Instantbird is a discontinued

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of synchronous computer-mediated communication involving the immediate ( real-time) transmission of messages between two or more parties over the Internet or another computer network. Originally involv ...

client based on

Mozilla Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...

XULRunner XULRunner is a discontinued, packaged version of the Mozilla platform to enable standalone desktop application development using XUL, developed by Mozilla. It replaced the ''Gecko Runtime Environment'', a stalled project with a similar purpose. ...

and the

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

library ''libpurple'' used in

Pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified form of contact language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn f ...

. Instantbird is

free software Free software, libre software, libreware sometimes known as freedom-respecting software is computer software distributed open-source license, under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, distribut ...

available under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

. Over 250 add-ons allow user customization of, and addition of, features. On October 18, 2017, Florian Quèze announced that "... we are stopping development of Instantbird as a standalone product."

Supported protocols

Instantbird began as a chat client based on libpurple and gradually moved toward being a chat client which used a combination of libpurple and its own protocol architecture. Specifically, Instantbird developers wrote their own JavaScript support for

IRC IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat ...

Odnoklassniki Odnoklassniki (), abbreviated as OK or OK.ru, is a social networking service and online video sharing website primarily in Russia and former Soviet Republics. The site was launched on March 4, 2006 by Albert Popkov and is currently owned by VK. ...

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (abbreviation XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an Open standard, open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Ext ...

(including

Google Talk Google Talk was an instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users. Google Talk was also the name o ...

) and YMSG (used by YIM). The reason writing these in JavaScript, rather than using the faster C code already included with libpurple, had to do with a plan to merge certain protocols into

Mozilla Thunderbird Mozilla Thunderbird is a free and open-source email client that also functions as a personal information manager with a Digital calendar, calendar and contactbook, as well as an RSS feed reader, chat client (IRC/XMPP/Matrix (protocol), Matrix), ...

. The remaining protocols supported in Instantbird, provided through libpurple, were

OSCAR Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People and fictional and mythical characters * Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar * Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...

( AIM/ ICQ/

MobileMe MobileMe (branded iTools between 2000 and 2002; .Mac until 2008) is a discontinued subscription business model, subscription-based collection of online services and software offered by Apple Inc. All services were gradually transitioned to and e ...

), Gadu-Gadu,

Novell GroupWise GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from OpenText that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, which ...

, Lotus Sametime, MSNP (

Microsoft Messenger service Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger Service, .NET Messenger Service and Windows Live Messenger Service) was an instant messaging and presence system developed by Microsoft in 1999 for use with its MSN Messenger software. It was used by instant m ...

), MySpaceIM, Netsoul,

SIMPLE Simple or SIMPLE may refer to: *Simplicity, the state or quality of being simple Arts and entertainment * ''Simple'' (album), by Andy Yorke, 2008, and its title track * "Simple" (Florida Georgia Line song), 2018 * "Simple", a song by John ...

, QQ and

VKontakte (short for its original name ''VKontakte''; , meaning ''InContact'') is a Russian online social media and social networking service based in Saint Petersburg. VK is available in multiple languages but it is predominantly used by Russian speake ...

."Instantbird FAQ: Supported Protocols"
instantbird.com.Pirillo, Chris (April 22, 2009)
"What All-in-one Instant Messenger Should You Use?"
. chrispirillo.com. (Also video). Some of these can no longer be used, even with up-to-date client software, due to discontinuation of the servers.

Features

Users can set their own user icon and display name. Several themes are included by default, including "Bubbles", which has the "Time Bubbles" feature of displaying time between messages, rather than timestamps within or adjacent to each message.Quèze, Florian (June 8, 2011)

Instantbird.com blog. Text copied from an Instantbird window is reformatted transparently to include timestamps in front of each message, in a feature called "Magic Copy". Instantbird includes an Add-ons system which allows additional protocol support such as

LiveJournal LiveJournal (), stylised as LiVEJOURNAL, is a Russian-owned social networking service where users can keep a blog, journal, or diary. American programmer Brad Fitzpatrick started LiveJournal on April 15, 1999, as a way of keeping his high school ...

's LJ Talk; there are over 250 additional add-ons available.Walker-Morgan, Dj (June 29, 2011)
"Cross platform IM client InstantBird goes 1.0"
h-online.com. Heise Media UK Ltd. Additional features available include "UI theming, language packs and dictionaries, developer tools and usability enhancements such as tab completion of nicknames, highlighting, colourising of buddies, and vertical tabs." The developers list some of their "favorite" add-ons as follows: "Colorize" buddy names, "Highlight" words in chats, "Tab Complete" nicknames and commands, "Reply to Nick" - doubleclick inserts name, "Show Nick" in color in multiuser chats, and "Vertical Tabs" to arrange conversations vertically.C., Patrick (June 28, 2011)

Instantbird.org blog. Conversation logging is enabled by default, but can be disabled. Binaries are available in the following 13 languages: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Czech, Slovak, Ukrainian, Swedish and Estonian. In October 2015 the

Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Toronto, Canada ** Toronto Raptors * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor ...

anonymity project presented Tor Messenger as its

instant messenger client. It is based on Instandbird but removes the dependency on libpurple, re-implementing all supported chat protocols in the memory-safe language

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language and core technology of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. Ninety-nine percent of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior. Web browsers have ...

. ''Tor Messenger'' encrypts one-to-one chats by default using OTR and provides anonymity by routing its traffic through the Tor network.

Reception

Instantbird received some positive notice, with stated expectations of future improvements. Tech blogger Chris Pirillo wrote that the client "works quite well on all three main operating systems", that the interface "is unobtrusive… and very clean", and that chat can take place on multiple protocols simultaneously, including IRC. BetaNews writer Joe Cassels noted that Instantbird "aims to bring together many of these disparate networks and services under one roof, and while not as polished as more established multi-network clients like Trillian and

, its close links to Mozilla makes us confident the program will evolve into a powerful alternative to these programs in time."Cassels, Joe (July 1, 2011)
"Why tweet when you can chirp? Instantbird 1.0 multi-IM client is available"

Betanews eFront was an affiliate marketing network which purchased successful websites, such as '' Penny Arcade,'' SquareGamer, and BetaNews, and pooled traffic to those sites to command higher prices for advertising during an industrywide ad revenue slo ...

LifeHacker ''Lifehacker'' is a weblog about life hacks and software that launched on 31 January 2005. The site was originally launched by Gawker Media and is owned by Ziff Davis. The blog posts cover a wide range of topics including Microsoft Windows, M ...

writer Alan Henry called the application's visual appearance "sharp", referred to the user interface as "inspired by" but "a bit more attractive" than Pidgin, called the version 1.0 of the software "a big improvement", and stated "what it lacks in native features it makes up for in add-ons and themes contributed by the user community."Henry, Alan (June 29, 2011)
"InstantBird is a Lightweight, Cross-Platform Instant Messaging App with Sharp Looks"

References

External links

*
Backups of releases
{{IRC clients AIM (software) clients Defunct instant messaging clients Free XMPP clients Free instant messaging clients Free IRC clients Windows IRC clients Windows instant messaging clients MacOS instant messaging clients Portable software Gecko-based software Software that uses XUL