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Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

pidgin.im

161–170 of 181 posts

Re: Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

#161
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been surprised recently by the availability of plugins for libpurple (the lib on which Adium is based) which supports Telegram, Signal, Facebook …

Modern IM networks aren't a great fit for libpurple because they fundamentally work differently. "Old-school" IM networks like AIM were simple to work with from a client perspective -- you connect to the network, you send and receive messages, and that's it. There was no real support for server-side message history, multiple clients, mobile clients, or offline messaging, so third-party clients often just implemented…

The lack of editing and deleting old messages is (usually) a feature in IRC. It becomes a bug when spammers flood the channel, though.

Re: Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There also used to be plugins for iChat (which later became Messages) that added support for MSN Messenger, making for a no-fuss nicely streamlined chat experience across a decent range of networks (AIM, XMPP/Gchat, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messenger). So between modded iChat and Adium, on Mac OS you had the choice between minimal and kitchen-sink style IM clients, both of which were free and had no ads. OS X had als…

What iChat plugins were there? I found this[1] for IRC but that's it (and I couldn't make it work despite being on an OS from the era). It looks like MSN Messenger didn't require a plugin, it worked because it was XMPP which iChat/Messages supported out of the box, up until High Sierra I think. 1: https://www.cocobit.software/support/

Oh, I got IRC to work! Downloaded the example code from Apple's developer site and compiled: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/samplecode/IRCSe...

Then I had to run "killall imagent" in Terminal for it to work properly. Logged right into OFTC in Messages on OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

So... plugins were supported, but it may well be that the only plugin ever made was literally the example Apple released? :(

Re: Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

#163
post #7

I really miss Adium ( https://adium.im ) which was based on Pidgin's libpurple. Adium had such a great user experience. It was built with native widgets and also incorporated chat themes that were implemented using WebKit's rendering ( https://www.adiumxtras.com/index.php?a=search&cat_id=5&sort=... ). It was fast and memory friendly given that it was a native app and the themes were just small templates offering a di…

There also used to be plugins for iChat (which later became Messages) that added support for MSN Messenger, making for a no-fuss nicely streamlined chat experience across a decent range of networks (AIM, XMPP/Gchat, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messenger). So between modded iChat and Adium, on Mac OS you had the choice between minimal and kitchen-sink style IM clients, both of which were free and had no ads. OS X had als…

I keep hoping that the next version of iOS will include the possibility of adding other instant messaging service backends as iMessage plugins. It would finally unify messaging on iOS.

Re: Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

#164

The plugin to connect Pidgin and Meta/Facebook messenger is dying. I think Pidgin may lose a lot of users if this in not solved. If someone want to help them : - https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook/issues/526 - https://github.com/dequis/purple-facebook/issues/518

Hopefully the new EU ruling will help https://techcrunch.com/2022/03/24/dma-political-agreement/

Re: Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

#165
post #7

I really miss Adium ( https://adium.im ) which was based on Pidgin's libpurple. Adium had such a great user experience. It was built with native widgets and also incorporated chat themes that were implemented using WebKit's rendering ( https://www.adiumxtras.com/index.php?a=search&cat_id=5&sort=... ). It was fast and memory friendly given that it was a native app and the themes were just small templates offering a di…

IIRC I remember meeting an Adium dev at a WWDC. A condition of joining Apple was that he could no longer work on or contribute to Adium in any way. Typical Apple stuff.

Re: Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

#166
post #126
post #15

I love Pidgin. If I want a secure chat between 2 I will forse my buddy to go XMPP OTR

Note that OTRv3 is insecure these days, there is OTRv4 but it isn't ready yet. You are better off using OMEMO with XMPP for now. https://bugs.otr.im/otrv4/otrv4

How exactly is OTRv3 insecure?

Re: Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

#167
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOL definitely took issue with gaim, which was Pidgin's old name from when it was mainly an AIM client. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin_(software)#Naming_dispu...

AOL took issue with most third-party clients - I and a number of other users would periodically get permanently banned from AIM, apparently for the sole crime of using a third-party client they could notice. My friends got used to every 6-12 months seeing that I was messaging them from a new name. But naim was such a nice client before finch was really a thing. (No, I never did anything more exciting than have privat…

> AOL took issue with most third-party clients - I and a number of other users would periodically get permanently banned from AIM, apparently for the sole crime of using a third-party client they could notice. My friends got used to every 6-12 months seeing that I was messaging them from a new name.

Weird, I used Trillian on Windows and Adium on Mac exclusively for years, from 2004 through some time in the mid 2010s when all of my old AIM and ICQ contacts had moved on to Steam and then later Discord. Never had any issues other than the usual stuff where file transfers and the like weren't reliable with third party clients.

Re: Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There also used to be plugins for iChat (which later became Messages) that added support for MSN Messenger, making for a no-fuss nicely streamlined chat experience across a decent range of networks (AIM, XMPP/Gchat, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messenger). So between modded iChat and Adium, on Mac OS you had the choice between minimal and kitchen-sink style IM clients, both of which were free and had no ads. OS X had als…

What iChat plugins were there? I found this[1] for IRC but that's it (and I couldn't make it work despite being on an OS from the era). It looks like MSN Messenger didn't require a plugin, it worked because it was XMPP which iChat/Messages supported out of the box, up until High Sierra I think. 1: https://www.cocobit.software/support/

The MSN plugin was called Cocoon. Its page is available on archive.org[0], but unfortunately images are broken.

[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20121118061309/http://cocoon.dri...

Re: Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

#169
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AOL took issue with most third-party clients - I and a number of other users would periodically get permanently banned from AIM, apparently for the sole crime of using a third-party client they could notice. My friends got used to every 6-12 months seeing that I was messaging them from a new name. But naim was such a nice client before finch was really a thing. (No, I never did anything more exciting than have privat…

> AOL took issue with most third-party clients - I and a number of other users would periodically get permanently banned from AIM, apparently for the sole crime of using a third-party client they could notice. My friends got used to every 6-12 months seeing that I was messaging them from a new name. Weird, I used Trillian on Windows and Adium on Mac exclusively for years, from 2004 through some time in the mid 2010s…

[deleted]

Re: Pidgin: The Universal Chat Client

#170
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that OTRv3 is insecure these days, there is OTRv4 but it isn't ready yet. You are better off using OMEMO with XMPP for now. https://bugs.otr.im/otrv4/otrv4

How exactly is OTRv3 insecure?

Too small encryption keys, using DH instead of RSA or newer encryption etc
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