commercial sensitivities, do keep in mind I'm perfectly aware of the advantages from a business perspective of having registered accounts for users, but you want people to want your app enough to actually overcome their reluctance to give you login credentials (yes, I work in e-commerce).

[adlk]

SSO with Google, Facebook and Slack is on my todo list.

[Meaglin]

I switched to rambox because rocketchat was broken, after reading this it is clear that franz does not deserve a second chance

[GustavoKatel]

Maybe one option is to add anonymous accounts. I don't think this would affect that much the current architecture. So if you do not want an account, Franz could create an unique and anonymous account automatically. And of course, you lose some features such as sync across devices. Would that be a turn out?

[Meaglin]

That would solve absolutely nothing, the whole point of having no account is that no data is synced online. An anonymous account would not achieve this.

The correct solution would be the option to run Franz in "offline" mode(not connecting to any Franz server) without any form of account.

[LeonardoGentile]

Thanks for all your efforts for developing this nice and neat app, I love it.

Now, sorry, I like the app very much but I'm not giving you my credential so that you might (I don't accuse you do) know with one single id all the services I use. That's an information just too valuable that might cause big troubles if in the wrong hands (or stolen).

I'm switching to alternatives if this is the only way to use the app.

[e1782753]

I was shocked by the login requirement in v5 and stopped using it immediately. I saw Franz as a local app for my chat services and cloud sync is just scary and unnecessary.

[marcus-at-localhost]

Same concerns as everybody posting before me. Glad I kept the version 4.x setup.exe.
Franz account should be optional and additionally provide json export for manual import (which is basically just a list of services and maybe their settings).

[keawade]

Yeah, this is a deal breaker for me. I'm switching to Rambox.

[GeeBee93]

I need to agree with all previous posts - I immediately uninstalled Franz after I saw that it is neccessary to create an account. Can somebody please explain it to me for which reason I do need an account? It will sync through all devices, but without Username or Password for services (which would be very concerning and scary btw)? And for that I do need one more account - I wanted to start using Franz because I already have a lot of accounts and not to be forced to create another one.

[gunnarbeutner]

From a privacy-centric perspective this is a terrible change. Looks like rambox is the way to go for me.

[Kovah]

@adlk I'm sad to say this but you lost a loyal user today. Used Franz for such a long time and was very happy with it... but the registration is a no-go for me. 😞
Evaluating Rambox now.

[JanJastrow]

Also going back to v4 for now -- Don't try to be something more then a web-wrapper.
I guess since v5 is now open source, someone can create a fork that removes the login/registration & bitcoin-miner.

[DarkMio]

@JanJastrow Actually a decent idea - as this is licensed under Apache 2.0, it's actually doable.

[alecive]

Guys, he got it. You don't have to complain every two seconds about the same thing or threaten to leave the app. It's fine if you leave, it's fine if you stay, do whatever the heck you want but there is little point to do nothing but complaining.

@adlk said he's going to fix this at some point, so please be patient 😎

@adlk for the sake of sanity, you could lock this issue to prevent any further (useless) comment - and maybe unlock it when you start developing a fix!

[ruippeixotog]

@alecive while I agree that many of the comments above do not convey additional information, I think that you're considering this a bug that can someone can "fix", instead of what it really is: a business decision from @adlk. I'm pretty sure that if someone submitted a pull request with what @JanJastrow suggested, it wouldn't be readily accepted.

This issue and the discussion created here is about users showing their disagreement with a business decision that was taken, not complaining about a bug. You could close this if you don't want to hear anymore about it, but it would probably be taken as a signal that Franz's move to make the project open-source is more of a PR stunt than a call for users to really contribute with ideas and opinions.

[adlk]

There has been so much going on that I want to make a short statement.

I'm pretty sure that if someone submitted a pull request with what @JanJastrow suggested, it wouldn't be readily accepted.

I invite you or everyone else to propose a PR that is thought through in terms of architecture, UX and that combines an accountless solution while enabling support for the Franz account. Please take your time as this is not a task that can, and should be done reckless and especially driven by anger.

...instead of what it really is: a business decision from @adlk.

You are completely right. It was a 100% business driven decision. Over the last one and a half years, I've worked several thousand hours to build Franz, do customer support, build the ecosystem and cater to the community. All for free.

I understand where your critisism is coming from, but I simply can't afford to work for free any longer. Earlier this year, I had two options with Franz. Shut down the project or reboot Franz as Franz 5 with all the decisions I've made to finally be able do what I love most – to work on Franz.

Franz has grown to a huge userbase that is not longer maintainable as a sole developer.

This issue and the discussion created here is about users transmitting their disagreement with a business decision that was taken, not complaining about a bug. You could close this if you don't want to hear anymore about it, but it would probably be taken as a signal that Franz's move to make the project open-source is more of a PR stunt than a call for users to really contribute with ideas and opinions.

Everyone is invited to contribute to make Franz better. However, just being against something isn't helping anyone.

Please understand that I'm going to lock this issue tomorrow morning (CET) as the feature request has been made very clear. This is the issue and feature tracker and not a place to vent. If you want to reach out to me, contact me via email or on Twitter.

PS: That I don't care about the community is nothing else than an ad hominem argument, please stay fair and objective. The reason why Franz is open source is a promise I've made earlier this year to the community. A promise which I kept.

[ruippeixotog]

@adlk let me be clear about one thing: I have no quarrel whatsoever with any business decision taken by you for Franz. I understand that you dedicate a lot of effort to this product and it's only fair that you want to take something from it, too. Franz has a much more polished UI and is more resilient than the alternatives, and ultimately it's up to the users to decide what alternative to use by measuring their advantages and disadvantages.

I'm sorry if my latest comment felt like a personal attack to you. It was because I felt that this discussion was being reduced to people complaining about a bug with a fix, while this is actually a design decision with implications other than technological. By what you replied to me some weeks ago:

As soon as we've hit a more stable status and figured out the role of the community in the long run I'm happy to re-evaluate this in the context of the long term goals.

I really thought that a solution without mandatory Franz accounts "wouldn't be readily accepted". If I understood that wrong then I'm sorry for that too, but the way you said it really felt that way.

I kind of disagree that "just being against something isn't helping anyone" is necessarily useless. You may find that comments may not be the best way to convey the community's opinion, but I think that a channel for you to know how many users are leaving Franz because of this and their concerns is useful for you.

[adlk]

My best interest is in moving Franz forward and establish a flourishing community around it.
However, there is no long term experience in working together with a dev centric community as Franz is now ~2 weeks publicly available as an OSS.

Right now I'm trying to figure out:

• who is willing to help
• what can be done by the community
• how can I repay the community
• how can we make efficient decisions together

Basically, right now it's about to figure out how can we work together to move forward on the long run while trying to keep the organizational overhead to a minimum.

I really thought that a solution without mandatory Franz accounts "wouldn't be readily accepted"

A project like providing an alternative to the mandatory Franz accounts is something that has so many implications – not only in the app but also the way the backend is built. This is almost like creating an entirely new app.
Franz 5 was in testing with a few hundred users for more than 3 months and we are not even close to be feature complete yet. The same is necessary with such a drastic change. It's a huge undertaking which needs to be evaluated very carefully and then designed and implemented with even more precision. The learnings stated above –
knowing the role of the community – is helping enormously to plan and implement this.

It will be possible to run Franz without an account at one point but please understand that I'm not just going to jump on this and block my resources as there is an endless amount of more urgent work – everything has its right time and place.

I kind of disagree that "just being against something isn't helping anyone" is necessarily useless. You may find that comments may not be the best way to convey the community's opinion, but I think that a channel for you to know how many users are leaving Franz because of this and their concerns is useful for you.

I am totally aware of that and Franz wouldn't be what it is if I had ignored the community in the first place.

Every day I receive hundreds of emails, tweets and messages on every messaging service possible. I am very much aware of what the issues and main concerns of users are. Since there is such a huge amount of information coming in, I need to be able to route it where I can work with it best. Every channel has its purpose and Github's purpose is to track issues and features and to work with the dev community.