Ubuntu ships Pidgin but does not update it after a release (except for security issues and high-severity bugs). For those users who desire new releases of Pidgin, we have packaged Pidgin in a PPA. If you encounter problems with these packages, try building from source and report the bug.

To setup the PPA, follow these steps:

1. Click to download the Pidgin PPA package.
2. Select Open with: and GDebi Package Installer. Click OK.
3. Click Install Package.
4. Click Close. Then close GDebi.

After doing this, check for and apply updates:

1. Click System, point to Administration, and click Update Manager.
2. Click Check.
3. Click Install Updates.

Future Pidgin updates will show up in Update Manager along with the usual Ubuntu updates.

This PPA often lags behind the source releases a couple of days, so please be patient.

Voice and video support is only built on Jaunty (9.04) and up.

ChangeLog: Pidgin and Finch - The Pimpin' Penguin IM Clients That're Good For The Soul!

version 2.7.0 (05/12/2010)

• General
  • Changed GTK+ minimum version requirement to 2.10.0.
  • Changed GLib minimum version requirement to 2.12.0.
  • Using the --disable-nls argument to configure now works properly. You will no longer be forced to have intltool to configure and build.
  • Fix two related crashes in the GnuTLS and NSS plugins when they suffer internal errors immediately upon attempting to establish an SSL connection.
  • Fix NSS to work when reinitialized after being used. (Thanks to Ludovico Cavedon for the testcase)
  • Added support for PURPLE_GNUTLS_PRIORITIES environment variable. This can be used to specify GnuTLS priorities on a per-host basis. The format is "host=priority;host2=priority;...". The default priority can be overridden by using "*" as the host. See the GnuTLS manual for documentation on the format of the priority strings.
  • Fix autoconf detection of Python. (Brad Smith)
  • Fix a crash when a Windows proxy (from IE) does not have a port. (Marten Klencke)

• Pidgin
  • Moved the "Debugging Information" section of the About box to a "Build Information" dialog accessible on the Help menu.
  • Moved the Developer and Crazy Patch Writer information from the About box to a "Developer Information" dialog accessible on the Help menu.
  • Moved the Translator information from the About box to a "Translator Information" dialog accessible on the Help menu.
  • Use GtkStatusIcon for the docklet, providing better integration in notification area.
  • Added UI for sending attentions (buzz, nudge) on supporting protocols.
  • Make the search dialog unobtrusive in the conversation window (by making it look and behave like the search dialog in Firefox)
  • The Recent Log Activity sort method for the Buddy List now distinguishes between no activity and a small amount of activity in the distant past. (Greg McNew)
  • Added a menu set mood globally for all mood-supporting accounts (currently XMPP and ICQ).
  • Default binding of Ctrl+Shift+v to 'Paste as Plain Text' in conversation windows. This can be changed in .gtkrc-2.0. For example, Ctrl+v can be bound to 'Paste as Plain Text' by default.
  • Plugins can now handle markup in buddy names by attaching to the "drawing-buddy" signal. (Daniele Ricci, Andrea Piccinelli)
  • Be more accommodating when scaling down large images for use as buddy icons.
  • The 'Message Timestamp Formats' plugin allows changing the timestamp format from the timestamps' context menu in conversation log.
  • The 'Message Timestamp Formats' plugin allows forcing 12-hour timestamps. (Jonathan Maltz)
  • Fix pastes from Chrome (rich-text pastes and probably URLs having garbage appended to them).
  • Show file transfer thumbnails for images on supporting protocols (currently only supported on MSN).

• Bonjour
  • Added support for IPv6. (Thanks to T_X for testing)

• Gadu-Gadu
  • Updated our bundled libgadu to 1.9.0-rc2 (many thanks to Krzysztof Klinikowski for the work and testing put in here!)
  • Minimum requirement for external libgadu is now also 1.9.0-rc2.
• AIM and ICQ
  • X-Status (Custom ICQ status icon) support. Since most of the icons available reflect moods, this is labeled "Set Mood" on the Accounts->ICQ Account menu. (Andrew Ivanov, Tomáš Kebert, Yuriy Yevgrafov, and trac users bob007, salieff, and nops)
  • Allow setting and displaying icons between 1x1 and 100x100 pixels for ICQ. Previously only icons between 48x48 and 52x64 were allowed.
  • When using the clientLogin authentication method, prompt for a password on reconnect when "Remember Password" is not checked and authentication fails due to an incorrect password. (This is the same behavior as the legacy authentication method)
  • Support sending and receiving HTML-formatted messages for ICQ.
  • Use the proper URL for "View web profile" link for ICQ buddies. (Alexander Nartov)

• MSN
  • Support for version 9 of the MSN protocol has been removed. This version is no longer supported on the servers.
  • Support file transfer thumbnails (previews) for images.
  • Fix CVE-2010-1624 (custom emoticon remote crash).

• XMPP
  • Direct messages to a specific resource only upon receipt of a message with content (as opposed to a typing notification, etc). (Thanks to rjoly for testing)
  • Present a better error message when authentication fails while trying to connect to Facebook. (David Reiss, Facebook)
  • When sending data using in-band-bytestreams, interpret the block-size attribute as the size of the BASE64-encoded representation of the data.
  • Validate the hash on incoming BoB data objects (for custom smileys etc.), cache based per JID when the CID is not a valid hash (as specified by the BoB XEP).
  • Send whitespace keepalives if we haven't sent data in a while (2 minutes). This fixes an issue with Openfire disconnecting a libpurple-baesd client that has just been quiet for about 6 minutes.
  • Only support Google Talk's JID Domain Discovery extension (allowing a user to log in with "@gmail.com" or "@googlemail.com" interchangeably) for those two domains. This change was made due to interoperability issues with some BOSH Connection Managers and namespaced attributes.

• Yahoo/Yahoo JAPAN
  • Attempt to better handle transparent proxies interfering with HTTP-based login.
  • Fix handling of P2P packets, thus fixing the loss of some messages.
  • Retrieve the pager server address from Yahoo!'s servers directly.
  • Removed the "Pager server" account option, as it is no longer needed.
  • The authentication code is now less order-sensitive with the components of the server's response.
  • The authentication process now acts more like the official client.

• Finch
  • New action 'history-search', with default binding ctrl+r, to search the entered string in the input history.

• Windows-Specific Changes
  • Updated GTK+ to 2.16.6
  • Private GTK+ Runtime now used (GTK+ Installer no longer supported)
  • Minimum required GTK+ version increased to 2.14.7
  • Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows ME (Millennium Edition), and Windows NT 4.0 no longer supported due to GTK+ requirements changes.
  • Crash Report files (pidgin.RPT) are now generated in the ~/.purple directory instead of the installation directory.
  • NSS SSL Library upgraded to 3.12.5 (thanks to Berke Viktor)
  • GtkSpell upgraded to 2.0.16, changing the spellchecking backend to enchant. This means that myspell and hunspell (OpenOffice) dictionaries can be used (previous versions' aspell dictionaries will not work).

About Pidgin

Pidgin is a chat program which lets you log in to accounts on multiple chat networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on MSN, talking to a friend on Google Talk, and sitting in a Yahoo chat room all at the same time.

Pidgin runs on Windows, Linux, and other UNIX operating systems. Looking for Pidgin for OS X? Try Adium!

Pidgin is compatible with the following chat networks out of the box: AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MXit, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr. It can support many more with plugins.

Pidgin supports many features of these chat networks, such as file transfers, away messages, buddy icons, custom smilies, and typing notifications. Numerous plugins also extend Pidgin's functionality above and beyond the standard features.

Pidgin integrates with the system tray on Windows, GNOME2, and KDE 3.1.

Pidgin is an easy to use and free chat client used by millions. Connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more chat networks all at once.

Supported chat networks:

• AIM
• Bonjour
• Gadu-Gadu
• Google Talk
• Groupwise
• ICQ
• IRC
• MSN
• MXit
• MySpaceIM
• QQ
• SILC
• SIMPLE
• Sametime
• XMPP
• Yahoo!
• Zephyr