Joining
To join XMPP chats, you will need a client and a provider.
Clients
There is no single official way to access XMPP. Instead, there are many clients with different features and interfaces. You can find a big list from the protocol maintainers here, but as a starting point:
- In the browser, Converse.js.
- On desktop, Gajim or Dino.
- On android, Conversations seems to be your best bet. It's free in F-Droid!
- On iOS, I have no personal experience but Monal seems popular.
Providers
Similarly, there's not one single centralized server, like Discord or Telegram have. Instead, it works kind of like email is supposed to work: You can join any server (called a "provider"), or make your own, and chat with anyone on any other provider.
The easiest way to proceed is to get an account on xmpp.postfurry.net. For now, message Voksa. If you're seeing this and don't know what that means, sorry, all of this is still a bit of a work in progress.
You can also (and frankly probably should) make an account on any other public provider — distributing ourselves is a good idea; if a server goes down all accounts registered on it would be lost too. You can find a list of public providers here, registering on their websites probably works better than using in-client registration.
If you have the technical skills, ample time, and a domain name, you can also launch your own provider! Prosody is the easiest to set up; Ejabberd is more complex but technically capable.
Getting Connected
Once you have an account and client, you should be able to log in! You can add contacts with their xmpp addresses no matter what provider they joined (unless something's gone terribly wrong).
To get into the Postfurry Worlds network, find the controls to add general@multi.xmpp.postfurry.net as a groupchat. Clicking that might also work! Chester@xmpp.postfurry.net, a helpful robot, can give you a list of additional channels; just message them "help" or "channels".