• Chat With Yahoo, MSN Buddies Using Google Talk

    Chat With Yahoo, MSN Buddies Using Google Talk

    Jayesh Limaye, May 24, 2009 1000 hrs IST

    Read on to find out how it can be done

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Alternatively, if you have already been using Psi, you can right-click on the Psi icon in the System Tray, mouseover to Psi and select Account Setup.


 



 


The Account Properties window will show up and here you should enter your full Gmail address including @gmail.com into the Jabber ID field. Check all the four checkboxes, though it is not necessary to do so to achieve our purpose.


 



 


Click on the Connection tab. Keep the settings as shown in the screenshot. Enter "talk.google.com" in the Host field and leave the Port field to 5223. Please note that if you can't connect using port 5223, try using port 443.


 


Get your Google Talk account online by right-clicking on the account name in the main window, mouseover Status and select Online. Now right-click on the account name again and click Service Discovery. You now need to find a Jabber transport server that will help communicate between Google Talk and non-Google Talk chat applications.


 


A good place to start this search is Jabber/XMPP Server List at http://www.jabberes.org/servers. We used the server jwchat.org (and there is one more such server - talkonaut.com), since it had transport servers for AIM, ICQ, Yahoo as well as MSN. Enter this name into the Address field (initially containing the name gmail.com) and click on Browse. You will see a list of transport servers being populated in the box below.


 



 



 



To set up your IM account, right-click on one of these servers (in the above case, it is Yahoo) and select Register. Enter your user name and password for the service selected and click Register.


 


 


 


Do the same for other IM accounts such as for Live Messenger using the same procedure. Psi will ask you to confirm all your newly transported contacts in your Google Talk account. After this is done, they'll all be automatically available through your Google Talk account. You will even be able to add buddies from that service, right from your Google Talk client. To confirm this, open Google Talk and you will find all the contacts from the other service inside Google Talk buddies list. To add a friend from another service, just make sure that you follow the format screenname@transport_server_name.JID, for example if the Yahoo ID of your buddy is mybuddy@yahoo.com, and jabber.darkskies.za.net is the JID of the transport server darkskies.za.net, you should add the contact from within Google Talk as mybuddy@yahoo.jabber.darkskies.za.net.


 


 




There have been reports of unreliability of quite a few transport servers, but we found the above two mentioned servers to be quite reliable, though your experience may differ from ours. We urge you to search and try different servers from the server list to find which one is the most reliable. We must also mention that when you use a transport client, you trust your information to a third party server, which may not go well with you if you are very particular about your privacy. Nevertheless, that is a risk you need to take to make Google Talk a universal chat client.

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Discussion Board
(11) Comments
Salman
,Agra, on Sep 25, 2009 12:09 AM
Jjgptphamtjaptpmjat
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Mr.Universe
,richmond, on Jun 26, 2009 09:09 AM
This doesn't seem to work for me.....
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FRANCIS SEQUEIR
,MUMBAI, on Jun 20, 2009 10:12 AM
I am writing a booking on LEADERSHIP TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP where I am setting out the basics of leadership to be applied to entrepreneurship. Can you help me in some way ? Francis Sequeira Mumbai Cell C/o 0 98 208 30115
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Karthik
,New Delhi, on May 25, 2009 04:48 PM
Great Tidbit of info... Though really redundant in the face of Pidgin and Digsby,, and of course Meebo.. With Portable versions of Digsby and Pidgin now available,, no need for going with these kind of "hacks" to achieve these multi-network IM setups.
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mahesh
,hyderabad, on May 25, 2009 01:49 PM
hi
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Christopher
,Ahmedabad, on May 25, 2009 12:45 PM
Now TechGuy that is new information for me. Thanks a lot. I never knew you could do that. I don't think any other service provider can do that. Oh by the way since when r u using that chat in browser service? I think u could also try sify.com
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Anant Bhushan
,Roorkee, on May 25, 2009 06:36 AM
Why not just use Pidgin? ... No third parties, and is more secure with the SSL authentication and encryption capabilities.
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Hardik
,Thane, on May 24, 2009 03:10 PM
The entire process seems too long-drawn and cumbersome. I'd suggest using Pidgin. It takes care of virtually all IM clients.
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Rahul Srinivas
,Mumbai, on May 24, 2009 06:15 PM
One possibe advantage of this would be that you'd be able to see your chat history in Gmail.. though my experience with this has been dodgy in the past.
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Techguy
,Mumbai, on May 24, 2009 11:51 PM
You do not even need GTalk, you can chat right through the browser. Now can Pidgin do that?
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Badri
,Chennai, on May 24, 2009 09:18 PM
Good one. Also please try pidgin (http://www.pidgin.im). It lets you connect to almost all chat messengers. Your chats can be preserved. There is even a portable version to carry around on a thumb drive.
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