The latest version of the Mac OS X known as Tiger brings Jabber support to iChat which indirectly supports other messaging protocols like MSN, ICQ, AIM and IRC.
What is Jabber and why do I care?
Jabber is an open alternative to consumer IM services. Unlike these commercial services, Jabber is a decentralized network. It works similar to email servers in which anyone can download the Jabber server application and run it in their server to offer Jabber. Because of this, there is no global username, there is unique usernames on each server thus you can have multiple jabber accounts on different servers. The username is in the form of an email address. So, if I get a jabber account at jabberserverx.com then my jabber username would be myusername@jabberserverx.com. Each Jabber server can be configured differently to offer support for MSN, ICQ, AIM, IRC, Yahoo, Email Gateway and even File Transfer. You can find a grid of the Jabber servers and its supported protocols here. Why should you care about this? You should care because it’s open, free and it’s seems to be the only way to bring Yahoo and MSN Messenger into iChat.
Step 1: Get your account set up
If you don’t have an MSN or Yahoo account, you need to create one. A hotmail account could be used for MSN. Create an MSN account at passport.net.
Step 2: Get a Jabber Client App
Since iChat has only basic support for Jabber, you need a Jabber Client Application to create a Jabber account. We’re going to use Psi, one of many Jabber Client Applications.
Go to PSI’s website psi.affinix.com and select the Mac OS version of PSI and the mirror server closest to you.
Download it, drag to you Applications folder and launch.
Step 3: Create a Jabber Account
Enter njs.netlab.cz ( some people are reporting a more stable connection with jabber.freenet.de )as your Jabber server. This is a server from the Czech Republic that supports the protocols we need. To find other servers, Jabber.org provides a list of servers you can choose from.
Enter your desired account info. Notice how it looks just like if it was an email address for that server. If the username is taken, it will let you know. Click on Register to continue.
Upon success, click OK.
Use Control + Click to get the contextual menu from the server’s name and make your status Online.
Step 4: Register your IM Service with your Jabber server
Use Control + Click to get the contextual menu from the server’s name and select Service Discovery.
From the Service Directory window, Use Control + Click to get the contextual menu from the desired Service and select Register.
Enter your IM service login info. In this case, I’m entering my MSN Messenger login info.
Once completed. Quit Psi and Launch Address Book.
Step 5: Add Jabber formated usernames to Address Book
First, you need to know someone who has an MSN or Yahoo Messenger account. From Address Book create or edit a user and add a new IM username. Make sure you specify Jabber from the pulldown menu and replace their @ symbol with a % sign.
msn account name:
sireltonjohny@hotmail.com
jabber address format
sireltonjohny%hotmail.com@msn.netlab.cz
Step 6: Set up iChat for Jabber
From iChat, select the iChat Preferences. From the Accounts Panel, click add to Add a new Account.
Enter your Jabber account info.
Once the account is created. Select Jabber from the Window pulldown menu and make your Jabber status Available from the Jabber Buddy List.
From the Jabber Buddy List, Add a new buddy by clicking add button. It should find the Buddy we added earlier in the Address Book.
Search for your friend by typing their name on the search field then click on Select Buddy.
Done. You should now be able to chat with people on MSN Messenger right from iChat.
Conclusion
The simplicity of having only one IM application is priceless. And although there great Apps that combine the services I prefer the iLife integration of the Apple applications. The only downer is that file transfers are not available through this setup. It would be safe to assume video is neither but I have not tried it myself.
Hello, I am Melvin Rivera; creator of 
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A few points with regards to security, since a couple of people are probably wondering…
1. iChat uses SSL by default, so it won’t be sent in the clear from your machine to the Jabber server unless you have SSL explicitly turned off for that Jabber server.
2. The MSN and Yahoo transports, however, store the password in plain text on the Jabber server, so if that machine gets hacked, someone could get your details that way. But on the other hand, that same risk applies to many web sites… forums, blogs, you name it.
3. The password is “probably” sent encrypted from the Jabber server to MSN and Yahoo. I say “probably” because I know for sure that it’s encrypted for MSN, but I’m not sure for Yahoo as I haven’t dug into the code for that transport before.
4. With regards to trusting “potentially unscrupulous” Jabber server admins… as a Jabber server admin myself, I’d like to think that our option is at least as good as trusting a “known unscrupulous”, large corporation known as Microsoft. :-)
MAJOR ISSUE!!!!!!!
I did this hack (via jabber.freenet.de), and in clients examining via MSN messenger, my password appears as the nickname to remote users.
I DO NOT RECOMMEND USING THIS HACK!!!! IF YOU HAVE, CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD!!!!!
-albert
Ok it is now working with PSI closed, but my contacts are offline, they can message me and I can message them…any advice???
ok…now i have to delete a contact, then add them again for them to come online..what is the deal with that??do i need to add my contacts in psi also??please help i am almost there!
First, To Albert: I ha the same thing happen but it was my fault becuase I am so used to how most programs and web pages work. When you set up your information in PSI it has three fields to fill out, one for username, one for password and one for nickname… By default I Put in username and password and then verified the password in the nickname field… I felt like an idiot when I noticed it. You just have to open your logon information for the MSN client in PSI and change the nickname to nothing or to your nickname rather than your password.
Secondly: I have had a problem where each time I set up an MSN connection through a jabber server it stops working a few days after I set it up. The Jabber server still works but MSN doesn’t. They even stop working in PSI. Just won’t connect or anything. When it is working it works great, but then stops and I have to change jabber servers to find another one that works… at least for a while. Any ideas here on this one?
Dragavan
to all people having trouble
just use adium,
ichat is great, but this is way to complicated and unreliable to set up
adium works great, and easy
i love how ichat looks and i hope they one day implement msn support nativly and i got the jabber/msn thing working the first day i got tiger, but its to dependent on to many things that can (and do) go wrong
Just thought I’d let you know here that I’ve gotten the MSN Transport plugin to work under Mac OS X Server 10.4.1 so you can run the Jabber server with MSN yourself. I’ve put my instructions on Apple’s discussion forum here:
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?14@883.yXhRaq7aYg7.13@.68aeb8d7/2
Thanks for the great tutorial! I’ve now consolidated my IM contacts into one app. And consolidation is always great! It’s like putting all of your eggs in one basket, which is a good idea if Apple makes the basket instead of Microsoft. :)
Still, Jabber support in iChat feels a bit rough around the edges, and I’ve already had 2 unexpected quits.
You are a genius! This is great. Thank You for helping me stop using msn! I will never go back
hey all ..
thanks for the great hack!! really wonderful .. but again, i dont think the issue regarding MSN user’s display pictures has been resolved .. is there any way to import my MSN contacts’ display pics?