{"id":10780,"date":"2010-01-26T21:00:12","date_gmt":"2010-01-26T15:30:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/?p=10780"},"modified":"2014-11-13T21:57:25","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T16:27:25","slug":"facebook-chat-instant-messengers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2010\/01\/facebook-chat-instant-messengers\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 5 Facebook Chat Instant Messengers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Which are the best Facebook chat instant messengers? Since its launch in April 2008,\u00a0Facebook Chat is rapidly gaining market share in the Instant Messaging market \u2013 most notably\u00a0Windows Live Messenger and\u00a0Yahoo Messenger. Indeed, back in June 2009 Facebook announced that they were sending over 1 billion instant messages a day.<\/p>\n

Without a doubt, most of my friends have shifted their instant messaging usage from using just Windows Live Messenger to Facebook Chat. Unlike traditional desktop instant messengers, however, Facebook Chat is restrictive to its use in your web-browser, and lacks a lot of features that I\u2019ve grown used to in other Instant Messengers \u2013 features such as \u201cChat History\u201d and Sign in notifications. Thankfully, there are some excellent third party instant messengers for Facebook Chat:<\/p>\n

Chit Chat for Facebook<\/h2>\n

If Facebook were to develop their own desktop instant messenger, chances are, it would look something like Chit Chat for Facebook. Chit Chat boasts a clean and easy to use buddy list, instant message notifications, status alerts and a tabbed message window. In my opinion, it\u2019s a better way to use Facebook Chat.<\/p>\n

\"facebook-chat
\nChit Chat Buddy List<\/p>\n

However, what I particularly like about Chit Chat is how easy it makes it for me to format my own instant messages and add emoticons. Much easier than in web based Facebook Chat. But that\u2019s just me; I\u2019m a huge fan of emoticons!<\/p>\n

\"facebook-chat
\nChit Chat Tabbed Instant Message Window<\/p>\n

Those of you that like for your instant messages to be saved for future reference will love the Chat History feature.<\/p>\n

Digsby<\/h2>\n

Whilst Chit Chat for Facebook is just for Facebook Chat. Digsby is a Swiss army knife of desktop instant messaging, Digsby supports MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Facebook Chat \u2013 and that\u2019s to mention a few!<\/p>\n

Whilst use of Digsby is a prettier instant messenger than Chit Chat, and provides access to additional instant messenger networks simultaneously – Digsby tries to be all things to all people. If you need to be logged into multiple networks at once Digsby is great.<\/p>\n

However, unlike Chit Chat for Facebook the formatting of text messages don\u2019t work from Digsby to Facebook Chat \u2013\u00a0and Digsby allows you to send emoticons that Facebook Chat simply aren\u2019t seen by a Facebook Chat user. Digby\u2019s implementation of chat history is excellent, however.<\/p>\n

\"digsby
\nDigsby Chat Window<\/p>\n

Meebo<\/h2>\n

Meebo provides web-based instant messenger polygamy – it allows you to connect to Facebook Chat, MSN, Yahoo Messenger and AIM. Although, why people prefer to use their browser to access instant messengers rather than a desktop application is beyond me, but I\u2019m assured that Meebo is very popular.<\/p>\n

Meebo\u2019s Facebook Chat instant messaging service is in Alpha at the time of writing, and I was forced to downgrade my browser from Google Chrome to Internet Explorer 7 in order to get the instant messenger to work.<\/p>\n

Whilst I like the clean interface of Meebo, I found it had problems talking to users on Facebook Chat on Digsby and Chit Chat for Facebook \u2013\u00a0the reverse was not true. Chit Chat users and Digsby users were able to talk to Meebo users just fine.\u00a0 Moreover, the emoticons that Meebo provides are just fantastic \u2013\u00a0however, Facebook Chat users simply aren\u2019t able to see them, so they\u2019re pretty redundant.<\/p>\n

Meebo looks pretty nice; it\u2019s one to watch for the future, but certainly not how I\u2019ll be accessing Facebook Chat from now on.<\/p>\n

\"meebo<\/p>\n

Adium<\/h2>\n

Mac Fan boys, have no fear! Adium is a desktop instant messenger for Mac OS X that provides access to 15 different instant messenger services from one client, Facebook Chat being one of those. Whilst I wasn\u2019t able to review this item, since I don\u2019t have access to a Mac \u2013 I\u2019ve heard good things about Adium.<\/p>\n

Pidgin<\/h2>\n

Pidgin, the instant messaging service that has a flying rat as a logo – provides access to 20 \u2013 yup \u2013 20 instant messaging services.\u00a0 Impressive. However, Facebook Chat isn\u2019t one of those by default. So you\u2019ll have to add a third party plug in.<\/p>\n

One thing that I like about Pidgin is the ability for you to add a proxy, so if Facebook Chat is blocked at your work place or school \u2013\u00a0or even by your government, you can use a third party proxy. Not that we recommend bypassing that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

Pigdins Facebook Chat service client looks pretty good, however, it doesn\u2019t support the formatting of instant messages and it had too many Facebook Chat connection issues for my liking.<\/p>\n

\"pigdin<\/p>\n

This is a guest post by Daniel Offer, who writes about Chit Chat for Facebook<\/em>\u00a0instant messaging. You can also write guest articles<\/a> <\/strong>and share your favorite Facebook tools.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Which are the best Facebook chat instant messengers? Since its launch in April 2008,\u00a0Facebook Chat is rapidly gaining market share…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,111],"tags":[44],"class_list":["post-10780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computers","category-social-media","tag-guest-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}