Now you can chat with your facebook friends without logging into facebook.com here are some free chat clients which allow you to do so, facebook being one of the biggest social networking sites over the internet includes an awesome chat feature that lets you instantly start conversations with your Facebook buddies without installing any IM software but the only small issue is that you need to be on the Facebook.com website in order to use Facebook chat.
ChitChat – Here is one facebook a standalone messenger on the lines of Yahoo! or Google Talk, known as ChitChat.
ChitChat is a Windows-only desktop client for Facebook that provides a tabbed window to make it easy for you to talk to may friends at once. It will also show notifications in the tray when your friends go online or when they have signed out. The application is in RC stage so expect a few bugs.
Digsby – This is again a very useful all-in-one app that helps you stay up to date with everything happening on your Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, LinkedIn and other online accounts.
If you have multiple accounts on Facebook (like you and your spouse), you can associate all of them with your Disgsby messenger and chat with the combined buddy list simultaneously. Facebook doesn’t allow audio or video calls but Digsby indirectly brings that feature to Facebook Chat via tokbox.
There were reports (1,2,3) that Digsby’s installer can add some crapware to your computer but that should not hold you back as there’s an alternate installer (direct link) that will bypass the non-essential stuff.
Adium – If you are on Mac, Adium is probably the best choice for you to chat with Facebook friends from the desktop.
Like Pidgin and Digsby, Adium too supports multiple IM networks, including Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, AOL AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, Skype, Twitter and Jabber (XMPP). And it uses the same Facebook Chat plugin that is available for Pidgin users on Google Code.
Pidgin – While Facebook Chat is not officially supported in Pidgin, there’s a free plug-in that allow you connect to the Facebook chat server from Pidgin. And like Digsby, Pidgin too would let you chat with buddies on multiple Facebook accounts from the same interface.
Pidgin vs Digsby – Pidgin is purely for instant messaging while Digsby will also display notifications like when a friends sends you a message using Facebook email or if he or she writes something on your Facebook wall.