4 ms·

There was a brief period of time where I was able to use IRC, Facebook and MSN from the same client: Pidgin https://pidgin.im/ https://pidgin.im/

nik736 4y ago
Yes, I remember using Pidgin, awesome times.
LinuxBender 4y ago
Adding to that Pidgin has a nice plugin called OTR that enables E2EE regardless of the platform/transport being used. OTR exists for Weechat [1] as well. [1] - https://github.com/mmb/weechat-otr https://github.com/mmb/weechat-otr
- rjzzleep 4y ago
  Signal encryption was born out of OTR, because of the need to do the key exchanges while one party is offline.
  - LinuxBender 4y ago
    I am not a fan of offline key exchanges through a centralized privacy-focused server as in, the server stores a key. Moxie knows why too. I wish he would come here so we could have that discussion. Perhaps I am old fashioned but I prefer military procedure of go for authentication in an out-of-band communication and verifying via voice each others key fingerprints or better, physically exchanging keys in person.
sva_ 4y ago
ICQ as well
- doublerabbit 4y ago
  WarSheep
brandon272 4y ago
I miss this a lot. Trillian and Adium were a couple of other clients that allowed this. It was really nice to have some choice among what client to use.
- vanilla_nut 4y ago
  I fondly remember iChat from my younger years. XMPP was incredibly powerful -- I would kill for a single client app for signal, telegram, facebook messenger, whatsapp, and more today.
  - brokenmachine 4y ago
    Matrix can do a lot of that using bridges.
  - Zash 4y ago
    XMPP is still around and alive. Have you seen https://sr.ht/~nicoco/slidge/ https://sr.ht/~nicoco/slidge/ ? No need to resort to murder.
    - jeroenhd 4y ago
      The lack of proper group support as indicated by the readme would make this bridge entirely useless to me. There are individual bridges out there that can fix that, though.
  - jedberg 4y ago
    > I would kill for a single client app for signal, telegram, facebook messenger, whatsapp, and more today. https://www.beeper.com https://www.beeper.com
  - grishka 4y ago
    I've been thinking about building one. I currently have too many other projects though, so this is going to be my next one, when I'm more or less satisfied with my ActivityPub server. It's so strange that no one has even tried to fill the niche for a modern desktop multi-protocol IM app. The one I have in mind would be properly-desktop though — multiple windows, 100% native controls, complete ignorance towards touchscreens, etc.
l72 4y ago
I still use pidgin daily for jabber, slack, and a custom protocol I wrote for the chat feature in my company's product. It is great having a unified tool with minimal resource usage that is fully integrated into your platform.
whatiskolnprob 4y ago
It was not the client but all the companies using Jabber/XMPP protocol for their products. Many clients including Empathy and Kopete allowed this at the time.
- maineldc 4y ago
  That's not really true. These clients often reversed engineered other chat protocols and thus supported services that didn't support Jabber / XMPP. This was before e2e encryption was the norm so it was easier to do.
- SllX 4y ago
  These were all multi-protocol clients supporting more than XMPP because MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and AIM all had their own thing. I believe Facebook was always its own thing but they exposed an XMPP proxy. Only Google Talk really relied on XMPP from the start but it was pretty much a token player in the market until two things happened: 1. They integrated with Gmail making Google Talk readily available to Google’s entire Gmail user base without installing a separate Windows-only client (or finding a compatible messenger, iChat ended up natively supporting XMPP within a couple of years) and 2. Instant Messaging went into rapid decline as users switched to mobile-first messengers (IMing was always a desktop-centric experience and the various pre-existing protocols were not battery efficient and you typically had to have the client open and active to be signed in).
Pxtl 4y ago
My fave was Miranda-IM. Windows-only but did a wonderful job of sticking to native windows API and so was very lightweight and native-feeling in an era when that really mattered for performance.
luxcem 4y ago
For a brief period Facebook was the biggest XMPP server, it was fun using OTR[1] on Facebook messenger. I think Whatsapp is still using XMPP under the hood but the server is closed. [1] https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/OTR https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/OTR
- senkora 4y ago
  I remember they eventually added a feature to pretty-print OTR’d messages as something like <OTR encrypted message>. When I saw that I figured they were aware and would soon start blocking it.
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  Google Hangouts used to use xmpp too. The bigger they get, the less they want to interoperate.
- digianarchist 4y ago
  OMEMO appears to be superior to OTR last time I looked. https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0384.html https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0384.html
driscoll42 4y ago
Bringing back old memories of using Pidgin all the time. I miss having one service for all communication.
conor- 4y ago
You can do that today with Matrix and whatever client you want (albeit with much more friction than what was previously possible). There a bunch of bridges[0] available for pretty much any communication network you can think of and some people even go so far as to use their Matrix client for email too. [0] https://matrix.org/bridges/ https://matrix.org/bridges/
odiroot 4y ago
Libpurple powered the messaging on Nokia N900. It was really a great experience, seamlessly using the same app for SMS, FBM, Skype, Google Chat and few others.

nik736 4y ago

Yes, I remember using Pidgin, awesome times.

LinuxBender 4y ago

Adding to that Pidgin has a nice plugin called OTR that enables E2EE regardless of the platform/transport being used. OTR exists for Weechat [1] as well. [1] - https://github.com/mmb/weechat-otr https://github.com/mmb/weechat-otr

rjzzleep 4y ago
Signal encryption was born out of OTR, because of the need to do the key exchanges while one party is offline.
- LinuxBender 4y ago
  I am not a fan of offline key exchanges through a centralized privacy-focused server as in, the server stores a key. Moxie knows why too. I wish he would come here so we could have that discussion. Perhaps I am old fashioned but I prefer military procedure of go for authentication in an out-of-band communication and verifying via voice each others key fingerprints or better, physically exchanging keys in person.

sva_ 4y ago

ICQ as well

doublerabbit 4y ago
WarSheep

brandon272 4y ago

I miss this a lot. Trillian and Adium were a couple of other clients that allowed this. It was really nice to have some choice among what client to use.

vanilla_nut 4y ago
I fondly remember iChat from my younger years. XMPP was incredibly powerful -- I would kill for a single client app for signal, telegram, facebook messenger, whatsapp, and more today.
- brokenmachine 4y ago
  Matrix can do a lot of that using bridges.
- Zash 4y ago
  XMPP is still around and alive. Have you seen https://sr.ht/~nicoco/slidge/ https://sr.ht/~nicoco/slidge/ ? No need to resort to murder.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    The lack of proper group support as indicated by the readme would make this bridge entirely useless to me. There are individual bridges out there that can fix that, though.
- jedberg 4y ago
  > I would kill for a single client app for signal, telegram, facebook messenger, whatsapp, and more today. https://www.beeper.com https://www.beeper.com
- grishka 4y ago
  I've been thinking about building one. I currently have too many other projects though, so this is going to be my next one, when I'm more or less satisfied with my ActivityPub server. It's so strange that no one has even tried to fill the niche for a modern desktop multi-protocol IM app. The one I have in mind would be properly-desktop though — multiple windows, 100% native controls, complete ignorance towards touchscreens, etc.

l72 4y ago

I still use pidgin daily for jabber, slack, and a custom protocol I wrote for the chat feature in my company's product. It is great having a unified tool with minimal resource usage that is fully integrated into your platform.

whatiskolnprob 4y ago

It was not the client but all the companies using Jabber/XMPP protocol for their products. Many clients including Empathy and Kopete allowed this at the time.

maineldc 4y ago
That's not really true. These clients often reversed engineered other chat protocols and thus supported services that didn't support Jabber / XMPP. This was before e2e encryption was the norm so it was easier to do.
SllX 4y ago
These were all multi-protocol clients supporting more than XMPP because MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and AIM all had their own thing. I believe Facebook was always its own thing but they exposed an XMPP proxy. Only Google Talk really relied on XMPP from the start but it was pretty much a token player in the market until two things happened: 1. They integrated with Gmail making Google Talk readily available to Google’s entire Gmail user base without installing a separate Windows-only client (or finding a compatible messenger, iChat ended up natively supporting XMPP within a couple of years) and 2. Instant Messaging went into rapid decline as users switched to mobile-first messengers (IMing was always a desktop-centric experience and the various pre-existing protocols were not battery efficient and you typically had to have the client open and active to be signed in).

Pxtl 4y ago

My fave was Miranda-IM. Windows-only but did a wonderful job of sticking to native windows API and so was very lightweight and native-feeling in an era when that really mattered for performance.

luxcem 4y ago

For a brief period Facebook was the biggest XMPP server, it was fun using OTR[1] on Facebook messenger. I think Whatsapp is still using XMPP under the hood but the server is closed. [1] https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/OTR https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/OTR

senkora 4y ago
I remember they eventually added a feature to pretty-print OTR’d messages as something like <OTR encrypted message>. When I saw that I figured they were aware and would soon start blocking it.
brokenmachine 4y ago
Google Hangouts used to use xmpp too. The bigger they get, the less they want to interoperate.
digianarchist 4y ago
OMEMO appears to be superior to OTR last time I looked. https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0384.html https://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0384.html

driscoll42 4y ago

Bringing back old memories of using Pidgin all the time. I miss having one service for all communication.

conor- 4y ago

You can do that today with Matrix and whatever client you want (albeit with much more friction than what was previously possible). There a bunch of bridges[0] available for pretty much any communication network you can think of and some people even go so far as to use their Matrix client for email too. [0] https://matrix.org/bridges/ https://matrix.org/bridges/

odiroot 4y ago

Libpurple powered the messaging on Nokia N900. It was really a great experience, seamlessly using the same app for SMS, FBM, Skype, Google Chat and few others.