Instantbird is a discontinued

cross-platform In 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 platforms. Some cross-platform software ...

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

client based on

Mozilla Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, w ...

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. T ...

and the open-source library ''libpurple'' used in Pidgin. Instantbird is

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, no ...

available under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...

. 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

Supported protocols include: *

OSCAR Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to: People * Oscar (given name), an Irish- and English-language name also used in other languages; the article includes the names Oskar, Oskari, Oszkár, Óscar, and other forms. * Oscar (Irish mythology) ...

( AIM/ ICQ/ MobileMe) *

Gadu-Gadu Gadu-Gadu ( Polish for "chit-chat"; commonly known as GG or gg) is a Polish instant messaging client using a proprietary protocol. Gadu-Gadu was the most popular IM service in Poland, with over 15 million registered accounts and approximately ...

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

IRC Internet Relay Chat (IRC) 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 an ...

Lotus Sametime HCL Sametime Premium (formerly IBM Sametime and IBM Lotus Sametime) is a client–server application and middleware platform that provides real-time, unified communications and collaboration for enterprises. Those capabilities include presence i ...

* 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 me ...

, commonly known as ''MSN'', ''.NET'', or ''Live'') * MySpaceIM * Netsoul *

Odnoklassniki Odnoklassniki ( rus, Одноклассники, t=Classmates) is a social network service used mainly in Russia and former Soviet Republics. The site was developed by Albert Popkov and launched on March 4, 2006. The website currently has more ...

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 Johnn ...

* QQ *

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

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

( Google Talk, ...) * YMSG ( YIM) *

VKontakte VK (short for its original name ''VKontakte''; russian: ВКонтакте, 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 predomin ...

"Instantbird FAQ: Supported Protocols"
instantbird.com.Pirillo, Chris (April 22, 2009)
"What All-in-one Instant Messenger Should You Use?"
. chrispirillo.com. (Also video).

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 (russian: Живой Журнал), 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, a ...

'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 * 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 River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...

anonymity project presented

Tor Messenger Tor, short for The Onion Router, is free and open-source software for enabling anonymous communication. It directs Internet traffic through a free, worldwide, volunteer overlay network, consisting of more than seven thousand relays, to conc ...

as its open-source 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 that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of websites use JavaScript on the client side for webpage behavior, of ...

. ''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 Chris Pirillo is an American entrepreneur and former television personality. He is the founder and former CEO of LockerGnome, Inc., a now-defunct network of blogs, web forums, mailing lists, and online communities which are now closed. He is b ...

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 Pidgin, 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 slow ...

. LifeHacker 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"
LifeHacker

References

External links

* {{IRC clients AIM (software) clients Free XMPP clients Free instant messaging clients Free Internet Relay Chat clients Windows Internet Relay Chat clients Windows instant messaging clients MacOS instant messaging clients Portable software Gecko-based software Software that uses XUL