6 ms·

Facebook Chat supports Jabber now

84 points by ashu 17y ago

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
mdasen 17y ago
So, from what I understand, this is a way for clients like Adium to connect to Facebook chat, but it isn't a way for things like Google Talk to interact with Facebook Chat. That's disappointing. It would have been nice if they announced that they're trying to get interoperability with other networks going.
- rmaccloy 17y ago
  Most people who use FB chat are probably going through the FB site. Dealing with authorization/privacy/spam/abuse for federated users would be a pretty difficult UI/support challenge since it's not integrated with FB's existing friend/profile privacy concepts.
  - mdasen 17y ago
    It's not that difficult. GMail does it. So, xyz@gmail.com requests to add abc@chat.facebook.com to its contact list. In the Facebook web interface, it comes up in the list of groups that you are requested to join, friends to confirm, etc. Privacy settings for vCard stuff (like image) can be the same as they are for Facebook - and Facbeook can use the Jabber ID of the other party (xyz@gmail.com) to see what their Facbeook account is for that or just give the public information (most people have a public profile picture). SPAM and abuse isn't that hard. Remove the person from your contacts. Done. They can't contact you any more. Really, it's the same as if one of your Facbeook friends was creating SPAM or abuse. Basically, it's just "friending" people by Jabber ID rather than by Facebook user id in a "chat contact" status. There are technical challenges to federation and it did take Google a while to implement it. However, the UI, SPAM, and authorization parts don't seem that challenging. And it would be nice if Facebook opened up a bit. And Facebook might be working on this, but I don't think it's a UI issue. In the long run, it will come down to whether Facebook wants to be closed or open and that's a policy decision.
evgen 17y ago
Jabber support for FB Chat is nice, but failing to support SSL/TLS is not really acceptable...
- aaronblohowiak 17y ago
  When would you use FB chat and care about the privacy of the communication?
  - compay 17y ago
    At work, probably.
  - aw3c2 17y ago
    This includes the login I guess...
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
    - philfreo 17y ago
      can someone confirm that login info is sent in the clear? that's pretty terrible.
      - j0 17y ago
        yep. they could have at least supported SASL to have the login info encrypted and then transport the rest of the stream unencrypted, but they did not.
      - kam 17y ago
        They claim they're using DIGEST-MD5, so not quite plaintext, but a broken hash algorithm http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=16742 http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=16742 http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=16741 http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=16741
  - evgen 17y ago
presto10 17y ago
iChat: Add new account in Preferences, select type Jabber, enter username "<username>@chat.facebook.com" (where username is selected in Facebook settings, and you need to logout from Facebook after that change). For password use Facebook password.
- jackowayed 17y ago
  Same idea for pidgin: New account, select XMPP as protocol. Username is your username (which is your slug if you have a custom url. So I'm facebook.com/daniel.jackoway, my username is daniel.jackoway). Domain is chat.facebook.com. Password is your password. Only gotcha is that you then have to go to the "Advanced" tab and uncheck "Require SSL/TLS".
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- MikeCapone 17y ago
  Thank you, it worked. At first I didn't log out after setting my username and that made it hang. That step is important.
- stilist 17y ago
  I’m chatting with someone who hasn’t set a username, and it shows in iChat as uUSERNUMBER@chat.facebook.com. Might work on both sides.
- hachiya 17y ago
  BitlBee: account add jabber FACEBOOK_USERNAME@chat.facebook.com FACEBOOK_PASS account list account add 2 (or whatever number the above list shows is Facebook) # you'll need to do a /whois on your friends and rename them: rename u393222111 John rename u134322433 Bob
  - yurifury 17y ago
    Thank you very much. The renaming is fairly annoying, can anyone think of a way to auto-name users?
ryandvm 17y ago
Kudos. Now will they follow through? I'll be impressed if they indicate they're working towards full server-to-server as Google has done with their XMPP implementation.
- pyre 17y ago
  see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1115963 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1115963
aw3c2 17y ago
Using it seems to force the on-site chat to be enabled.
orborde 17y ago
The Pidgin instructions are incorrect. The "Local Alias" field should be set to your name, not "Facebook Chat", as this field controls what name is printed next to your messages in your local chat window. Unless your name is actually "Facebook Chat", of course.
- etfb 17y ago
  What instructions? I couldn't find any, and so I can't authenticate. In particular, I have no idea what the correct server would be.
  - johns 17y ago
    http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php
  - rlpb 17y ago
    Quick answer: use userid@chat.facebook.com without SSL/TLS. If you don't have a userid you need to create one and log out of Facebook and back in again first.
- brown9-2 17y ago
  "Local Alias" is only seen by you.
swolchok 17y ago
My friend lists correspond to privacy settings, not human-friendly groups (just photos, nothing, professional contacts). They should divorce friend lists from chat groups.
- whatusername 17y ago
  I'm pretty sure that Group:Person is a many-to-many relationship. I have friends in multiple groups.
xenonite 17y ago
wow. Facebook will now know when, where and how long you are online.
- blasdel 17y ago
  They already do, and have for years. Have Facebook open in a tab anywhere? They know.
rmorrison 17y ago
It's annoying that once software products become extremely popular, the developers/companies often start adding features in an attempt to be everything for everyone. This in turn makes the software unusable, because the developers are too overloaded to properly maintain their once core business. Eventually it gets replaced by a new product, and the cycle repeats itself.
- thwarted 17y ago
  I think it was jwz who said something like "every program expands until it can read email" (I'm sure I'm butchering it).
  - sparky 17y ago
    Not butchering it at all, really: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/Z/Zawinskis-Law.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/Z/Zawinskis-Law.html “Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can." -- Jamie Zawinski
    - graywh 17y ago
      So is an update needed? s/read mail/\0 and\/or chat/
- rlpb 17y ago
  I'm not sure that this applies here, though. Facebook is ideally suited to hosting "proper" instant messaging, because it has the added bonus of automatically managing the roster list. I don't need to add anyone, my friends are already all on there. That's a massive bonus over any other instant messenger for many, many people.
mattwdelong 17y ago
I thought it would be a more obvious question, but how do you think this will affect the other big messenger clients/protocols? MSN/YIM/AIM/GTalk ? I already noticed a trend in which a large portion of my friends will use facebook chat now and not even bother to login to MSN Messenger (which is the most popular client in my geographical area).
- dlsspy 17y ago
  gtalk is xmpp, so this will be a boost. However, facebook's xmpp implementation is even more restricted than google's so far. It's not even federated as of yet (not that facebook sees a need for their users to communicate outside of their network). Not federated means things like [twitterspy](http://dustin.github.com/twitterspy/ http://dustin.github.com/twitterspy/) won't work. They also don't pass many stanza types through. For example, I've seen complaints of people trying to send jingle IQs through in order to establish direct connections between two users. That's not there (yet?). However, it does mean that you don't have to get a new chat client. I added another account to adium as xmpp and all's well. Just hoping people don't actually start talking to me over it.
- rlpb 17y ago
  The massive benefit for me is that all my friends are already on Facebook. It's effectively got automatic roster management, which is a killer feature since I don't normally get round to adding people to MSN (which is also the most popular client in my geographical area). I reckon that because Facebook has such a large number of users already, this has the potential to kill the other IM networks. Maybe it's not so good for properly federated XMPP, though, since this also presumably means that Facebook have no real incentive to implement it.
- blasdel 17y ago
  Google could integrate it in the gmail gchat implementation the same way they do AIM -- just log into multiple accounts instead of federating.

84 points by ashu 17y ago

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

So, from what I understand, this is a way for clients like Adium to connect to Facebook chat, but it isn't a way for things like Google Talk to interact with Facebook Chat. That's disappointing. It would have been nice if they announced that they're trying to get interoperability with other networks going.

rmaccloy 17y ago
Most people who use FB chat are probably going through the FB site. Dealing with authorization/privacy/spam/abuse for federated users would be a pretty difficult UI/support challenge since it's not integrated with FB's existing friend/profile privacy concepts.
- mdasen 17y ago
  It's not that difficult. GMail does it. So, xyz@gmail.com requests to add abc@chat.facebook.com to its contact list. In the Facebook web interface, it comes up in the list of groups that you are requested to join, friends to confirm, etc. Privacy settings for vCard stuff (like image) can be the same as they are for Facebook - and Facbeook can use the Jabber ID of the other party (xyz@gmail.com) to see what their Facbeook account is for that or just give the public information (most people have a public profile picture). SPAM and abuse isn't that hard. Remove the person from your contacts. Done. They can't contact you any more. Really, it's the same as if one of your Facbeook friends was creating SPAM or abuse. Basically, it's just "friending" people by Jabber ID rather than by Facebook user id in a "chat contact" status. There are technical challenges to federation and it did take Google a while to implement it. However, the UI, SPAM, and authorization parts don't seem that challenging. And it would be nice if Facebook opened up a bit. And Facebook might be working on this, but I don't think it's a UI issue. In the long run, it will come down to whether Facebook wants to be closed or open and that's a policy decision.

evgen 17y ago

Jabber support for FB Chat is nice, but failing to support SSL/TLS is not really acceptable...

aaronblohowiak 17y ago
When would you use FB chat and care about the privacy of the communication?
- compay 17y ago
  At work, probably.
- aw3c2 17y ago
  This includes the login I guess...
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - philfreo 17y ago
    can someone confirm that login info is sent in the clear? that's pretty terrible.
    - j0 17y ago
      yep. they could have at least supported SASL to have the login info encrypted and then transport the rest of the stream unencrypted, but they did not.
    - kam 17y ago
      They claim they're using DIGEST-MD5, so not quite plaintext, but a broken hash algorithm http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=16742 http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=16742 http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=16741 http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=16741
- evgen 17y ago

presto10 17y ago

iChat: Add new account in Preferences, select type Jabber, enter username "<username>@chat.facebook.com" (where username is selected in Facebook settings, and you need to logout from Facebook after that change). For password use Facebook password.

jackowayed 17y ago
Same idea for pidgin: New account, select XMPP as protocol. Username is your username (which is your slug if you have a custom url. So I'm facebook.com/daniel.jackoway, my username is daniel.jackoway). Domain is chat.facebook.com. Password is your password. Only gotcha is that you then have to go to the "Advanced" tab and uncheck "Require SSL/TLS".
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
MikeCapone 17y ago
Thank you, it worked. At first I didn't log out after setting my username and that made it hang. That step is important.
stilist 17y ago
I’m chatting with someone who hasn’t set a username, and it shows in iChat as uUSERNUMBER@chat.facebook.com. Might work on both sides.
hachiya 17y ago
BitlBee: account add jabber FACEBOOK_USERNAME@chat.facebook.com FACEBOOK_PASS account list account add 2 (or whatever number the above list shows is Facebook) # you'll need to do a /whois on your friends and rename them: rename u393222111 John rename u134322433 Bob
- yurifury 17y ago
  Thank you very much. The renaming is fairly annoying, can anyone think of a way to auto-name users?

ryandvm 17y ago

Kudos. Now will they follow through? I'll be impressed if they indicate they're working towards full server-to-server as Google has done with their XMPP implementation.

pyre 17y ago
see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1115963 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1115963

aw3c2 17y ago

Using it seems to force the on-site chat to be enabled.

orborde 17y ago

The Pidgin instructions are incorrect. The "Local Alias" field should be set to your name, not "Facebook Chat", as this field controls what name is printed next to your messages in your local chat window. Unless your name is actually "Facebook Chat", of course.

etfb 17y ago
What instructions? I couldn't find any, and so I can't authenticate. In particular, I have no idea what the correct server would be.
- johns 17y ago
  http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php http://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php
- rlpb 17y ago
  Quick answer: use userid@chat.facebook.com without SSL/TLS. If you don't have a userid you need to create one and log out of Facebook and back in again first.
brown9-2 17y ago
"Local Alias" is only seen by you.

swolchok 17y ago

My friend lists correspond to privacy settings, not human-friendly groups (just photos, nothing, professional contacts). They should divorce friend lists from chat groups.

whatusername 17y ago
I'm pretty sure that Group:Person is a many-to-many relationship. I have friends in multiple groups.

xenonite 17y ago

wow. Facebook will now know when, where and how long you are online.

blasdel 17y ago
They already do, and have for years. Have Facebook open in a tab anywhere? They know.

rmorrison 17y ago

It's annoying that once software products become extremely popular, the developers/companies often start adding features in an attempt to be everything for everyone. This in turn makes the software unusable, because the developers are too overloaded to properly maintain their once core business. Eventually it gets replaced by a new product, and the cycle repeats itself.

thwarted 17y ago
I think it was jwz who said something like "every program expands until it can read email" (I'm sure I'm butchering it).
- sparky 17y ago
  Not butchering it at all, really: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/Z/Zawinskis-Law.html http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/Z/Zawinskis-Law.html “Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can." -- Jamie Zawinski
  - graywh 17y ago
    So is an update needed? s/read mail/\0 and\/or chat/
rlpb 17y ago
I'm not sure that this applies here, though. Facebook is ideally suited to hosting "proper" instant messaging, because it has the added bonus of automatically managing the roster list. I don't need to add anyone, my friends are already all on there. That's a massive bonus over any other instant messenger for many, many people.

mattwdelong 17y ago

I thought it would be a more obvious question, but how do you think this will affect the other big messenger clients/protocols? MSN/YIM/AIM/GTalk ? I already noticed a trend in which a large portion of my friends will use facebook chat now and not even bother to login to MSN Messenger (which is the most popular client in my geographical area).

dlsspy 17y ago
gtalk is xmpp, so this will be a boost. However, facebook's xmpp implementation is even more restricted than google's so far. It's not even federated as of yet (not that facebook sees a need for their users to communicate outside of their network). Not federated means things like [twitterspy](http://dustin.github.com/twitterspy/ http://dustin.github.com/twitterspy/) won't work. They also don't pass many stanza types through. For example, I've seen complaints of people trying to send jingle IQs through in order to establish direct connections between two users. That's not there (yet?). However, it does mean that you don't have to get a new chat client. I added another account to adium as xmpp and all's well. Just hoping people don't actually start talking to me over it.
rlpb 17y ago
The massive benefit for me is that all my friends are already on Facebook. It's effectively got automatic roster management, which is a killer feature since I don't normally get round to adding people to MSN (which is also the most popular client in my geographical area). I reckon that because Facebook has such a large number of users already, this has the potential to kill the other IM networks. Maybe it's not so good for properly federated XMPP, though, since this also presumably means that Facebook have no real incentive to implement it.
blasdel 17y ago
Google could integrate it in the gmail gchat implementation the same way they do AIM -- just log into multiple accounts instead of federating.