Hello Linux Geeksters. As you may know, Instantbird is an open source, multi platform instant messaging client (similar to Pidgin), having support for the most popular chat services, including: Facebook, Google Talk, MSN, IRC, Twitter, XMPP, Yahoo, QQ, and many others. The app is based on Mozilla XULRunner and libpurple 2.10.7 and has a very simple and intuitive graphical user interface, allowing the users to stay logged in on multiple acoounts simultaneously. InstantBird 1.4 is the latest version available, bringing some features improvements to the previous version. A complete list of improvements can be seen here.
In this article I will show you how to install InstantBird 1.4 on Ubuntu 13.10 Saucy Salamander, Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail, Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal, Ubuntu 12.04 Precise Pangolin, Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx, Linux Mint 16 Petra, Linux Mint 15 Olivia, Linux Mint 14 Nadia, Linux Mint 13 Maya, Debian Sid, Debian Wheezy, Debian Squeeze, Fedora 19, Fedora 18, Fedora 17, OpenSUSE 13.1, OpenSUSE 12.3, OpenSUSE 12.2, Deepin, Elementary OS, Knoppix, CrunchBang OS, and many other Linux systems.
Because it is not available via any repository, we have to download it from the official site, extract the archive and add the .desktop launcher:
$ wget -c www.instantbird.com/downloads/1.4/instantbird-1.4.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2
$ tar -xjvf instantbird-1.4.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2
$ sudo mv instantbird /opt/instantbird
$ wget -c http://dl.dropbox.com/u/964512/misc/instantbird.desktop
$ sudo mv instantbird.desktop /usr/share/applications/instantbird.desktop
$ rm instantbird-1.4.en-US.linux-i686.tar.bz2
To remove Instantbird, just do:
$ sudo rm /usr/share/applications/instantbird.desktop
$sudo rm -R /opt/instantbird