/Telegram-FOSS

Unofficial, FOSS-friendly fork of the original Telegram client for Android

Primary LanguageCGNU General Public License v2.0GPL-2.0

Telegram-FOSS

Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security. It’s superfast, simple and free.

This is an unofficial, FOSS-friendly fork of the original Telegram App for Android.

This version of Telegram is available on FDroid:

Get it on F-Droid

Current Maintainers

Discussion

Join the Telegram-FOSS Offtopics group

Changes:

Replacement of non-FOSS, untrustworthy or suspicious binaries or source code:

  • Do location sharing with OpenStreetMap instead of Google Maps
  • Use emojiOne emoji set instead of Apple's emoji
  • Google Play Services GCM replaced with always-on Telegram's push service
  • BoringSSL bundled source and binaries are replaced with upstream OpenSSL source code built at compile time
  • FFmpeg prebuilts are replaced with source code built at compile time

Removal of non-FOSS, untrustworthy or suspicious binaries or source code and their functionality:

  • Google Vision face detection
  • Google Wallet and Android Pay integration
  • Bing image search (requires API key)
  • Foursquare map search (requires API key)
  • HockeyApp crash reporting and self-updates

Versioning

This repository contains tags to make tracking versions easier.

Versions are in form "v$UPSTREAM$RELEASE" where:

  • $UPSTREAM is the public, visible version of upstream.
  • $RELEASE is a letter ([a-z]) indicating minor releases between official versions (sometimes, upstream is updated without relating the changes to an specific version).

API, Protocol documentation

Telegram API manuals: https://core.telegram.org/api

MTproto protocol manuals: https://core.telegram.org/mtproto

Building

Important:

  1. You need the Android-NDK to build the apk.

  2. Don't forget to include the submodules when you clone:

    • git clone --recursive https://github.com/Telegram-FOSS-Team/Telegram-FOSS.git

  3. If you want to publish a modified version of Telegram:

    • You should get your own API key here: https://core.telegram.org/api/obtaining_api_id and update the file src/main/java/org/telegram/messenger/BuildVars.java accordingly
    • Do not use the name Telegram and the standard logo (white paper plane in a blue circle) for your app — or make sure your users understand that it is unofficial
    • Take good care of your users' data and privacy
    • Please remember to publish your code too in order to comply with the licenses

  4. Building under Windows may be problematic and won't be fixed

The project can be built with Android Studio or from the command line with gradle:

./gradlew assembleFatRelease