FBMessenger: Stand-Alone Facebook Messenger For Linux

FBMessenger is a stand-alone Facebook Messenger app for Linux, very similar to the official Messenger for Windows.

This isn't an official Facebook application but it has been created by a Facebook developer and comes with the following features:

• chat with your Facebook friends (obviously) in a separate window with tabs for each conversation;
• notifications and friend requests;
• friend updates;
• desktop popup alerts for notifications (only when you turn the chat on).

Also, if you turn off the chat in Facebook and then log in using FBMessenger, the application doesn't turn the chat on (doesn't sets you online/visible) like it does when using Pidgin or Empathy.

FBMessenger is pretty new and lacks some features but hopefully more will be added soon. For instance, right now the only way the application notifies you of new messages is, just like the Facebook website itself, through a sound and only when you're online so if you turn the chat off, you won't get new message notifications, but chat window flasing is on the todo list.

Install FBMessenger in Ubuntu

To make it easier to install Facebook Messenger in Ubuntu 13.10, 13.04, 12.10 and 12.04, I've uploaded the application to the main WebUpd8 PPA. To add the PPA and install FBMessenger, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/webupd8
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install fbmessenger

Arch Linux users can install FBMessenger via AUR.

For other Linux distributions, get the Facebook Messenger for Linux source code via GitHub (there are scripts available for building rpm and debian packages).

If you encounter bugs, report them @ GitHub.

app seen on lffl.org