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Or better yet, Psi with OpenPGP support.

That's just because it's using QT/Mac people. With QT/Mac you can't really do better than that (QT on the Mac is expensive and majorly sucks) - just look at apps like the PSI Jabber client. Now, everybody and dogs knew Google Earth is QT based (just look for the .dll's...) so, what else is new? (Linux-x86 will also end up being supported, once you're using QT and OpenGL that's not that hard to predict)

Trillian would be the nicest client out there if it were Psi instead.

A brief and largely incorrect summary of the current state of things:

MS Messenger: Ships standard on all Windows PC's. Pops up every five minutes asking you if you would like to sign up for service. Causes your computer to explode if you try to uninstall it, or indeed just try to get it to shut up. The fact that this still isn't the #1 instant messaging client should tell you something. I have the most luck with voice chat through firewalls on Messenger.

Aim: Comes automatically with AOL, or you can download it free from aol.com. Also comes free with LOTS and LOTS of ads. Ads pop up on your screen. Ads are built into your client. Smart a$$ movie executives send you ads directly. Sex chatbots try to lure you into filthyness before posting the transcript on Fark. Everyone's personal icon is loud, animated, and obnoxious. In short, AIM is a lot like the internet. And like the internet, nearly everyone uses AIM.

ICQ: Still the greatest communications medium of all time. Really. Greatest ever. (There, I said what you wanted Mr. 3098014563. Now give me my family back, like in the deal.)

Yahoo: No really, Yahoo has a chat medium. I was shocked too. Isn't Yahoo just adorable sometimes? On a side note, I've had better luck getting webcams through firewalls over Yahoo. This leads to great situations where I'm videoconferencing with someone over Yahoo, but the audio stream is in MSN and the chat is happening in Jabber.

Google Chat: Google chat is based on Jabber, the open source next-generation world dominating chat protocol of the fut-- hey, why are you laughing? No seriously, Jabber, which can communicate with AIM and MSN through... Yes it says so on the box. No, I don't care if almost never works. Ok, fine, Jabber, which can sometimes communicate with AIM and MSN through server-side plug ins, is the basis for Google Chat. Unlike all of the other protocols Jabber is an encrypted medium, meaning that even the server doesn't know what is being said. psi is the jabber client of choice, though there are a lot out there. It's also the only reason to buy Trillian Pro. What was that about Google Chat again?

Now if I remember correctly, AIM, as a condition of its merger with Time Warner was required to open its chat network to everyone. It then proceeded to shut out all 3rd party clients and other protocols that had the nerve to try and connect with it. MSN tried to connect to AOL without permission, but kept refusing 3rd party clients that tried to connect to it. We thought Yahoo was shutting out 3rd party clients as well, but it turns out they just broke their system a few times. Oops. Jabber will sleep with anyone, and Jabber servers will sleep with other Jabber servers. Jabber servers will even sleep with AOL and MSN, but only if they're really happy or really drunk. ICQ... I refuse to say anything about ICQ on the grounds that ICQ users are even more insane than Apple users.

All of this is very close to e-mail, circa 1992... Back when AOL, Compuserve, and all of the rest of the providers thought that locking their users into their system would keep the most people. Then AOL bought them all, and the whole thing seemed kind of moot.

I just don't see the problem with this. If I want to use encryption to communicate with someone, I want to communicate directly with them and request their public key. I don't want to trust software to manage my trust for me. I don't need encrypted communication from everyone I communicate with, and for those I do, I already have their pub keys.

Another point is that Google's service runs over SSL (at least I think it does) so encryption from outside parties is already there, GnuPG just offers ecryption from Google.

how is end-to-end crypto for jabber getting along?

how is end-to-end crypto for jabber getting along?

Even if you trusted Google, TLS might not be present on server-to-server communication if you're talking to a person on another jabber server (and you'd have to trust that server as well) or the other user might not be using TLS when talking to their server.

GAIM is a poor excuse for a Jabber client and lacks many key features (off the top of my head, service discovery). Just use Psi instead.

Once you have that done, convert your friends to Jabber and replace their legacy IM network contacts with a single Jabber ID.

Easier done than said, it really is.

PSI + GnuPG. Let them index that.

Only if you hate service discovery, or easy setup. Once you've set up Jabber the first time, the only thing you have to remember when installing Psi on another system is your JID and password. The Jabber server does the rest, from remembering how you have your contacts sorted to signing you on the other IM networks. This jabber tutorial can help you get started.

Just because a project isn't hosted on sourceforge doesn't mean its not relevant.

As an aside I want to say that to combat this common perception that people have, I simply create a sf.net project and redirect everything back to my "standalone" resources on my project website. I recommend that all project managers do this or something similar. I have a listing at Freshmeat and several other sites as well.

I happen to host my downloads on SF, but even if I did not, I'd want the SF listing because it can help increase traffic, and it provides a consistent interface to those interested in other SF-hosted projects.

Sourceforge !=CVS & mailing-lists.

My question is, what's to stop this sort of behaviour?

Nobody, unfortunately. When "Integrity Messenger" ripped off the Psi Jabber client, none of us could afford to pay for a lawyer. We tried to raise awareness by spreading news about the violation, but this only caused Integrity Messenger to threaten me with a lawsuit for slander (or something to that effect) and so we shut our mouths. I've been on a waiting list with the FSF since 2002 to get this case resolved, but nothing has happened. Christian Rishel, the evil behind Integrity Messenger, left last year and the company looks defunct now.

The worst of it is that it was entirely deliberate. Mr. Rishel tried to hire me for a relicensing deal and I declined, and so he told me I'd "get fucked someday". Considering I haven't seen an ounce of source code from these guys, or any compensation, I'd say he was right. Even if the FSF were to sue them today (and yes, I'm still in the queue), Mr. Rishel would probably not be affected. So I guess he got away with everything.

I've recently heard of another protocol for sending messages to people who are offline. It seems well tested, and at the moment there are many people using it.

There are several clients available, here, here, and here, and there are many others. Hope that helps.

It may not be mozilla-based but still, take a look at psi. It is cross-platform, it is open-source software and it uses an open protocol: jabber.

FSF has also been taking action against GPL infringers for a long time now AFAIK.

Some infringers do get away with it, one such case was a proprietary messenger application misappropriating Psi's code, but the defense is available if the developers are willing. Another sad case for me are the Linux kernel binary-only modules which apparently aren't perfectly legal either, yet I myself have a D-Link router that contains several. No-one is sure what the court would find on those, though.

YESSSS!!!

Jabber offers so much, including:

• Potential for full control of message path using an open and extensible protocol.
• Ability to carry messages over a secure connection (i.e. SSL); this is well supported.
• Flexibility to use different clients and servers, all which interoperate without the worry of a protocol change specifically designed to break 3rd party clients. There is no concept of a 3rd party client.
• Support for cross-communication to those other chat services with those awful EULAs, just as a stop-gap until the world becomes fully enlightened. This does NOT require a multi-protocol client... it is called a "transport", and it lives on a server. One login, full communication... that's easy!

There are a number of freely usable Jabber servers, so you can begin enjoying it right away, without setting up a server yourself. Just because you're using one server doesn't mean you can't talk to users on another. Your Jabber ID is in the form username@server, just like an e-mail address, so this ability is intrinsic to the design of Jabber. This is the beauty of a decentralized model.

An excellent Windows client is Exodus. A popular cross-platform client is Psi (based on Qt). Even the ubiquitous GAIM has support for Jabber. And very soon, iChat in Mac OS X will support Jabber! I've even considered making my own cross-platform Jabber client; isn't it great that we have that option? For more information on Jabber in general, visit jabber.org

The most widely used Jabber server software is jabberd 1.4. It is usable in Linux and Windows. For a concise comparison of open-source servers, click here. For a comprehensive list of Jabber servers (both open and commerial), click here.

NOW HEAR THIS -- Start using Jabber!

I use Psi. It's very good and works in many platforms, including Windows, Linux and OSX. It's also very configurable, i encourage you to try it.

BTW. Gaim sucks! :).

On Mac OS X, I use Psi. I like Adium, but Psi has a lot of nice, advanced features. Like resubmitting subscription requests, server administration tools, etc. Its ugly though, made using Qt so it's cross-platform, but looks strange when it's not on a Linux-with-kde desktop.

As for the applications you mention, they're all great but for one reason or another I do end up preferring some available on the GNU/Linux desktop.

Evolution has both an address book and mail. It also has a calendar and these days you see the Evolution calendar events even in the panel's calendar, which I think is great and a good example of the GNOME desktop integration. Evolution is truly a great mail client although it really has even more stuff than I need.

For chat I like Psi which is a great Jabber client available for whatever platform I choose. I may try iChat when it supports Jabber (next OS X I hear) and Psi doesn't offer that kind of integration but it still is the best IM client I've used and currently iChat isn't an option.

AmaroK kicks iTunes' ass in my not so humble opinion. It has many features not found in iTunes which I'm not so impressed with. Also, Ogg Vorbis really is an issue for me as I've got a substantial collection of self-ripped vorbis files. Each and every Linux player support them and so does for example WinAmp.

As for the rest, iPhoto is pretty nice and I can't name anything superior but I'm not that heartbroken from not having it. I can't talk much about iMovie but it seems a pretty good entry-level video editing app, certainly better than Windows movie maker. The stuff that's available for Linux tends to be more pro-oriented in that are I guess (same goes for Garageband). What's so good about iDVD? xine/mplayer/ogle/... do more and work well as DVD players.

Linux distributions vary a lot, if you select a good one, you won't be overwhelmed with choice initially but will be able to get to the options if you want to test the large amount available. Ubuntu, Fedora and SuSe are my recent favourites here. I don't think so much of the OS X desktop and feel your 1979 comment is a flamebait. Some things work better in GNU/Linux, others are still lagging behind it, but nothing's perfect.

Jabber has a Standart to encrypt with OpenPGP. It works flawless with diffrent Jabber Clients. I think this is more secure than the current Gaim-encryption Plugin. Just try PSI http://psi.affinix.com/

Don't worry. Audio/Video chat is currently being implemented in the Psi jabber client using Jabber/Helix. It shouldn't take too long before it's finished.

This is a joint effort with Psi, and has a projected release for September (this month).

The actual protocol specifications are ready, and available on the Delta project page, as jep-rtsp and jep-media. I have not yet submitted them to the JSF to be accepted as formal JEPs, as I already have some other protocol specs in their queue that I want to resolve first (particularly a patch to JEP-0065 to incorporate UDP support).

On the software side of things, we'll likely be late. This is somewhat related to a misunderstanding regarding the Helix SDK's capability. While the toolkit is quite mature for most purposes, it has never been used in a peer-to-peer fashion, where content is served from an end-user desktop application. This will be a first, but is taking us a little longer to deal with. It might be October before we have a beta.

This is a joint effort with Psi, and has a projected release for September (this month).

The actual protocol specifications are ready, and available on the Delta project page, as jep-rtsp and jep-media. I have not yet submitted them to the JSF to be accepted as formal JEPs, as I already have some other protocol specs in their queue that I want to resolve first (particularly a patch to JEP-0065 to incorporate UDP support).

On the software side of things, we'll likely be late. This is somewhat related to a misunderstanding regarding the Helix SDK's capability. While the toolkit is quite mature for most purposes, it has never been used in a peer-to-peer fashion, where content is served from an end-user desktop application. This will be a first, but is taking us a little longer to deal with. It might be October before we have a beta.

.. and let me add that Jabber is, like most (not all) things OSS, nothing but a ... copy of a commercial service.

Where's video or audio IM

buddy icons

I've tried some of the Jabber client (e.g. GAIM) and they are awful ... in terms of both ease of use and functionality.

.. and let me add that Jabber is, like most (not all) things OSS, nothing but a ... copy of a commercial service.

Where's video or audio IM

buddy icons

I've tried some of the Jabber client (e.g. GAIM) and they are awful ... in terms of both ease of use and functionality.

Psi is one. Don't know about others.

Psi (Jabber client) allows use of OpenPGP keys. Now I just need to get all my contacts to use GPG.

I am sorry but jabber sucks.

Zero content found. Statement ignored. :-)

Do they at least have file transfer now?

Many clients have had that feature since the dark ages. My guess is you haven't actually used Jabber for 2-3 years.

In addition to this the client I use, Psi, added this feature recently in version 0.92, in the form which complies with the JEPs.

Oh yeah, and there are other ways to transfer files. You may not have heard of FTP, SFTP, email, and so forth. Hope this helps.

Ok, how about video and audio conversation?

Neos can do this. Although IMO video and audio conversation are not instant messaging, and as such should be done in other clients. Sure, integrate with the other client... but don't implement it in a goddamned instant messenger because it isn't instant messaging.

Display pictures?

What, is your web browser not good enough? Seriously...

Anyway if you want them inline, there are several clients which can read and write XHTML messages, which includes images, yes.

Custom emoticons?

Not only custom emoticons, but custom roster icons too.

When you think about it for a couple of seconds, sites like this couldn't exist without such a feature.

Oh yeah, and because Jabber's iconset format is/will be standardised, there is a good chance that an iconset from one client will work on another client. Is this extremely basic feature in any of the others yet? Didn't think so. Moving on.

And don't get me started on the need on transports to connect to other services...

I agree, these should be built into the core server as it would make compiling and configuring the server much simpler. Although anyone with a Gentoo distribution and half (actually, probably 20% of) a brain can compile the server and all four transports with a single command.

You certainly wouldn't want to put support for Yahoo and the like in the client. Why? Well, the protocol just changed. You'll have to upgrade. The point is to avoid upgrading, therefore it is done on the server. In this way, for every 1000 people using the service, only 1 actually has to update the software.

Jabber is great for simple text messaging and nothing else

I see your comment is in the following form:

1. say something sucks;
2. demand a bunch of features which already exist in some form or another;
3. use the assumption that such features don't exist to conclude something which is false.

I hereby classify your comment as: Troll. Thanks for playing spot the loser. :-)

Ups...the correct link for Psi is http://psi.affinix.com/

Protocol: Jabber. Best client for it? hard to say, but my favorite is Psi. And I'm working on spreading the word to everybody that I can.

And perhaps then someone will make a free Jabber client that doesn't suck.

Try Psi. It has a nice interface and runs on Win32, Mac OS X and X11.

Yes, this is an unfortunate problem. The main reason there is no GPL version for Windows is that 99% of all software developed is in-house, and the GPL would allow in-house development without needing a commercial license (this would seriously eat into Trolltech's income). The company has tried in the past to release a "non-commercial" edition, which was closed source, but free to use, provided it was not for commercial purposes. Unfortunately this was abused by organizations who used it for commercial purposes anyway.

I should mention that the Psi project receives Qt/Windows for free. Trolltech gave us several commercial licenses, including endless support and upgrades, provided that we only use it for open source work. I'm not sure how practical it is for all free cross-platform projects to establish a trusting relationship with Trolltech in order to use Qt/Windows, but it might be a solution...

I prefer Psi to GAIM or Kopete or anything else so far. Yes it's Jabber but it works the way the old ICQ client worked before they went hog-wild with "features". And it's multiplatform: Win32/Linux/Mac.

GTK may be more efficient for *NIX/X11 development, but it doesn't touch Qt in the cross platform arena.

Try Psi for a jabber client that runs on both windows and linux. I've been using it on my Debian Woody and Win 2k boxes for a few months now without a hitch. Very mature, convenient and usable. I use to use Miranda-IM on my Win 2k box but since switching to Psi I haven't looked back.

jabber is an open source im system with multichat and ssl capabilities. just run your own server somewhere, let your users register with it, and presto!

jabber has built-in SASL/TLS support, is proven to work just great in intranets, and is free as in beer and speech.

there's also a variety of clients for linux, windows and mac os x, <shameless ad> the best being psi ;) </shameless ad>

Even more man-hours would be saved if people wrote in ISO C using only POSIX functionality, without littering their code with Linux-isms, or worse still distribution-specific things. Creating a package is relatively easy once you can make the code compile.

For something done right, look at Psi. The same code builds on Linux, *BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac. When the first Mac version was released, none of the developers even had a Mac (they just compiled it on someone else's machine). This is possible by coding to cross-platform APIs (in the case of Psi, the only dependency is Qt, which runs almost anywhere).

I use Psi, on my Mac, and it's written in Qt/C++. It's not quite perfect (no Mu-Conference support, and sometimes it jumps to 100% cpu usage for no good reason). Installing the Aqualight theme makes it look a lot more like a native app (this needs a bit of hacking in the 0.9.1pre versions, since the theme format changed. It runs on OS X, Windows and X11 (I've used it on Linux and FreeBSD).

So who are the "everyone else" who want XMPP?

Well, XMPP is orders of magnitude more popular, or at least more visible, among small businesses and end-users. There are clients for every platform you can name, and quite a few server software offerings. Many of these projects are open source. Search around on the web and you'll find a great number of fun Jabber-related projects, such as the Jabber World Map, or the multitude of mailing lists and user communities dedicated to Jabber. Even Trillian and Gaim support XMPP/Jabber. There are thousands of Jabber servers running today. Who the heck uses a SIP/SIMPLE client for IM?

Recently the Jabber Software Foundation announced that the Jabber userbase has surpassed that of ICQ. While ICQ is now the least popular of "the big 4" proprietary IM networks, this is still a significant achievement towards open & standard IM. SIMPLE isn't even on the map.

It should also be known that IBM and Apple are fence-sitters, as they both back XMPP also (IBM is a JSF sponsor, and Apple uses a form of XMPP in iChat).

So yeah, 'everyone else' really means just that.

Browser: Mozilla Firebird 0.6.1 (or 0.7 nightly build)

Email: Thunderbird 0.2 (or 0.3 nightly build)

Office Suite: Open Office 1.1

SSH Client: Putty 0.53b

Graphics: Irfan View 3.85 or GIMP 1.2.5

Music: Winamp 2.91

Virus Scanner: AVG 7.0

Instant Messenger: Psi 0.9 or Trillian Basic 0.74E or gaim 0.70

Non-Copywrited Music downloads :P : WinMX 3.31

Video Player (paired with an ATI Video card): ATI MMC 7.6

FTP : LeapFTP 2.7.4

ok so that was 11 .. sorry ;)

Some free, Free and not so free applications:

Webbrowser Mozilla Firebird (Win / linux)
Email Eudora (win) Evolution (linux)
Office suite OpenOffice.org 1.1 (win / linux)
SSH client putty (win) openssh (linux)
Videoplayer VLC (win / linux) or BSPlayer (win) and Xine (linux)
Editor Textpad (windows) Kate (linux)
Chat Jabber PSI (win / linux)
Firewall Kerio (win)
Anti virus F-Secure (not free) (win)

- Ost

And so should you do. It's just as easy to deal with as MS Messenger, it works on many platforms, and it's free. Now you see why free as in Microsoft gives it away is not free as in free.

I recommend Psi for both Linux and Windows, but I'm sure there are other clients that are just as good.

Well, given that Jabber is already a great messenger protocol, why not switch? Surely this is a push factor of some order of magnitude. I don't hate MS for the sake of hating, but surely this says nothing but "fuck 'em".

A great client using a great protocol.

I would sooner lose tenuous friends than have to run Windows on my desktop.

Trillian will support the Jabber protocol in the next release I hear, but I don't know if they will fix the unicode.

Since Jabber is native unicode (UTF-8), most clients support it I think. Psi is a good one that supports UTF-8 for sure, and works on both Linux and Windows. See some other clients at the Jabber.org client chart.

• Open Source (GPL)
• Open Protocols (Jabber)
• Connectivity with AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! and MSN
• Multi-platform
• Secure connections (SSL)
• HTTP Proxies support

Well, Psi is a pretty nice client. I'd say its a quality client. I've also never had problems with transports getting blocked - all of the servers I've used have been able to connect to ICQ and AIM without problems. Of course, any attempt to interoperate with ICQ and AIM is eventually doomed - AOL has made it clear that they want people using their client and ONLY their client. The problem with doing all that client-side is that each program needs to implement its own ICQ/AIM/etc. handling, and can still be trivially blocked. The servers I use are smaller ones, so that might help. And if its really an issue, you can run your own server just for the transports. (Remember that you can access transports and ohter services on servers other than the one you're logged in to!)

I also haven't used file transfer for years, even when I was using a full-ICQ client. Too much hassle. Though it would be nice, its not big selling point for me.

As for killer features, how about trivially extensible servers through the services system? Groupchat? GOOD user directories? (I haven't seen those since ICQ murdered its whitepages service a few years back)

It seems you missed the point of Jabber.

Jabber is (for now) an instant messaging protocol that provides so many features that you would be amazed. Most of them are not present nowadays on propietary IM, but maybe they'll copy them from Jabber later. Some are 'server temporal storage of messages if contact is unavailable' or 'server based filter rules' and a lot more.

Perhaps you can't find their utility now, as you have been induced to think propietary IM has everything you would ever need. Just wait.

Reading your comments about some client with so many strange options, it seems you are talking about JAJC client. Please try the other three main Jabber clients (all of them GPL'ed) and you will see that every person-requirement has a client ;)
Psi (multiplatform),
Tkabber (Tcl/Tk) and
Exodus (Borland Delphi).

More clients on jabber.org

Some clients' screen captures

"BTW, If anyone knows of a good looking Jabber Client that runs on 95, I would be very grateful"

Psi is a very nice OpenSource, Multiplatform Jabber client that I think it runs on Win95. You should try it.