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About the Patch
This project restores modern Steam friends/chat by providing a patch you can apply to your Steam client's program files.
The entry point of the patch is a minor modification to Steam\clientui\friends.js, which directs FriendsUI to run a different web page instead of steam-chat.com.
The new target webpage is a modified snapshot of steam-chat.com (included in the patch) that is placed within Steam's program files. The snapshot removes/fixes Valve's broken code and is thus fully functional. Further modifications are also present to facilitate running the webpage snapshot excised from its origin. As a result, FriendsUI is now communicating with a working webpage instead of a broken one, and friends & chat in the Steam client are restored to working order.
This is just one method of several that is capable of restoring FriendsUI. I selected this approach for a variety of reasons.
The only file modified by the patch is friends.js. That's it. No exes or dlls are modified, so VAC doesn't throw a fit. I have personally verified this by regularly playing on VAC-secured TF2 servers with the patch active since Sept 26 2023. There is little to no reason for Steam to care about monitoring friends.js in the context of VAC, and all the evidence points to this holding true.
Because only one file is modified, it's easy to remove the patch by simply restoring a backup of an unmodified friends.js file.
Unlike Valve's remote code from steam-chat.com, the patch makes all of the core friends & chat logic run from the local files on your hard drive, like normal programs do. Ergo, the Steam client is no longer dependent on a remote service in order to load & run FriendsUI. You still need an internet connection to chat with your friends, obviously, and Valve's chat backend must be online & working, but Steam will no longer download and run the broken client code from Valve's servers.
Once you apply the patch, it will last until the next time the Steam client updates and overwrites the modified friends.js file. Given the audience of readers that this patch is for, odds are you should already have blocked your Steam client from automatically updating, so that takes care of that. If not, refer to the Appendix.
Re-installation of the patch after a Steam client update is just as easy as installing it the first time, especially if you are using the QuickPatcher application.