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Trillian has a patch which allows you to connect normally again. Same place as the original announcement...

Trillian has posted updates for both it's 0.74 ( free) and PRO clients to fix this problem.

The links for the patches are available here

Nice turnaround time on this.

There is already a patch out at 11am est. Links here

See it here.

Trillian has had this option long before November 2003.

Amen to the comments on EditPlus! Great damn program for the money.

I have more than 10 in my "start from scratch" install, so here goes:

• Acrobat 5
• AdAware 6
• EditPlus (the best damn win32 text editor.)
• Macromedia Fireworks
• Microsoft Remote Desktop (damn good Terminal for Win32)
• Microsoft Office (counting it as one program)
• Nero
• Offline Explorer Pro
• Putty (god bless Simon Tatham!)
• Screen Calipers
• Trillian
• TweakUI
• VirusScan Enterprise
• WinAmp
• WinZip

I'm going to have to check out FileZilla... I've used CuteFTP, LeechFTP, and some others... I've never found one I'm completely happy with. PDF Creator and SpyBot SS look like good programs to have too... thx for the links!

Cygwin usually goes on a machine after a while, but it's an "install as needed" item. I've decided to use RealAlternative instead of installing RealPlayer for the rare occasions I need to view a RAM stream.

1. FireFox, how else am I going to find and download the rest?
2. AVG AV, so that the next 8 actually are what I want.
3. Net Transport, to get the next 7 faster.
4. WinRAR, some of the rest require extraction, and whatever one might say about WinRAR, I prefer it.
   
5. WinAmp, so that I can listen to RadioStorm while I wait for the rest to download.
   
6. Trillian Pro, so I can tell everyone I am reinstalling.
7. NoteTab Pro, I paid for it for a reason after all.
8. OpenOffice.org, so that I don't have to wait an hour for it to download when I need to use it later.
9. Scorched Earth 3D, for a little fun.
10. Synergy , check it out if you wanna know.

and for Linux - postfix, squirrelmail, screen, apache, mysql, squid, php, courier-imap, rsync, cvs - in no particular order

posted this list at my blog too - First Ten Programs

Or you could just use Trillian (windows only) and use all of the "big three." Trillian is simply the best IM client for windows, and *not* just because it supports multiple protocols. My only complaint would be the memory usage -- Trillian can be a hog for an IM client!

Trillian?

Trillian works great for all my needs. IRC! Man that's where it's at. What bothers me, greatly I might add, is that while the majors like Nokia, Ericsson and Motorola are busy selling IM at whatever cost their last meeting brainfarted, it is highly probable that most non-nerd people think this is the way to go. They are 0wn3d by the marketspae'k, and it's trendy so hey, cool, they love it. And there's money in it for companies to gain money per character of text, or per 32byte-max transfer. (or is it 255? tee hee)

The pundits of chargeable IM services socialize the use of the service, as a Freudian brainwash, by forming IM parties with other-sexy-trendy-phone-pundits, and I sit back wondering what the fuck is happening to the world; it should be all free, or at least the cost of hardware. It's obviously a ploy to put a price on a few bytes of data, and slap a carriage charge on top of it. Which is why I'm not at all surprised this Microsoft guy, PETER FORD (from the interview) is talking about IM. It seems that the fancier the names of the new protocols are, the more money it's going to cost. But it's mumbo-jumbo to the end user, who would gladly fork over the cash just to make it go away (and just work). That's what these pundits are counting on.

One part of the article I found interesting was the design of voice mail. I agree. It would be better to build the message at the sender's location and *then* send it.

I've had to upgrade to the latest version (0.74f) of Trillian Basic, but it's working just fine -- chatting with someone at the moment in fact. It wasn't working earlier when I was still on version 0.74d but the later version seems to have sorted it out. It's also connecting to Yahoo! successfully as well (something the earlier version had stopped doing).

"I'm buying a new mid-grade laptop computer, which I plan to dual-boot between Windows XP Home and Mandrake 9.x. Before its arrival in a few weeks I'm trying to think of what 'essential' software I'll need to make a usable home system. In general I'd like to spend as little money as possible (free is good). As far as my needs, think 'typical family PC' without an emphasis on gaming. I know I can get something like Open Office for word processing, presentation, etc. needs, but is there such a good thing as a good free virus checker? A good free email client? A handy web browser? What would you consider the top 10 (or so) pieces of software for a new home system, bearing in mind that I need software for both the Windows and Linux side of things?""

These are the files I keep on my "Esential CDs" that I bring around to help out other non-techs (Windows users) people. (Of course because they are financially broke after paying $200 for their Operating System, they want everything else to be free.) ;-)

Anti-Virus: The best free antivirus program I have found AVG Anti-Virus 6.0

Office Suite: (Word Processing, SpreadsThe quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
The quick brown fox jumped off the edge. The quick brown fox ran off with all his toysheet, Slideshows, etc.)
Open Office 1.1

CD/DVD data/audio Burner: (and doubles as a CD image creator .ISO and .CUE)
BurnAtOnce 0.99a

CD/DVD image loader/emulator (perfect for people who often misplace their CDs): (loads .ISO, .CUE, .CCD, .CDI etc. files without burning them)
DAEMON Tools 3.41

MultiMedia Player (Mpeg, Mp3, AVI, etc.)Winamp Classic 2.91

or for audio only Foobar 2000 0.7

Zip Extractor:Ultimate Zip or7 Zip 3.11

Download Accelerator:Star Downloader v1.42

Internet Browser: (other than IE) Mozilla 1.4 or Opera 6.20

System Statistics: (Motherboard, Memory, BIOS, Video, Software info, etc)AIDA32 3.80

E-mail (other than Outlook Express)Thunderbird 0.2 or Pegasus Mail 4.12

Spyware/Adware killer:Ad-aware 6 or Spybot Search & Destroy 1.2

Pop-up Killer/Browser Enhancer (for IE)Google Toolbar 2.0.102

PDF document reader:Adobe Acrobat 6.0

FTP program (other than IE and the command line FTP)Winsock FTP LE 5.08 or FileZilla 2.2.1

Internet Chat Programs (other than Windows Messenger)Gaim 0.70or Trillian Basic 0.74E

Firewall Software:ZoneAlarm 3.7.211

or if you have Highspeed Internet, a spare 200mhz PC, and two network cards laying around...ClarkConnect 2.0

CD Ripper / MP3 Creator CDex 1.51

Graphics Editor (other than Paint) The Gimp

Graphics viewer (other

we're getting pretty far off target from a family home computer here but, here are some of my favorite alternatives to the above list;

mozilla - if prefer MyIE2
ws ftp - i much prefer filezilla
PuTTY - try transparent putty
vnc - if you're running xp or 2k you should go with ultravnc
gnu-emacs - yikes!if you must have a unix style text editor under windows, may i recommend cream for vim
free-av - i'd probably go with AVG anti virus
boingo - don't forget netstumbler

here are a few more i install before i ever run a new system;

foobar2000 console2
divx player
stuffit expander
trillian
and if you need an email client try popcorn

i've got links to lots more free windows software at my links page

As far as desktop apps go, I can only discuss Windows apps, since I don't use X at all. Linux = command line as far as I'm concerned.

• Windows Only
• AVG - Antivirus, free if you don't live in Europe.
• Spybot - Antispyware, freeware.
• Winamp - Nice for playing those mp3 collections.
• Kazaa Lite - Nice for getting those mp3 collections. For the legal-minded, substitute a good cd ripping program (I don't know of a good free one, I use a pay app).
• MAME - Bring back the memories.
• Trillian - Save them from the AIM/MSN/ICQ mix and match hell.

• Cross Platform
• Tight VNC - Install it so you can remote-admin their computer easily when they screw it up.
• Mozilla - Either Moz itself or one of it's 'light' siblings Firebird and Thunderbird for email and web browsing.

• Shareware Worth Trying

• Audiograbber: It's free to try, easy to rip with, and only $20 to register.
• GetRight - Assists in downloading all those patches and apps.

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 ;)

Long day at work? Time to bitch about everything?

Hotmail is the best email? It Has No Client!

Shall we define the rating of an IM network as s+f
s = # of smilies
f = # of frames allowed in a buddy icon

Seriously, if you're that worried about it, explore some clients like Trillian that are bound to have all the smilies you could possibly imagine plus 1.

I'm a trillian user, and i was having problems with the program itself since the yahoo block. Aparantly whatever yahoo did would crash Trillian if it tried to connect. I managed to fix things by deleting the yahoo dll file on my Win 98 laptop, which would crash completly because trillian loaded and connected on startup, but i had to go through this crap to fix it on my XP box. Its fine if yahoo wants to try to block out third party clients, but they definitly should not do it in a way that crashes peoples computers.

That is, the moment a closed-source multi-network IM client is released

You mean, like Trillian ?

Check the trillian fourms. AOL tried this sort of thing before and failed. The trillian guys just patched to keep up.

There is a whole discussion about this here

All of the developers in my group have MSDN subscriptions, which means we all have .NET Passports, which means we have MSN Messenger accounts. It comes preinstalled on XP Pro, of course, but I've turned most of my group on to Trillian--which (if you don't know) speaks AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, and IRC as well as MSN, all at the same time.

I'll bet the folks at Cerulean Studios are calling all those brokerage firms right now; Trillian does logging natively and connects to all the major networks. If you're on Windows (which I imagine a lot of these brokerages are), why use anything else?

From The Trillian Project

"//Trillian v 1.0" -- found 35 times
"/* I hope this works */" -- found 18 times
"int i" -- found 370 times
"// ... and ... the ... is" -- found 61 times
"// AOL SUCKS" -- OK, this one was only found in the chat program...

And they didn't even bother to change the name! Man those guys are screwed.

Um, yes it does. It encrypts IM traffic with other Trillian users through both the AIM and ICQ protocols. They call it SecureIM.
Next time, check your facts before you just dismiss someone like that.

Interesting. Trillian already has both encrypted IMs and logging. AOL is just following their lead.

Here's what I like about it that's better than the free version:

• The POP3-checking plugin is decent
• The RSS plugin is great! I don't have to check Slashdot, kerneltrap and WWDN anymore, I just get notified in a fairly subtle way when new stuff is posted.
• When you drag windows around, they snap to each other, to taskbars, screen edges, other windows, etc.
• You can configure it so that when a Trillian window loses focus, it either turns translucent or goes black-and-white

One minor downside is that the menus in Trillian Pro don't really work with the X-Mouse feature from TweakUI. But I'd rather live without X-Mouse than Trillian Pro, oddly enough.

All in all, $25 well spent. Considering that I actively use all four major IM networks and IRC, Trillian saves me from wasting a lot of RAM, cluttering up my system tray, seeing ads in IM clients, etc. The only single-network IM client I ever use now is Yahoo, and that's only when I want to do voice chat or see someone's webcam. I never use mIRC anymore.

Note that I'm not affiliated with Cerulean in any way, I'm just a satisfied customer.

Here is a description of what trillian offers people who pay.

Trillian lets you connect to AIM, ICQ, MSN messenger, Yahoo messenger, and IRC.

The biggest problem with IM is that you dont' choose a client because of features, you choose it because it's what the people you want to communicate with use. Trillian makes it a lot easier to talk to everyone you want.

Significantly, this enterprise package will include features that the free consumer version of IM lacks: ensuring that messages are transmitted over secure networks, with the capability to save messages for future reference, for example... On the consumer side... there are no pop-up ads, or other commercial intrusions, to get in the way of communicating. America Online executives fear that charging consumers for basic IM use, which they are not considering, or loading the service with ads and promotions could drive people to use the services offered by Microsoft and Yahoo.

Except that there are already Jabber -> proprietary gateways. I can imagine Cerulean adding Jabber support to Trillian -- why not? they've got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

It's called Trillian. Though it's not open source (sorry purists), it does all of these things and integrates all of the functions of each of these messaging programs.

It's compact, lightweight, and skinable. You can download it, all free, at Curelean Studios. If you like the program, make a paypal contribution and register it. Well worth it.

"There has to be a business model where Microsoft and Yahoo and AOL get paid,"

I disagree. There doesn't have to be and there shouldn't be. The article mentions that IM should be like E-Mail. Well, Microsoft and Yahoo don't get paid just because some guy using a yahoo e-mail account e-mails someone using a hotmail account.

My advice to these "finanical" guys seeking standards - ignore it. The problem will solve itself in a matter of time. IM is too big of a thing to be contained within proprietary networks. As these all in one messenger programs like Trillian become the de-facto standard, companies like Microsoft, AOL, and Yahoo will have to give up their futile efforts of hording all their IM customers to themselves. Or better yet, if (when?) Jabber becomes the real standard, the corporations wont even have to worry about Microsoft or AOL anymore.

AOL wants you to use AOL's client. That means you see AOL's advertising, get hit up with AOL's promotions, AOL's URL inserted onto your desktop, have AOL's logo burned into your retina, get enticed to use more AOL services, etc. Nowhere is AOL saying these clients are hard to write, just that they want you to use their specific client.

As far as AOL is concerned GAIM & Trillian & Proteus et al are poachers on their territory. Are they hard or easy to write? AOL would like to see that they're as hard as possible as every one of them is adding users to AOL's servers & networks who aren't getting a steady diet of AOL-marketing in return. But, they're not the issue here.

Rather AOL's issue is getting AOL's servers to talk to MSN's & Yahoo's and all of the other's servers. It's about setting up peering access and interoperability standards. Server to server stuff, never client to 3rd-party server, thus keeping the clients safely locked into AOL's own service.

Is that hard? Probably yes. You've got to write something that extracts out material intended for the other services from your own servers, translate it to a standardized format, that format really should include as much common functionality as possible (both for today's features and those anticipated near-term,) transfer this 'universal material' to the appropriate 3rd party services, then do all the same in return and reinsert it locally into a format your own servers & clients find palatable. Along the way you've got to handle all sorts of failure modes, translation issues, directory services, security issues, etc. all on a potentially massive scale with software that was never really architected for outside access.

What's the payback for AOL? More users? AOL's already got the #1 & #2 clients. Every 3rd-party client they enable to reach their customers is another load on their system without much benefit to them (AOLians aren't clamoring nearly as hard to get to MSNers or Yahoolites etc. as those are to connect to AOL!) So yeah, with value down and a dubious payback AOL is unenthused at this project - not surprising.

AOL has had a deal with Novell for their DigitalMe service for a few years now. After announcing a "partnership" years ago AOL has now finally released something with Apple, their new iChat. Word is that AOL is, like all of the other folks in the once booming chat field, looking to go after corporate customers in a bid to make their market penetration pay off now that the whole banner-ad market has imploded. It's a heck of a lot cheaper to sell 10,000 licenses to Colgate-Palmolive then it is to push 1,000,000 ads at jaded chatters.

donate

Seriously, I did. Why not? Trillian rocks?

Only problem is that the older ICQ clients are riddled with security holes ....

On windows I use trillian exclusively nowadays. It can do MS Messenger, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo Messenger and IRC ... all in one nice little program. Oh and it has no ads or spyware (also important these days sadly)

I've used both this and Jabber, and I must say I like Trillian better. The default interface is mediocre, but there are some wonderful skins out there. It's definately worth a look.

> If they could somehow combine the chat windows into one, I'd go back to it.
You can - they're called containers. Go back to it :)

I use Trillian - it integrates AOL, MSN, Yahoo!IM, ICQ and IRC all in one app. It's got a lot of great features you don't find on the native apps, but it's missing some functionality, like file transfer and webcam integration that you can get in some apps.

Just use a client that supports multiple protocols. Under Windows you can use Trillian. It supports MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, and IRC seamlessly. When you've got all that in one nice client where everything looks similar, why do you need a single protocol?

My choice would be Trillian

YES! That's excellent advice. I removed MS Messenger and installed Trillian, and I can't remember the last time I was so completely thrilled with a piece of software. Use Trillian. It does AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and IRC, it's free, it looks awesome, it's updated often, it's easy to use, it works well, and did I mention it looks awesome? If there's any reason to use any other IM client, I don't know what it is...

BIN LADEN IS GOING TO USE TRILLIAN TO DESTROY AMERICAN EVIL when downloadingthe last version of trillian 0.721, i noticed this :

IMPORTANT: Trillian is subject to United States export controls. Trillian may not be downloaded or otherwise exported or re-exported: into (or to a national or resident of) Afghanistan, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria or any other country to which the United States has embargoed goods; or any organization or company on the United States Commerce Department's "Denied Parties List."

By downloading or using Trillian, you are agreeing to the foregoing and all applicable export control laws. You are also warranting that you are not under the control of, located in, or a resident or national of any such country or on any such list.

The information on export laws provided herein is not necessarily complete. For more information on export laws, please refer to United States Commerce Department, Bureau of Export Administration at (202) 482-2440, or (202) 482-4811

You're right...I should have pointed that out. But, don't throw up your hands just yet. From Scott Werndorfer, one of their two founders, on their discussion forum:

yup, there are plans to port to as many OSes as possible, with linux being a big priority. once the win32 version reaches a certain plateau, we'll start some ports. we'd like to get group chats / file transfers squared away first. - scott

Remember, although remarkably stable, Trillian has not even reached version 1.0 yet.