After months of requests, Slack has released a standalone app for Windows. Until now, those on Windows machines could only use Slack through a browser. The app is fast and provides a similar user experience to its Mac counterpart. It works on Windows 7 and above, including the Windows 10 preview.

Instead of using a browser tab for each team you’re connected to, the app has a team switcher on the left sidebar. Each team has its own notification count and you can easily switch between them using keyboard shortcuts.

There’s a few other features as well, but the most important one for me is its performance. When I used Slack in FireFox, it routinely bogged down the browser to the point of having to close it. Now that Slack is a standalone app on Windows, I don’t have to worry about my browser slowing to a crawl. It’s also nice to be able to run Slack in the background without it using a lot of resources.

With more than 30% of Slack’s users running Windows, it’s nice to finally have an option that’s on par with the experience Mac users have enjoyed for months.

Source: WP Tavern