Comment 1 for bug 507971

Pidgin doesn't directly link against libgconf, but it needs gconftool on GNOME to get things such as proxy settings. Without this integration, pidgin would need it's own proxy settings separate from the rest of the desktop. Pidgin also registers some URI handlers in GNOME too, which needs gconf.

It doesn't need gconf windows because it uses the Windows registry, which is not cross-DE either.

I'm closing this as invalid, as it's not really a bug. If you can think of ways of obtaining the GNOME proxy settings (which are stored in gconf) without using gconf, then please suggest them here.