# How does one "FB Chat"? Have FaceBook, never chatted with it **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 2, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897 "2010-08-02T15:30:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/1 "2010-08-02T15:30:33Z")
See title. There is a person who would like to communicate using FB Chat. I have a FaceBook account which I mostly ignore. I don’t find it particularly user-friendly. I’m on a Mac if that’s relevant here, 10.4.11 to be precise, and I have a wide selection of browsers installed to choose from if that matters. I don’t see anything on the main page that I land on when I go to [facebook.com](http://facebook.com) and log in that says diddly about “chat” or “FB chat” or “Facebook Chat”. ---
**Author:** ![MrFloppy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/43a26b/32.png) [@MrFloppy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrFloppy)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/2 "2010-08-02T15:41:53Z")
When you open your facebook page, down in the bottom right of the screen will be a list of people currently online. If you click on any of them, you will open a small instant messenger window and you can IM away with them… Right now, I’m sitting in Maryland chatting with Mum who is in the north of England via FB Chat. ---
**Author:** ![MikeS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MikeS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeS)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/3 "2010-08-02T15:44:55Z")
There should be a small icon in the lower-right corner of your main user page that says “Chat” and has a little silhouette icon with a green or gray dot next to it. It works fine for me in Safari 5 under OSX 10.6, though I can’t recall if (or how well) it worked under 10.4 and whatever version of Safari that was. The other option, BTW, is [Adium](http://adium.im/). You can hook it up to log you into Facebook Chat and forget about the browser.\* While you’re at it, you can consolidate your AIM, GChat, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Chat, and ICQ accounts into one stand-alone application. It’s great. - Well, almost forget about it — for reasons I don’t fully understand, once in a great while using Adium to log onto chat will trigger the “suspicious access” klaxons at FB Central and you’ll have to confirm your identity via the website. Usually this happens while I’m travelling. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2010, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/4 "2010-08-02T16:01:37Z")
> [@MikeS](#): > > There should be a small icon in the lower-right corner of your main user page that says “Chat” and has a little silhouette icon with a green or gray dot next to it. It works fine for me in Safari 5 under OSX 10.6, though I can’t recall if (or how well) it worked under 10.4 and whatever version of Safari that was. > > The other option, BTW, is [Adium](http://adium.im/). You can hook it up to log you into Facebook Chat and forget about the browser.\* While you’re at it, you can consolidate your AIM, GChat, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Chat, and ICQ accounts into one stand-alone application. It’s great. > > - Well, almost forget about it — for reasons I don’t fully understand, once in a great while using Adium to log onto chat will trigger the “suspicious access” klaxons at FB Central and you’ll have to confirm your identity via the website. Usually this happens while I’m travelling. You can also use iChat, although not necessarily iChat for tiger. It might be too old. ---
**Author:** ![Allthegood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@Allthegood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Allthegood)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/5 "2010-09-16T17:53:29Z")
Have you figured this out yet? I’d be happy to show you how sometime, if you haven’t. ---
**Author:** ![conway](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ec9cab/32.png) [@conway](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/conway)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/6 "2010-09-16T21:34:04Z")
That sounds ominous. ---
**Author:** ![Claude\_Remains](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@Claude\_Remains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claude_Remains)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/7 "2010-09-17T05:09:20Z")
I actually sat here for a good half hour trying to chat on FB. My kid had to tell me to hit the “enter” key to send. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Allthegood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@Allthegood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Allthegood)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/8 "2010-09-17T05:45:35Z")
> [@conway](#): > > That sounds ominous. **Conway** , we’re friends IRL! I was just offering to help. _giggle_ ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/9 "2010-09-17T09:20:55Z")
Yes… a) **allthegood** is not the reincarnation of **The Grapist** but rather instead a person who seems to delight in making me deliriously happy. And she’s the first person I’ve successfully lured to the SDMB. b) The person who wanted me to FB Chat was someone on OKCupid and she never filled out a profile, and always always wanted me to go off OKCupid and chat in some other software environment, so I think she was a scammer of some sort. We never did “FB Chat” after all, I think she found more cooperative targets. c) I can’t ever get Adium to run on my computer. Dunno why but it just crashes the moment I launch it. I use Fire for multi-protocol chat. Which is not being kept up so it is out of date, unfortunately. ---
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/10 "2010-09-17T10:19:17Z")
There’s Meebo, a web-based multi-protocol chat service. Nothing to download or update. It just remembers all your accounts. And everything you ever said. To anyone. And they’re not even owned by Google. (I love making people feel safe about the services I recommend.) ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2010, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-one-fb-chat-have-facebook-never-chatted-with-it/548897/11 "2010-09-17T14:33:32Z")
Facebook uses XMPP (formerly known as Jabber), which is a standard, open chat protocol. Any XMPP-capable chat client can connect to the Facebook chat server; you’ll just need to specify its address, along with your Facebook account and password. Once you log in you’ll see all your friends who are online, and will be able to chat with them in the same way you normally would.