Pidgin (software)
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Screenshot ![]() Pidgin's buddy list window in Trisquel | |
Initial release | December 31, 1998 | (as Gaim)
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Stable release | 2.14.13[1] ![]() |
Preview release | None [±] |
Repository | |
Written in | |
Available in | Multiple languages[2] |
Type | Instant messaging client |
License | GPL-3.0-or-later |
Website | pidgin![]() |
Pidgin (formerly named Gaim) is a
As of 2007[update], the number of Pidgin users was estimated to be over three million.[3]
Pidgin is widely used for its
History
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Gaim-buddylist-2.0.0b6.png/220px-Gaim-buddylist-2.0.0b6.png)
The program was originally written by
On 6 July 2015, Pidgin scored seven out of seven points on the Electronic Frontier Foundation's secure messaging scorecard.[8] They have received points for having communications encrypted in transit, having communications encrypted with keys the providers don't have access to (end-to-end encryption), making it possible for users to independently verify their correspondent's identities, having past communications secure if the keys are stolen (forward secrecy), having their code open to independent review (open source), having their security designs well-documented, and having recent independent security audits.[8]
Naming dispute
In response to pressure from AOL, the program was renamed to the acronymous-but-lowercase gaim. As AOL Instant Messenger gained popularity, AOL trademarked its acronym, "AIM", leading to a lengthy legal struggle with the creators of GAIM, who kept the matter largely secret.[9]
On April 6, 2007, the project development team announced the results of their settlement with AOL, which included a series of name changes: Gaim became Pidgin, libgaim became libpurple, and gaim-text (the command-line interface version) became Finch. The name Pidgin was chosen in reference to the term "pidgin", which describes communication between people who do not share a common language.[10] The name "purple" refers to "prpl", the internal libgaim name for an IM protocol plugin.[11]
Due to the legal issues, version 2.0 of the software was frozen in beta stages. Following the settlement, it was announced that the first official release of Pidgin 2.0.0 was hoped to occur during the two weeks from April 8, 2007.[12] However, Pidgin 2.0 was not released as scheduled; Pidgin developers announced on April 22, 2007, that the delay was due to the preferences directory ".gaim
".[13]
Pidgin 2.0.0 was released on May 3, 2007. Other visual changes were made to the interface in this version, including updated icons.[14]
Features
Pidgin provides a graphical
Pidgin supports multiple
.Pluggability
The program is designed to be extended with
The TLS encryption system is pluggable, allowing different TLS libraries to be easily substituted. GnuTLS is the default, and NSS is also supported. Some operating systems' ports, such as OpenBSD's, choose to use OpenSSL or LibreSSL by default instead.
Contacts
Contacts with multiple protocols can be grouped into one single contact instead of managing multiple protocols, and contacts can be given aliases or placed into groups.
To reach users as they log on or a status change occurs (such as moving from "Away" to "Available"), Pidgin supports on-action automated scripts called Buddy Pounces to automatically reach the user in customizable ways.
File transfer
Pidgin supports file transfers for many protocols. Direct, peer-to-peer file transfers are supported over protocols such as XMPP.
Voice and video chat
As of version 2.6 (released on August 18, 2009), Pidgin supports voice/video calls using Farstream.[16] As of July 2015[update], calls can only be initiated through the XMPP protocol.[17]
Miscellaneous
Further features include support for themes, emoticons, spell checking, and notification area integration.[18]
Supported protocols
The following protocols are officially supported by Pidgin 2.14.12, without any extensions or plugins:[19]
Some XMPP servers provide
Additional protocols, supported by third-party plugins, include
Plugins
Various other features are supported using third-party plugins.[29] Such features include:
- Discord text chat via the purple-discord plugin[21]
- Facebook chat via purple-facebook
- Google Chat via purple-googlechat
- ICQ via icyque
- microblogs (GNU social, Twitter)
- Slack (software) via slack-libpurple
- Skype text chat via skype4pidgin, renamed SkypeWeb[30] plugin
- Telegram (software) via tdlib-purple
- Off-the-Record Messaging(OTR)
- Adding mathematical formulas written in LaTeXto conversations
- Notifications (such as showing "toaster" popups or Snarl notifications, or lighting LEDs on laptops)
- Showing contacts what the user is listening to in various media players
- Watching videos directly into a conversation when receiving a video sharing website link (YouTube, Vimeo)
Criticisms
- As observed by Wired in 2015, the libpurple codebase is "known for its bountiful security bugs".[31] In 2011, security vulnerabilities were already discovered in popular OTR plugins using libpurple.[32]
- As of version 2.4 and later, the ability to manually resize the text input box of conversations was removed. This led to a
- Passwords are stored in a plaintext file, readable by any person or program that can access the user's files. Version 3.0 of Pidgin (no announced release date)[36] will support password storage in system keyrings such as KWallet and the GNOME Keyring for Linux, Keychain for macOS, and winCred API for Windows.[37][38]
- Pidgin does not currently support pausing or reattempting file transfers.[39][40][41]
- Pidgin does not allow disabling the group sorting on the contact list.[42]
Other notable software based on libpurple
- Adium and the discontinued Proteus (both for macOS)
- Meebo (web-based, no longer available)[43]
- Telepathy Haze (a Tube[44] for some of the protocols supported by the Telepathy framework)[45]
- QuteCom (cross-platform, focused on VoIP and video. Discontinued)
- Instantbird (discontinued) [46] (cross-platform, based on Mozilla's Gecko engine)
BitlBee and Minbif are IRCd-like gateways to multiple IM networks, and can be compiled with libpurple to increase functionality.
See also
- Multiprotocol instant messaging application
- Comparison of instant messaging protocols
- Comparison of cross-platform instant messaging clients
- Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients
- Online chat
- List of computing mascots
- Category:Computing mascots
References
- ^ "Pidgin 2.14.13 has been released!". February 23, 2024.
- ^ About Pidgin: Supported languages
- PC WorldAustralia, October 10, 2007.
- ^ "Chatting with Pidgin and OTR". Tails. Retrieved July 22, 2020.
- ^ Forbes.com.
- ^ Crawford, J. (1999). "User Guide". marko.net. Archived from the original on May 8, 1999. Retrieved October 15, 2011.
As of now, the most recent sources are here [1] (the file date is December 31, 1998)
{{cite web}}
: External link in
(help)|quote=
- ^ Spencer, Mark (1998). "GAIM: GTK+ America OnLine Instant Messenger". Original project home page. marko.net. Archived from the original on February 10, 1999.
- ^ a b "Secure Messaging Scorecard. Which apps and tools actually keep your messages safe?". Electronic Frontier Foundation. November 4, 2014. Archived from the original on May 28, 2015. Retrieved July 6, 2015.
- ^ "Sean Egan's Blog – The Power of Momentum (continued)" Archived June 20, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. pidgin.im. May 23, 2007.
- ^ "Important and Long Delayed News". pidgin.im. April 6, 2007. Archived from the original on April 8, 2007. Retrieved October 15, 2011.
- ^ "What's with the name libpurple, anyway?". pidgin.im. Retrieved April 22, 2014.
- ^ "Important and Long Delayed News". pidgin.im. April 6, 2007. Archived from the original on April 8, 2007. Retrieved October 15, 2011.
Now that the settlement is signed, we hope to have the final Pidgin 2.0.0 release late this week or early next.
- ^ "Working towards 2.0.0". pidgin.im. April 22, 2007. Archived from the original on April 25, 2007. Retrieved April 22, 2007.
- ^ Egan, Sean (April 30, 2007). "Identity vs. Account Orientation". pidgin.im. Archived from the original on May 4, 2007. Retrieved May 1, 2007.
- ^ "What Is Libpurple – Pidgin – Trac". Pidgin.im. Retrieved March 22, 2009.
- ^ "Changelog". pidgin.im. Retrieved August 22, 2009.
- ^ "Voice and Video". pidgin.im. Retrieved August 22, 2009.
- ^ "About Pidgin". pidgin.im. Retrieved September 22, 2010.
- ^ Pidgin developers. "Pidgin". pidgin.im. Retrieved January 22, 2023.
- ^ a b Kramlich, Gary. "State of the Bird Q4 2022". Retrieved January 22, 2023.
- ^ a b "purple-discord github repository". GitHub. Retrieved December 2, 2019.
- ^ GitHub – majn/telegram-purple: Adds support for Telegram to Pidgin, Adium, Finch and other Libpurple based messengers
- ^ "SIPE Project". Retrieved February 29, 2012.
- ^ GitHub – Purple Facebook implements the Facebook Messenger protocol into pidgin, finch, and libpurple.
- ^ "libqq". Retrieved June 14, 2011.
- ^ "Skype "API Plugin for Pidgin/libpurple/Adium"". RobbMob.com. Retrieved July 6, 2009.
- ^ "WhatsApp on your computer: Pidgin plugin". davidgf.net. Retrieved March 31, 2020.
- ^ "Signal on your computer: Pidgin plugin". github.com. Retrieved September 18, 2020.
- ^ "Pidgin Third-Party Plugins". pidgin.im. Retrieved September 22, 2009.
- ^ "SkypeWeb plugin github repository". GitHub. Retrieved December 2, 2019.
- ^ Greenberg, Andy (October 31, 2015). "Tor Just Launched the Easiest App Yet for Anonymous, Encrypted IM". WIRED. Retrieved October 31, 2015.
- ^ "EFF's Open Source Security Audit Uncovers Security Vulnerabilities in Messaging Software". September 22, 2011.
- ^ "Ticket #4986 (closed enhancement: wontfix) – automatic chat input field resizing should be optional, regression from 2.3". pidgin.im. March 1, 2008. Retrieved March 8, 2008.
- ^ Adams, Paul (April 22, 2008). "In Response to User Demand, Pidgin Forks". Wired.com. Archived from the original on May 19, 2008.
- ^ Malda, Rob (April 30, 2008). "Pidgin Controversy Triggers Fork". Slashdot.
- ^ "Milestone 3.0.0—Pidgin". July 3, 2014.
- ^ "KeyringSupport—Pidgin". pidgin.im. July 3, 2014.
- ^ Kramlich, Gary. "State of the Bird Q4 2022". Retrieved January 22, 2023.
- ^ "Ticket #5769 (new enhancement) – Resume broken file transfers". pidgin.im. May 11, 2008. Retrieved October 15, 2011.
- ^ "Ticket #7486 (closed enhancement: duplicate) – xdcc download-resuming-support". November 7, 2008. Retrieved December 30, 2008.
- ^ "Ticket #1425 (new enhancement)- No ability to resume in IRC file transfers". pidgin.im. May 30, 2007. Retrieved December 30, 2008.
- ^ "#1325: add option to hide groups". pidgin.im. Retrieved April 22, 2013.
- ^ "meebo from the backside". meebo.com. July 15, 2008. Archived from the original on August 19, 2008. Retrieved October 3, 2008.
- ^ "Tubes". Telepathy.freedesktop.org. Archived from the original on August 24, 2014. Retrieved April 1, 2014.
- ^ "Telepathy Wiki – Components". Telepathy.freedesktop.org. Retrieved October 11, 2012.
- ^ "Instantbird:FAQ – Instantbird Wiki". Wiki.instantbird.org. February 10, 2011. Archived from the original on May 28, 2013. Retrieved October 11, 2012.
External links
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