A FRENCH VERSION IS AVAILABLE HERE: https://duck.co/topic/howto-utiliser-le-service-de-messagerie-publique-jabber-xmpp-sur-dukgo-com

Hiho!

First the general information: Today DuckDuckGo started its own XMPP Server which is public open for registration. If you dont know XMPP/Jabber, you should checkout the WikiPedia page about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMPP. In general its a instant messaging service, like Yahoo Messenger, MSN, ICQ or Skype, to exchange messages live with other friends. As client we suggest Pidgin, but there are many more clients for every platform and on any device. A list you can get here: http://xmpp.org/xmpp-software/clients/.

After downloading and installing Pidgin, you go through the following steps:




Here you just need to hit "Add..." to make a new account






On this menu you need to choose XMPP as protocol out of the dropdown. Then you can choose your username, you want on the server, your XMPP address will be then thisusername@dukgo.com. As domain of course you must set dukgo.com :-). The resource can actually be empty, its an optional value which "defines" your instance of the pidgin for others, if you have several locations you chat from. Now you can choose a password, which you also directly can store, so that you don't need to remember it. The values under User Options are totally locally and only for the tuning of the user.

Important is here that you hit the small "Create this new account on the server" Checkbox!

Then hit "Add" to get to the next step:



Now you need to accept our certificate. So far we use a self-signed certificate which doesn't approve anything for you. But this service is also in Beta, so we will see what changes here in the future. Just hit the "Accept" button, so that it can go on. There are also other windows now open on your screen, but we come to them later.



After you accepted the certification you then can instantly approve the registration you wanted. Its all prefilled, so you just hit the "Register" button to go on.



Yeah you did it! :-) Don't forget your pw! :-) Now you actually need todo a bit more to use the account :)



You need to actually enable your account on this window, which should still be open for you. Just hit the small checkbox on the enabled row to activate your account like seen on the screenshot!



Now you can go and "Add Buddy" or "Add Chat" to get more out of the XMPP experience :-)

For example you can now add the DuckDuckGo Instant Messenger bot as your friend:



Then you got him in your buddy list and you can click on him write him something to get something like this:




You can also "Add Chat" to add our DuckDuckGo Jabber Conference, it will soon  be linked to the IRC channel #duckduckgo on freenode, but we welcome everybody already now :-). Of course you can "Autojoin" if you want :-)





So I hope you find this interesting and also ask your friends to play around with XMPP and Jabber, its generally the only way to get instant messaging with your friends without tracking of a central service, but still with secured usernames.

My personal jabber is: getty@duckduckgo.com so that you can also add me and ask me out about it :)

This is also in general the start of the DuckDuckGo community "attack" :-) Offering services for the public, and help you to identify with DuckDuckGo :-) Show that you are a fan! We are open for suggestions what services we should offer for you as users! Just add them here to the thread :) We will take out some to discuss them deeper :-)

On the next post I will also introduce myself a bit more and also what are the next plans and steps on this new ongoing Community movement for duckduckgo! :) Stay tuned!