A note from the WebHostingSearch.com team:

“Winning the WebHostingSearch.com award for best web tool is not something that many companies can brag about. To receive this award you have to provide extra value to your users. This award is handed out only if we have been convinced that it’s a useful and qualitative tool and resource before we even consider it for an award. If you use CometChat, you can rest assured that you will be more than pleased.

Congratulations from the WebHostingSearch.com team!”

Key Updates

Voice, video, text chat directly from your desktop

Have you imagined providing a Skype-like tool just for your site users? It’s all possible with the brand new CometChat Desktop Messenger! The Desktop Messenger allows your users to login and voice/video/text chat directly from their desktop. It runs on both- Windows and Mac OS.

Support for all our popular plugins

Our desktop messenger supports all popular plugins for CometChat including voice/video chat, whiteboard, writeboard, handwriting, block user, chat history and file sharing.

Enhancements and tweaks

Language and theme files are now stored on your server so you can directly modify the look and feel quickly. New caching techniques have been implemented to reduce load times and bandwidth usage.

White-labelled (Branding free)

Every purchase includes branding of the desktop messenger to match your site (icon, logo and name). Your users will never know that they are using CometChat.

Purchase

Purchase CometChat Desktop Messenger for your site. Note, you must have CometChat (any edition) installed on your site.

Feel free to email us if you have any questions.

What’s New

Inline Plugins

Beautifully re-written code now loads plugins within your browser window. CometChat will no longer open popups in ugly browser windows. Keep your users truly within your site. Your users can move plugins around the page and have them all available together.

Launch chatrooms and have text chat, video conferencing, screen-sharing, writeboard and other plugins active at the same time! Collaboration couldn’t get any simpler.

Sleek Scroller

We know that the browser default scroll-bars don’t look good. So we’ve have added new Facebook style scroll bars to enhance the look of the Who’s Online list and chat boxes. Finally, a scroll bar that looks a part of CometChat.

WYSIWYG Theme Creator

Our new themes module in the CometChat Administration Panel enables you to create your own theme in seconds. Use the horizontal scroller to match colors to your site or manually edit the hex values. Any changes are automatically reflected for all CometChat plugins and modules.

New Sharing Options

We have added support for Google+ and Pinterest!

New Smileys!

We have done away with our old boring smileys and replaced them with a brand new set! Now your users have over 30 smileys to express how they feel in a conversation.

8 New Language Packs

We now provide ready front-end language packs for English, Arabic, French, Chinese, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish. Add the language pack directly from your CometChat Admin Panel and be up and running in minutes!

Facebook Chat using your own Facebook Application

You can now connect to your own Facebook Application (instead of ours). For sites which already use Facebook Connect, this feature becomes invaluable as your users do not have to give permissions (Facebook permission popup) twice.

Jabber/XMPP Support

CometChat now allows your users to connect to your own Jabber/XMPP server. This feature is ideal for enterprise customers who already have a Jabber server running and want to use CometChat as their front-end (on their portal/intranet/site).

CometService for Chatrooms

Reduce your server load even further by enabling CometService/alternatives for chatrooms. With CometService enabled on your site, you can bid goodbye to any load related issues. Handle over 100,000 users with ease and minimal server load.

New Caching Mechanism

Tired of clearing browser cache every time you make a change to CometChat? Our new advanced caching mechanism automatically handles this for you after any modification in the CometChat Administration Panel. The on-the-fly reduction algorithm reduces over 20% of the CometChat core code. Faster, lighter and a lot more efficient.

Miscellaneous enhancements and bug fixes

Desktop messenger support, real-time translation fix for CometService, improved Twitter plugin, Facebook/Gtalk chat tweaks, administration panel updates and design enhancements make v4.4 the most beautiful, efficient and feature-loaded version ever.

Get CometChat v4.4!

So what are you waiting for? Purchase CometChat today! or contact us if you have any questions.

Already have CometChat? Download CometChat or purchase our installation service if you would like us to perform the upgrade.

We are proud to launch our new desktop version of CometChat which integrates seamlessly with your existing CometChat powered site. No additional configuration or settings are required from your end.

The beta version is available for a one-time cost of $199 (includes future updates). You can distribute the app to all your site users or to a selected few (e.g. admin, moderators) as per your wish. The app is written using Adobe AIR technology and works on Windows and Mac computers.

Key Features

Quick Login

You enter your username/password directly in the desktop application (and can optionally choose to remember the details). CometChat Desktop Messenger will use your existing site authentication mechanism.

The messenger starts automatically when you turn on your computer.

Who’s Online

After login, online users/friends are displayed in the Who’s Online list similar to how they appear on the CometChat bar, sorted by availability status and then alphabetically. You can quickly look up users using the search facility.

Availability Status

You can set your availability status or customize a message that will appear for other users.

Messaging

Click on a name to open a chat window. You can have as many chat windows open as you like at one time. Type into the box to send an IM. We currently support only text chat.

System Tray

CometChat Desktop Messenger can be minimized to system tray so it sits there unobtrusively while you do other work. You will receive sound and visual notification when a new message arrives.

White-labelled (Branding free)

On purchase, the desktop messenger will be branded for your site (icon, logo and name) so that it becomes an integral offering of your site.

Requirements

Server Requirements

* Site running CometChat
* (recommended) CometService or alternatives

Client Requirements

* Windows

- 2.33GHz or faster x86-compatible processor or Intel® Atom™ 1.6GHz or faster processor
- Microsoft® Windows® XP Home, Professional, or Tablet PC Edition with Service Pack 3; Windows Server® 2003; Windows Server® 2008; Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise (including 64-bit editions) with Service Pack 2; or Windows 7
- 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)

* Mac OS

- Intel Core™ Duo or faster processor
- Mac OS X v10.6 or v10.7
- 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)

Purchase

Purchase CometChat Desktop Messenger for your site. In the beta phase, we are offering this app only to the first hundred sites. Your purchase includes all future updates.

Feel free to email us if you have any questions.

Highlights

High definition video chat

The launch of Adobe Flash Player 11 brings in the ability to encode at H.264 (standard codec for high-def videos like Blu-ray). Our voice/video chat plugin has been automatically updated for all our customers. You and your users only have to get the latest version of Adobe Flash Player to be able to video chat in HD. We have also added an option for peer-to-peer chat in the latest update.

Facebook/Gtalk friends chat

Our Facebook/Gtalk chat has been updated with miscellaneous tweaks and fixes. We have upgraded our servers as well to ensure smooth scaling. Caching has now been enabled so avatar images will load instantly for subsequent calls.

Single player games

We have tied up with a new partner to provide you with high quality single player games.

New real-time translate module

Our old real-time translate module which used Google’s free translate API will cease to function from December 1st. This is because of Google’s decision to discontinue their free translate API service.

We have updated the module well in advance so that the transition phase is smooth. You can now use either Google’s paid translate API or Microsoft’s free translate API. Learn how to configure the new real-time translate module.

New writeboard plugin

The writeboard plugin has been updated with a slicker interface. We are now hosting this service on our servers for better performance.

Aggressive caching

The CometChat base code has been slightly tweaked for caching so the CometChat core files are downloaded only once. The advantages are two-fold: your site loads considerably faster and bandwidth usage is much lower.

Like what you see?

Upgrade to a higher edition by simply paying the difference, purchase CometChat or ask us a question.

Would you like to see a new feature in the next release? Add your suggestion!

New Features

+ Facebook and Gtalk chat support
+ Android and other mobile platforms generic webapp
+ Single link for chat webapp (auto-detection)
+ Guests functionality
+ Ability to select color in chatrooms
+ Report conversations plugin
+ Block user plugin
+ Alternative page translation module
+ Improved SSL support
+ Advertisements extension (accepts Google Adsense code)

Enhancements

+ Sound notification in chatrooms
+ Improvement in friends list fetching
+ Lazy loading of avatar images to reduce bandwidth usage
+ Enhanced CometService to avoid dropping messages
+ Enabled private announcements/notifications feature

Bug Fixes

+ File transfer plugin fix for file names with spaces
+ Banned words filter fix
+ Duplicate status message fix
+ Long status message fix
+ Transport fixes
+ jQuery 1.6.X compatibility
+ Miscellaneous bug fixes

So what are you waiting for? Purchase CometChat today! or check out the new features.

What’s New

Facebook/Gtalk friends chat

Your users can now chat with their Facebook and Gtalk friends directly from CometChat!

Simply click on the “Connect to Facebook/Gtalk chat” link and enter your Gmail or Facebook details. We use Facebook Connect feature for connection establishment. The process is seamless and quick for your users.

After login Facebook/Gtalk friends will appear in the Who’s Online list and you can chat with your friends immediately. It couldn’t get any simpler.

Mobile friendly – Full support for iPhone, iPad, BlackBerry, Android and other modern mobile devices

Chatting couldn’t get easier on mobile devices. Our unified webapp automatically detects the user’s device and redirects him/her to the best version. Your users simply have to login to your site and then visit yoursite.com/cometchat. No confusing multiple URLs for different devices.

Guests option

Want your site users to chat without logging in? v4 allows guests to chat without any login. Users will be auto-logged in as “Guest 13423″ etc. similar to how you are automatically logged in when you visit our website.

Performance enhancement

CometChat v4 increases performance and reduces bandwidth requirements. Avatar images are loaded only on request and not on every page load. You can count on savings of over 50KB per load! SQL queries have been reduced and your DB will see an instant performance improvement.

Enhanced CometService

No more dropped messages during page switches. The enhanced version of CometService ensures that every message is delivered, on-time.

New plugins

Your users now have the ability to block other users as well as report offensive conversations. A basic advertisements plugin is also included which can be used to add Google Adwords to your chat boxes.

Miscellaneous enhancements and bug fixes

Better cross-domain support, improved translation feature (works automatically on every page), sound notification in chatrooms and dozens of small bug fixes make your CometChat experience smoother than ever.

v4 is the best CometChat ever!

How to get v4

CometChat v4 Beta 1 is available for immediate download. Simply select v4.0.0 Beta 1 from the drop down list for CometChat Version.

Certain features may not be available to you depending on your edition. Facebook/Gtalk chat feature is available to Professional Edition or higher license holders. As we are maintaining servers to handle this service, this feature is available only to active license holders.

To enable the Facebook/Gtalk chat feature, go to your licenses page and click on (update) link next to your domain name. Make sure that your domain is correct (e.g. cometchat.com and NOT http://www.cometchat.com/forum) and hit the Associate button.

BETA VERSION: Some features (like guests feature) and plugins are not available in the beta releases. Some features may not work as expected and maybe removed before final launch. No support is provided for beta versions. Please report all bugs at http://g.cometchat.com/nYcCJZ

CometChat now integrates seamlessly with SMF v2+. Our seamless integration includes:

Automatic User Login
Your users are logged into CometChat as soon as they login to SMF. No confusing separate login.

Friends list synchronization
CometChat automatically integrates with your SMF users’ friends list. In the “Who’s Online” list, users will see their SMF friends. If you are running a small site, then you can always choose to show all online users instead.

User Profiles
CometChat allows users to quickly visit SMF profiles by clicking on the user’s name while chatting.

User Avatars
CometChat will display the SMF user’s avatar in the Who’s Online list and while chatting.

Excited? Purchase CometChat for SMF today! Or learn more about SMF integration.

APE Server Transport Update

We have updated our APE server transport which resolves issues with Internet Explorer 9. The update also fixes miscellaneous issues that caused connection problems. When installing APE server, be sure to use the master copy.

If you have already purchased the APE server transport, simply create a support ticket to download this new version.

If this is the first time you are hearing about APE server transport, here are answers to some common questions:

What is APE Server transport? Why should I use it?
Before we answer this question, you must try and understand how CometChat works. By default, CometChat uses a technology known as smart-polling i.e. CometChat will poll your server every 3-12 seconds to check for new messages.

By using APE Server, you can reduce this polling to once every 60 seconds (thus reducing load on your server) and leverage the APE server technology to check for new messages in near real-time (thus speeding up message delivery).

APE Server transport are configuration files which we offer if you wish to connect CometChat with an APE server.

Why APE Server and not BeaconPush, Pusher and CometService?
The advantage of using APE server is that your solution is completely self-hosted and you do not rely on any third-party servers. The downside is that you will need to install and manage the APE server entirely on your own.

What is the cost of the transport? Where can I purchase?
We charge a one-time fee of $199 for the configuration files. If you would like to purchase, click here.

This sounds too complicated. Do you have something easy to reduce server load and increase speed of delivery?
Yes, we offer CometService for as low as $9/month. CometService can be activated directly from your CometChat Administration Panel.

Still confused? Ask us a question.

Now you can subscribe to our CometService for as low as $9/month. We have also added a lot more messages for each plan!

If you are wondering what CometService is, here are a couple of frequently asked questions:

What is CometService?
CometService is an optional service that enables you to offload 95% of the load due to CometChat from your servers to our servers. Using CometService, messages are sent in near real-time and thus speed of message delivery improves drastically. CometChat will poll your servers only once every 60 seconds (instead of the current 3-12 seconds).

How difficult is it to setup CometService?
CometService can be activated directly from the CometChat Administration Panel. After you subscribe, it will only take you a couple of seconds to activate CometService.

Which editions of CometChat are compatible with CometService?
You can use any edition of CometChat with CometService.

Intrigued? Head over to our CometService page or ask us a question.

If you are already using CometService, your account plan has automatically been adjusted with your new messages. No action is required from your end.