Chat on Facebook from Pidgin

After Facebook announced its XMPP chat protocol support I decided to give it a try and use it since I already used Pidgin as my instant messaging client. The settings are simple but somehow the average user finds them after some tedious Google searches. Here are the steps you should follow for setting up Facebook’s chat in Pidgin:

1. (if you already have a Facebook username skip this step) create your Facebook username by going to Account » Account Settings in your Facebook account;
   
2. in Pidgin go to Accounts » Manage Accounts ([CTRL] + [A]) and click on Add;
3. use this information for your account:

   protocol: XMPP
   username: your Facebook username
   domain:   chat.facebook.com
   resource: your hostname (computer's name)
   password: your Facebook account's password
   local alias: your name
   

4. go to the Advanced tab and deselect “Require SSL/TLS”; the connect port should be 5222 and the connect server should be chat.facebook.com and everything else should be left blank (except for the custom smileys check-box which is optional);
5. once you’re done click on Add;
6. in the Accounts window check the new created account.

Now play jokes on the people who are at work and waste their time on Facebook!

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