Instant Messenger programs - which is the best?

[T Roosevelt]

Seems everybody uses something different, or more than one. Is there IM software that is compatible with these?

On edit: added ICQ

[T Roosevelt]

1. Hmmm...Other...what could it be?

Other seems to have garnered a couple of votes, but...it must have been an energy task force attendee...

[DBoon]

2. mIRC

for us old timers stuck in IRC

[YellowRubberDuckie]

3. Actually they all suck, but Yahoo! Messenger sucks the least...

And their new version is pretty neat. Except I miss personalized skins.
Duckie

[LTR]

4. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM AIM!!!

It installs spyware, and relies too much on the temp folders for storing information, which can easily be accidentally deleted.

If there's one company more inept than Microsoft, it's AOL. Their only good programs (Netscape, Winamp) are ones they had to go out and buy. AOL is the Clear Channel of the internet. Everything they touch turns to shit, and it's all about the money.

Yahoo is relatively safe, but occasionally obnoxious. IM is on your computer whether you like it or not. I'm not familiar with the others.

But AIM is the devil! Avoid!

[No Passaran]

5. Other

You obviously forgot the best one. It's not an actual IM but with this one you can have them all in one place including IRC

TRILIAN

[T Roosevelt]

7. Just downloaded and installed

any hints?

[No Passaran]

11. Download skins

http://ceruleanstudios.com/downloads/downloads.php?d_type=Skins

I use myXP.
After you start using trillian, you'll never go back to using anything else.

[BigMcLargehuge]

6. iChat

uses the AOLIM servers, but is a standalone program shipped as part of the iLife bundle installed on all new Macs. Offers voice and video chat, file transfers, and best of all...


NO ADS and NO SPYWARE.

[dolo amber]

8. MSN, Yahoo and AIM are soon to be one

I heard this on NPR this week:

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3424014

[landdaddy]

9. trillian

Covers them all! :freak:

[Lisa0825]

12. I use Trillian too. It's great!

The only thing that sucks is that whenever one of the platforms decides to change their protocol ya have to wait for the Trillian developers to come up with a fix. But 99% of the time, I love it!

[Rooktoven]

10. GAIM !!!

http://gaim.sourceforge.net/

Talks to all of them (and IRC) and allows you to have all conversations in one window.

I of course have never tried the windows version, because windows is crap/insecure/evil/ .