How to Chat with Facebook Contacts in iChat

One of the biggest frustrations for many new and longtime Mac users, who are also avid, daily Facebook users, was the inability to chat with Facebook contacts from within iChat. While there were many third party plug ins and apps in the past attempting to implement this feature, to no avail, there seems to be a pretty easy and solid solution that works just fine for most. This may be a great option for those who have abandoned iChat simply for applications such as Adium, which already has multi-client and Facebook chat support. You can quickly access the full instructions by visiting the Facebook Chat tour page and clicking on the iChat option or simply follow simplified instructions below provided by Macworld.

1. In iChat, open Preferences, and go to the Accounts tab. Click the plus sign at the bottom of the window to add a new account.
2. Select Jabber Account from the Account Type drop-down menu.
3. Enter your_username@chat.facebook.com in the Account Name field, and enter your Facebook password in the Password field. Replace your_username with your Facebook username, obviously.
4. Click the triangle next to Server Options to reveal those settings. Enter chat.facebook.com in the Server field, and 5222 in the Port field. Make sure the Use SSL box is not checked.
5. Click Done.