Best IM client

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I use vanilla AIM for the most part with AIM Ad Hack so I dont' get annoying crap.

However it's my power system for gaming and movie watching so I don't care that much. I'm on my MBP w/ Adium 90% of the time to do my chatting anyway.

 

[Crusty]

I'm a huge fan of Pidgin, been using it for years.. since it was named gAim

 

[JaYp146]

Pidgin or Digsby.

 

[alevasseur14]

Pidgin is great.

 

[dguy6789]

Pidgin +1

It's very lightweight, very clean looking, very functional. Works with a large variety of clients and even irc chat. File transfers and such work universally as well. Has a spell checker you can install too.

 

[KeypoX]

I used pidgin for a long time till about 6 months or so ago. It had some bug where it would crash after like 2min. Did some searching found digsby and like it much better. It maynot be lightweight (Its using a whole 22mb of ram right now) but its awesome.

I use pidgin in ubuntu though, no digsby yet

 

[Rottie]

Trillian Astra 4.0 is good enough for me.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I use pidgin as well. i was using trillian at one point and it was decent but it crashed a lot. It was much bigger then pidgen. i like a simple IM.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Was a Miranda user, tried Trillian, now committed to Pidgin.

Ed: File transfers (at least over the Yahoo protocol) do crash the app. I only realized this recently since I rarely use that feature. Has anyone else had this problem? Most of my contacts use Yahoo, some Google Talk, only two use Live. I'm not sure if the bug affects file-transfers over the GTalk/Live protocols.

 

[vj8usa]

Another vote for Pidgin. It's been fast and completely stable for me so far (though I haven't used it for Yahoo). Being able to use plugins is great.

 

[dguy6789]

I use it only for AIM. It's never crashed on me once since I began using it a couple months ago.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: theprodigalrebel
Was a Miranda user, tried Trillian, now committed to Pidgin.

Ed: File transfers (at least over the Yahoo protocol) do crash the app. I only realized this recently since I rarely use that feature. Has anyone else had this problem? Most of my contacts use Yahoo, some Google Talk, only two use Live. I'm not sure if the bug affects file-transfers over the GTalk/Live protocols.

I've never seen file transfers work properly, even on the native MSN client. You send a transfer and half the time people don't even get it, or it never starts etc. With everyone these days running NATed you'd think they could find a way to deal with that better.

Pidgin sometimes randomly crashes, but not always during transfers. Usually it's when I'm in the middle of typing a message.

 

[dguy6789]

To get file transfers to work properly on AIM in Pidgin, you have to check the "Always use AIM/ICQ proxy server for file transfers and direct IM(slower but does not reveal your IP address)" button. I haven't tried Yahoo or MSN but it's possible there's a setting like that for those too.

 

[IHAVEAQUESTION]

I tried pidgin based on the recommendations from this thread. Well, guess what? It doesn't work with MSN, something with the SSL connection. Has anyone tried with msn?

EDIT: Ok, now it works. I am still getting used to the interface. THis is very different from the msn messenger.

 

[w3stfa11]

Pidgin Portable is what I use.

I also have a Firefox shortcut for Meebo.com.

 

[razibhasan]

Pidgin is the best. An all-in-one solution.

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: Crusty
I'm a huge fan of Pidgin, been using it for years.. since it was named gAim

This. I've been using Pidgin (gAIM) for probably .. geez .. 7 years?

 

[Sylvanas]

Pidgin ftw.

 

[Qbah]

This Pidgin is AMAZING! Just tried it. All I have to do now is test, if I can ctrl+v print screens the same way as I do in MSN Messenger and then it's good bye MS Live!

 

[theprodigalrebel]

Hehe, now this is interesting. 46 hours after I swore by Pidgin, I am now a Digsby convert! Saw it on FileHippo, downloaded, has been great for the past few hours. Managing all IM accounts, emails, Facebook and Twitter as well from one simple app. It tells me when I have new email, allows me to delete/mark as spam/mark as read without having to launch the webmail/Outlook, shows me Twitter/Facebook updates (I don't actually use either of those but hey, I'm sure some would love it), also looks neat, built-in themes are nice and offer decent variety etc. Seriously, I'm not good at product reviews and breaking down features but just check some screenshots (or try it) - it's super awesome.

Need to send quick email? Hover mouse over contact, click on email icon, type in content and click send. Haven't yet tried the voice/cam features through Tokbox. But seriously, everyone oughta check it out. ~25MB memory footprint as of this moment.

 

[VinylxScratches]

I think Digsby will do it.

 

[Qbah]

Alright, Digsby it is for me actually. That thingie for all my emails on the bottom is amazing! And I found out a way to include one of the missing IM protocols (Gadu-Gadu). Works like a dream now! Still need to see if I can paste screenshots directly into the chat window if I'm takling to people on MSN. If not, then MSN Live! will still be running along side it.

 

[thescreensavers]

Originally posted by: Crusty
I'm a huge fan of Pidgin, been using it for years.. since it was named gAim

this