Instantbird 1.2
Instantbird 1.2 was already available in 11 languages, thanks to the contributions from our translators around the world, and we look forward to see this number grow with your help!
Download
Instantbird runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux platforms.
Please see the minimum system requirements needed to run Instantbird.
| Language | Version |  Windows |
 Mac OS X |
 Linux |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Czech | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
| German | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
| Estonian | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
| English | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
| Spanish | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
| French | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
| Italian | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
| Dutch | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
| Slovak | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
| Swedish | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
| Ukrainian | 1.2 | Download |
Download |
Download |
Download the source code
As Instantbird is an open source project, you can freely download the source code and modify it.
What's new?
- The log viewer shows conversations just like the conversation view, thanks to a new JSON-based log file format that stores meta-data along with the text of the conversation.
- Support for Bonjour has been added (requires the Bonjour Print Services on Windows or Avahi on Linux).
- Improved user interface for multi-user chats:
- Better tab completion, see our blog post for details.
- It is easier to tell who is active, as only nicknames of participants who have talked are coloured in the participant list.
- IRC enhancements:
- Channels are automatically rejoined after reconnects.
- Instantbird tracks the status of IRC contacts more precisely by using the WATCH or MONITOR commands, if they're supported.
- ChanServ messages are displayed in the channel they reference.
- No more noisy messages from NickServ interrupting you after a successful automatic identification on login.
- Passwords are now stored in the Mozilla password manager for improved security. As in Firefox and Thunderbird, it's possible to protect them with a master password.
- Easily create new accounts now that the account wizard offers a list of the most popular networks first and shows all supported networks on demand.
- Better system tray integration: you can now change the status directly from the icon's context menu.
- Quickly find where you left off in a conversation: The position of the first unread message is now marked visually (and you can quickly jump there by pressing Alt-PgUp/PgDn or swiping).
- Restoring long conversations will now show a progress bar instead of freezing the user interface until all the messages are loaded.
- Previously read ("context") messages are now distinguishable from new messages (when restoring from hold) in all default message styles. These styles now also respect the font setting from Preferences->Content.
- Keyboard navigation of conversations has been improved by allowing scrolling from an (empty) input textbox: just use the arrow keys, Page Up/Down, or Home/End! There are also new shortcuts for putting a conversation on hold (ESC) and opening the log viewer (Ctrl+Shift+H, like "History" on Firefox).
- Major accessibility improvements have been made to new messages, contact groups and contacts.
- For Add-on Developers:
- Control sound preferences more precisely: for example Advanced Sound Controls.
- Reorder the contact list: for example Sort By Status.
- It's now possible to easily add new protocols using JavaScript: for example VZnet Chats.
- Under the Hood
- We now have our own extensible JavaScript implementations for:
- Facebook Chat and Google Talk, based on our own XMPP protocol plugin (from Google Summer of Code 2011).
- IRC
- Updated: Instantbird 1.2 is based Mozilla 14.0.1 which brings great new possibilities for add-on developers and uses libpurple 2.10.4.
- The license of most of the code was updated to the Mozilla Public License (MPL) 2.0, official builds of Instantbird 1.2 are distributed under the GNU Public License 2.0 or later.
- We're using libqq-pidgin now for QQ since QQ is no longer included in libpurple.
- Platform changes forced us to drop support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP before Service Pack 2. Please upgrade to Windows XP SP2 or later.
- We now have our own extensible JavaScript implementations for:
- And more... read the full ChangeLog for details of the 403 code changes since Instantbird 1.1.
Known issues
- SSL reconnection issues on freenode (bug 1100).
- Self-signed or invalid certificate handling (bug 1292).
Older versions
You can access the archives to download the older versions of Instantbird.