You don't need to download anything.

For those of you who would like to use iChat to chat with your MSN, ICQ or Yahoo buddies using Jabber there is a far easier method than what has been discussed in recent times.

Follow the simple information outlined here at Jabber Australia and you will be up and running in no time. It works very well.

I appreciate Jabber Australia’s kindness.

However, do note that this does require revealing your Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ passwords to a 3rd party. The idea of using Yahoo! Mail, or HoTMaiL etc would be revolting to some I’m sure, but I’m sure some even on AppleTalk do use those services.

If your passwords for those accounts are unique to each other I don't see the problem??

Thousands of people around the globe are using Jabber in this way, I'm sure nothing sinister is being developed by Jabber Australia. I mean what will they do log into your MSN account and start chatting to your online buddies?? :lol:

The simple fact is there are more people worldwide using MSN, Yahoo etc than there are using iChat (and the switch to Intel won't be changing that), this is just another way of talking to those people using a native Apple application.

Sure you can use Adium or whatever else, but for convenience this is another reliable method. I'm using it and have suffered no ill effects, none of my MSN or Yahoo buddies have complained to me about strange chat behavior from my account

Evidently.

There are people out there whose primary email account is a Yahoo! Mail account, or a Hotmail account. Whether this is a good idea or not, is moot—these people exist.

For them to use Jabber and a MSN/Yahoo gateway would possibly mean sending the password of their primary email account to an as yet relatively unknown 3rd party—in this case Jabber Australia.

And how do you know Jabber Australia [is not|will not|never will] develop(ing) anything sinister? It seems to me like a potentially easy way to harvest email passwords.

You may feel that Jabber Australia is run by nice funky people providing a good service. All I’m trying to say is there may be a security issue in using any Jabber/MSN/Yahoo! gateway.

If no one reading this forum uses the Mail function of their Yahoo! or MSN account, then there is less of an problem. If you know that the Jabber Australia people personally as being totally trustworthy, or that the log on feature is totally encrypted and that there is no risk, then thank you for letting us readers know.

:blink: er... ok

That's the last time I leave the keys to my car with the mechanic...

The idea of giving over my .Net password to access the MSN Messenger network through Jabber also worried me. But in the end I registered with Jabber Australia, and so far I've had no problems.

The reason I registered with Jabber Australia (as opposed to another Jabber gateway) is that at least I have some idea where my password information is being stored and by who. One of the original guides that explained how to set up MSN access through Jabber was using a server in the Czech Republic. I certainly wasn't keen to give my information to them.

As it turned out one of the people responsible for Jabber Australia is a Mac user and a member of this forum. When I expressed concerns about handing over my password to them (in this thread) he was kind enough to respond with details of how the passwords are stored and who has access to them.

If you have concerns about giving over your Yahoo/ICQ/MSN passwords, you should have a talk to the people running the Jabber Australia website to see if you think they are trustworthy. If you still have concerns after that, then don't do it. Alternatively you can try and convince your friends to sign up for a Jabber account as well and talk to them natively, without the need for a gateway to another service .

Just relax. I've been running iChat through jabber for a while and I've had no problems at all. Stop being paranoid and enjoy it. :P

i find this really annoying... using MSN on iChat sucks... you cant see anyones nik, you cant change yours, you cant do anything, you cant use audio or video so just stick to adium

does it do video?

Setup msn through jabber when this post appeared and it worked through ichat ngside the .mac account - no worries but now taking a look at this Adium and it looks like it could be the winner!

Can someone gives the pro's and cons of adium?

Cheers

You know what can happen if they have the password you use to log into your chat client, don't you?

They can hijack your computer, install Spyware, and viruses, jump around the internet pretending to be you... indentity theft. OMG... My life is over.

My credit card details... all stollen. I could lose my life, my house, my car... what will I do????

oh wait. its just a silly password for a chat client. WGAFF! (that's "Who Give a Flying F@¢K" for those of you playing at home).

pipsqeek

Hi moo,

No, accessing the MSN Messenger network through Jabber using iChat does not support audio or video chats .

But then again, I am not aware of any Mac client that supports audio or video chats with MSN Messenger. The Microsoft MSN Messenger client for the Mac certainly doesn't (although Microsoft recently announced this will be updated in a couple of months - but whether it will then support audio or video chats is unknown). And according to the Adium X site Adium doesn't either.

Currently for audio and/or video chats the best option is still to use iChat on your Mac. You can then chat with other iChat users and users of AIM (5.5 or above) or Trillian on Windows, as long as they have either AIM or Jabber accounts.

[Note: AIM on Windows does not support audio-only chats with iChat, but does support video chats with audio. The free Trillian client supports audio-only chats, but does not do video chats and does not support Jabber. Trillian Pro (US$25) supports both audio chats and video chats with iChat and also includes Jabber support.]

Handing over your MSN password isn't all doom and gloom - but it's sensible to recognise there is some risk. For most people their username and password for MSN Messenger is the username and password for their .Net Passport. With a .Net Passport username and password you can:
Yes, that means they can sign into your Messenger account and pretend to be you in a chat. But they can also sign into your Hotmail account and send email pretending that they are you, purchase music on the MSN Music site using your account (if you have one), and log into other sites that use .Net Passport for authentication (eBay used to be one of these - but I'm not sure who else uses it) and pretend to be you.

After assessing the risks, including what I know about Jabber Australia, I gave them my details so I could use the MSN Messenger transport. But people shouldn't do this blindly. Before you give away any personal details on the internet you should consider the risks. People do get ripped off all the time over the internet, and it's usually a consequence of trusting someone with something they shouln't have. Having identified what the risks are you then have to decide whether they are acceptable to you.

Hi - I read this topic with quite a bit of interest as I have several IM accounts with buddies scattered all over. I was trying out proteus as my solution and it worked well, however, you have to buy it. So, if I could get away with using iChat for all my messenging needs then that would be perfect. I setup a jabber account as per the link in the parent post and the jabber side was setup ok. When I went to add a yahoo transport (most of my mates use this for some reason) I received a 404: array error. Hmmm, a quick google around seemed to reveal that the yahoo transport is fairly new and untested, so it is still a bit dodgy from what I can guess. The ugly side of iChat was that I would have to have one window for jabber/yahoo/msn and one for AIM.

I saw some one refer to adium. Downloaded it and setup all my accounts in 5 mins and all was well - perfect. All my accounts and buddies in one window. I dont need fancy audio/video connections so this suits me to a tee.

The only odd man out in my IM setup is the few mates who are on skype - but I guess that is another story.

Just my 2 cents worth......

Best Regards,