Back in 2010, I wrote a very little software review on “Pidgin“. In that post I showed how you can use Pidgin with some popular chat Protocols like Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk etc. At that period of time we had to use Plugin to chat with our Facebook friends. Nearly after two years, we don’t need that anymore.
All you have to do is just to download the Pidgin Software from it’s official web site for your Operating System. Yes, it supports both Windows and Mac. I am pretty sure, if you are a Linux user then you Pidgin very well. In fact, Pidgin was originally made for Linux Operating Systems.
Once downloaded and Installed, you can follow these steps to start chatting with your Facebook friends from Pidgin.
Step 1: Double click on the Pidgin icon to run the application. If you are using it for the first time, it will show you a Window from where you can add different chat protocols. Click “Add” from the window. If you are already logged in with some other chat Protocols then you can click on “Accounts > Manager Accounts” from the main window. Another window will pop-up (look at the snap shot).
Step 2: At this point, from the Protocol drop down menu select “Facebook (XMPP)”. Add your user name, you can find your user name from the URL of your Facebook profile. If you can’t find it for some reason, simply log in to your Facebook account and go to your profile. Look at the URL of your profile from the web browser’s address box. Anything after the “www.facebook.com/” would be your username. So, type it on
Step 3: Don’t change the Domain information. Type the password on “Password” field and keep the “Resource” field as the way it is.
Step 4: From the “User Options”, type something on “Local alias” field. This info would be used as your name when you are chatting with you Facebook buddy. If you skip this part you will see something like “username@chat.facebook.com/f592b289_4B6E97BDE5B17″ as your name when you are chatting with your friends. I bet you won’t like it. So, write something and hit the “Add” button.
Yes, you are pretty much done with your part. Within couple of seconds you will see your available buddy list from the main window. Double click on any name you can start chatting right away. However, you must remember that this software won’t allow you to make any sort of audio of video call. So, if you are up to audio, video thing, this software is definitely not for you.
Another great thing about this software is, it will allow you to use nearly every single chat protocol you may have been using. Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, MySPace, IRC, you name it. Pidgin will let you use that. However, if you can’t find your chat protocol for any reason, I would suggest you to check out the Plugin section of Pidgin’s home page. There are bunch of plugins available for this little software. You can’t go wrong. Enjoy.
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