QQ in Linux / Lubuntu

[Ludens]

I'm running Lubuntu (a light Ubuntu distribution), and I'm struggling to set up QQ. Both Pidgin and Empathy state they support QQ, but QQ is not listed as a network when adding a new account to one of these programs. I've read lots of people using these programs for QQ, so I must be doing something wrong.

Any help getting QQ running in Linux would be appreciated.

[scoff]

AFAIK, QQ support in open source clients like pidgin/adium has been broken since QQ 2011 was released. However, there is always http://web2.qq.com/ which I have found to be a capable web-client.

Also, there is a version of QQ for Linux at http://im.qq.com/qq/linux/

[cababunga]

QQ support was recently removed from libpurple. It wasn't updated to reflect changes Tencent made in the protocol and Tencent was permanently disabling QQ accounts when login attempt was detected from unofficial client. Your options now are:

- don't use QQ, it's spying a lot;

- use Web QQ http://web.qq.com/;

- use official Linux client http://im.qq.com/qq/linux/;

- use Windows client in Wine http://linuxgazette.net/167/brownss.html.

[feihong]

Of those options, I think web.qq.com is your best choice if all you want to do is chat. Knowing Tencent, I just can't believe they would make a client that wasn't at least a little shady.

[Hugh]

I agree with feihong. I wouldn't trust a Tencent application with my admin password.

[Iriya]

Tencent is one of the biggest Internet companies in the world. Suspecting QQ of spying on its users is ridiculous, and is probably of the same variety as "Google spies on its Gmail users".

[Silent]

There is a lot of fuzz especially lately about many large companies about storing private information illegally. I've the impression all do it nowadays. So why not QQ? All large companies are searching for the edge of what is acceptable (legally/by the customer) with regards to collecting information. Information is power and power is money! Google even stated themselves that they know more about you than you do know about youself.

I think it's very naive to believe otherwise.

[Ludens]

Thanks for al the suggestions! I just took a look at Web QQ, which looks more like an OS within my browser then a simple chat application, but it does seem to work.

As to privacy & capitalism; I tend to agree with Silent.

[Ludens]

I just tried to log in on http://web.qq.com, and it doesn't load any more. Not that stable after all it seems...?

[cababunga]

Suspecting QQ of spying on its users is ridiculous,...

I suggest you the following experiment. Run your own webserver. The server doesn't have to be actually your own, but you have to be able to see its access log. Put there .mp3 file (might work with .jpg, but I haven't tried). It has to be publicly accessible but otherwise invisible, meaning that only those with direct link can download it. For the sake of this experiment choose something that you wouldn't want to share with everyone (or at least pretend it is something private). Send that direct link to someone over QQ. Watch your webserver's log. Observe that the file has been downloaded by IP address belonging to Baidu search engine.

[renzhe]

cababunga, unless you put a robots.txt file prohibiting it, search engine bots will find even stuff without direct links to it. I found it the hard way when I put something on a webserver as means of quick file transfer, and forgot to remove it later.

As for QQ spying on people: collecting personal information on people and creating character profiles is one of the biggest and most profitable IT sectors out there. All major web platforms do it, apparently for optimising advertising. I gave up on ppstream for Linux after I found out that it requires full administrator privileges before it agrees to start. If you want to watch a movie, the software must be able to overwrite all your system utilities. Well, that decision was quite easy.

Google has always been honest about what they do: collect information about you, what you do, and where you go, and then share it with advertisers (and with the government whenever they ask). That is their core business. I have no reason to believe that Baidu and QQ (with at least the former having strong ties to the government) are more ethical about this.

http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/schmidt-we-can-predict-where-you-are-going-to-go-708339

[cababunga]

You may have directory listing enabled or posted link somewhere. If there are no links pointed to the object, there is no way for a crawler to guess it's there; in the same way I don't know what you keep in your wallet unless you show me.

As for robots.txt, not all web crawlers respect it. Some don't even try to download it.

Edit: Also, web crawlers download web pages in order to find more URLs. What was the reason for downloading 30-something MB sound recording?

[renzhe]

You're right, directory listing might have been enabled in Apache (but difficult to get, because index.html was present), that might make the difference.

As for downloading a sound recording, I don't know, but of course they will download jpgs, .doc files and pdfs. These are also indexed.

[liudude_123]

just tried to log in on http://web.qq.com, and it doesn't load any more. Not that stable after all it seems...?

I have the same problem

Except that it works perfectly in the office but doesn't work at home. Any suggestion on why? Or how to make it work? I tried multiple browsers

[Bobble]

This post http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?2,113627,113627 has instructions and a link to a working .deb file for Linux QQ.

Download the .deb file from the link, then either double-click it to install via the Software Centre, or issue the command-line command

sudo dpkg -i linuxqq_v1.0.2-beta1-version-fixed_i386.deb

from the directory where you downloaded the file.

[Ludens]

Great news, but how do we know if that .deb file can be trusted?

[Takeshi]

Well, you don't; it's just that simple.

I used to use WebQQ, but since I came back to Canada I find it is very slow here, so I have given up and used the Linux client. It works fine actually and isn't riddled with ads like the Windows version.

[feihong]

WebQQ has been working fine for me here in the US. Although on Linux it seems to work best in Chrome. On my Mac it has a tendency to lock up the web browser (I end up having to kill the browser from the command line).

[feihong]

WebQQ has been working fine for me here in the US. Although on Linux it seems to work best in Chrome. On my Mac it has a tendency to lock up the web browser (I end up having to kill the browser from the command line).

[Pengyou]

I installed Mint on my last desktop - a distro of Linux - and there was an installer set up to install qq - worked just great! As far as qq peaking into personal data, they were caught, if I may use this expression, red-handed about 4 years ago. Since that time a lot of Chinese have been looking into other chat platforms.