The instant messaging program Pidgin 2.10.9 has been released recently. It mainly fixed problems logging into some servers including jabber.org and chat.facebook.com.

The default Pidgin versions in Ubuntu universe repositories are quite old (See Pidgin changelog history). The Pidgin Developers PPA provides the most recent version of Pidgin for Ubuntu 14.04, Ubuntu 13.10, Ubuntu 12.10, and Ubuntu 12.04. Here’s how to add the PPA and install / upgrade your Pidgin from it.

To get started, press Ctrl+Alt+T on your keyboard to open the terminal. When it opens, run the command below to add Pidgin PPA to your system:

sudo add-apt-repository -y ppa:pidgin-developers/ppa

After that, update your system package lists and then you’re able to install packages from the PPA:

sudo apt-get update

Now install the Pidgin:

sudo apt-get install pidgin

That’s it. Enjoy!

For the Off-the-Record (OTR) plug-in, which is designed for use with Pidgin ensures authenticated and secure communications between Pidgin users, just search for and install pidgin-otr from Ubuntu Software Center. Finally enable the plugin from Pidgin menu Tools -> Plugins.