Comments on: Pidgin, Firefox of IM Clients

By: Blah

Blah — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 12:12:49 +0000

You know, I remember when AIM came out... a standalone IM client that didnt require you to have crappy AOL installed. AIM was great... it was quick and had lots of config... and it just got better. AIM still has the more stable IM network compared to MSN and Y!.. I dont know why people hate the actual AIM app tho... compared to trillian, msn, pidgin, miranda, etc.. its still the best designed, most intuitive. Also the fastest.

Pidgin.. well it doesn't support half of the IRC commands. It self-validates commands like /ctcp so it doesn't even send them. Plus it doesn't have "use small icons" like trillian has. File transfer doesn't work with other MSN IM clients. And what a horrible name.

Trillan.. well the slightest disruption causes msn to shutdown. Global restart doesn't always work. File transfer can be buggy depending on the client at the other end. Doesn't auto-update name aliases

Miranda.. could it get uglier and less intuitive? It's not even in the running. It seem powerful.. but needs a gui designer.

But on all of these... the AIM network itself A) stays up, even when I momentarily stop network connection. It also is the first to reconnect. B) Almost always has working file transfers C) Was the most popular at one point, but some how bad publicity took it below Y!, which is absolute garbage.

Googletalk...well its too late to the game.. so it doesn't have much chance. But they have the right idea with the online version of it.

Ebuddy.net ftw!

By: cris

cris — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:39:15 +0000

yeah, i think pidgin is far better than trillian in terms of being user-friendly.. i tried both today, and i would say that trillian looks cool but functionality-wise, i’d prefer pidgin.. besides, what is this weather channel bundled with trillian??

By: Ian

Ian — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:58:42 +0000

I’ve just moved from MirandaIM to Pidgin (I used Trillian in the old days). Pidgin is better ‘out of the box’, you need to do a lot of mucking about with Miranda to get it looking less than hideous imho.

By: toni

toni — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:26:32 +0000

I wonder why has no one ever mentioned Kopete here. Nope, it's not rock solid on every protocol. But hey, it works :). Yahoo file transfer is still problematic IFAICR. But what I love so much is their DCOP feature, aumatically gained from being KDE apps ;). Not to mention supports adium theme.

Your mileage may vary. It may not fits your need, but it's my trustable IM atm.

By: Dave Zatz

Dave Zatz — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:01:34 +0000

Adium on OS X is the best stand-alone multi-network client I’ve used. Trillian has a new client in beta testing which looks pretty sharp. I’ll be interested in trying that out on Win when it’s available. In a crunch I will use web-based Meebo, though giving up my IM credentials to a third party makes me a bit uneasy.

By: KC

KC — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 05:12:08 +0000

I've been using ChatStat for quite some time. It's like Trillian or Pidgin or Miranda (you take your pick) AND LivePerson AND Webtrends all put into one AND it works with Skype!

They even support live on-the-fly language translation which is awesome if you have contacts who's native language isn't english.

It's better then anything mentioned on this post and I'm shocked that more people don't know about it.

By: Diego Barros

Diego Barros — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 02:01:29 +0000

The problem I found with GAIM is that the UI feels and looks terrible. Whereas something like Trillian is a lot slicker. GAIM also looks out of place, like Java apps. This is the same problem with GIMP. People tout it for being free and a competitor to Photoshop. But again it looks and feels awful.

By: kooKyGuY

kooKyGuY — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 01:51:51 +0000

I don’t think Pidgin is bad or anything, but this post makes this blog seem irreverent and useless to me. There is no valid points in it and comparing it to Firefox makes no sense at all. If there were valid points made, it wouldn’t be so bad.

By: Gregor J. Rothfuss

Gregor J. Rothfuss — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 23:55:58 +0000

I have tried them all: Trillian, Gaim, Miranda, Adium. I like Adium and Trilian the best. Adium just works.

Trillian basic is ok, but has too many nerdy UI options (window transparency? Give me a break), and Miranda is just a mess. Look at all the silly plugins on their site, and tell me quickly which ones are essential. Again, too many unnecessary configuration options.

As for theming.. I have never seen anyone not living in someone else's basement care about that.

By: CP

CP — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 23:36:07 +0000

"How about for starters, Pidgin is open source, and lets you customize the experience, starting with the very basic.

Trillian Pro, you have to pay for, and Pidgin is free. (Trillian basic is free.)"

Look, I'm all for open source, but that's hardly a rational argument... It's open source so it's better. Come on - give me a point by point comparison of Pidgin versus Miranda, Trillian (basic and Pro), Meebo, and other multi-IM client. And compare apples to apples - by example don't compare the Linux version of Pidgin/GAIM to the windows version of Miranda.

Just because it's open source does not mean it's better. It just means it's open source. If you can actually articulate functional superiority, then you've got a good argument that Pidgin rocks compared to Trillian. Otherwise, your just spewing sour grapes over something not being open source.

By: Jack

Jack — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 21:25:33 +0000

"Jack’s wrong. Pidgin does support filetransfers. used it for icq. works perfect." -- ICQ is just one chat network out of 4+. Just because Pidgin supports transfers on ICQ doesn't mean it supports them on other networks. A quick check of Pidgin's bug tracking DB verfified this fact (that file transfers are indeed unsupported or unreliable on a variety of platforms).

Regarding Miranda, I've heard good things about this client. I'll be sticking with Trillian on win32, though.

By: Aditya

Aditya — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 21:06:26 +0000

@Marcel: The problem you state is no longer the case really. They have begun to package Miranda with a few basic plugins which they noticed everyone was using. This includes the PopUp Plus (for toasts), as well as the Modern Contact List layered (for themes/skins).

It also comes with all the required protocol plugins as I mentioned before, and all you have to do is fill in the details in the options. Anyone who wants to use a multi protocol IM should know how to do all this (for g'sakes, Trillian never made it easy for anyone, and still it has tons of users).

It's true that Miranda is a little on the power-user side, but hey, it's pretty darn good! :)

@Om: No problemo!

By: Chris R.

Chris R. — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:15:20 +0000

The name takes some getting used to, but I use Pidgin whenever I use Linux instead of Windows.

I've always been happy with it. No frills, but gets the job done.

By: Andrew C.

Andrew C. — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:11:24 +0000

I personally like using meebo (http://www.meebo.com) as my main IM client. Being a web-based client, it has no installation required and is fast to load.

By: marcel weiss

marcel weiss — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 20:03:01 +0000

Jack's wrong. Pidgin does support filetransfers. used it for icq. works perfect.

and as for miranda: only people with too much time on their hands use that. you need like 20+ plugins to get it to do all basic things and then the settings-windows just get really messy. typically a geektoy. besides that miranda is pretty strong, just nothing for the usual guy next door ..er.. pc.

By: Om Malik

Om Malik — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 19:57:44 +0000

Aditya,

thanks for the Miranda tip. Will check it out right now.