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Jabber is, simply put, a universal IM client.

If you use AIM, ICQ, Y!M, or MSN Messenger (or any combination thereof), you can connect to them with Jabber.

It's great if you have, say, family members on AIM, friends on ICQ, and co-workers on MSN.

It also has its own, internal protocol.

However, AIM and Jabber have a history of not working together all that well...so if you have to have AIM connectivity in your IM client, I'd go with Trillian if you use Windows, IMCI for Linux or FreeBSD, or Fire if you use OS X (which doesn't support MSN...but if you're on a Mac, you probably don't need it anyway).

If that doesn't woork, try Trillian. It is rated as working on the wine app db, and it does AIM, ICQ, MSN, YM, and IRC.

> Quartz anti-aliasing for Carbon apps

About time. Anti-aliased fonts have only been in Windows and X for several years.

> Unicode character palette

Uh. 'Kay. Windows 2000 has one of those.

> Mount ftp servers directly in Finder

Gosh! And Explorer can't do this... in what way? Oh, that's right - it can do this.

> iChat

Try MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger or Trillian.

Take your pick, really.

> Sherlock 3

Is nothing more than a glorified search engine front-end. Try Google or Teoma instead.

> Quartz Extreme

Putting "EXTREME" on the end of something makes it much more exciting, no? No.

> better interopability with windows networks

Samba. Yawn. Also: Windows has no interoperability issues with Windows networks.

> IPv6

And this is usable... how? Unless you have an internet2 connection, but you're probably enlightened and running a genuine *BSD at that point.

> Rendezvous
> Inkwell
> improved Address Book

Oh really, how very interesting. Not.

Anyway, in conclusion: I don't really like Microsoft or Apple, but neither is an "escape" from the other. They're both giant corporations that want to take your money - and they certainly aren't getting any of mine if I can help it.

Yes, I use Windows 2000 and FreeBSD. In my mind, Windows 2000 (pre service pack 3) was the last, greatest OS that Microsoft will ever produce. They've destroyed it all with all of Windows XP's Mickey-Mouse bullshit look of a toy operating system, the same crap that irritates me in OS/X - I'll migrate completely to FreeBSD as Windows 2000 fades into obsolesence.

I really wish that article submitters would not put ambiguous links in the
article.

Seriously, though, would it be too much effort to say "three Kahn titles: Title 1, Title 2, and Title 3"? As it is, it's annoying because you have no idea where each of the three links points. Come on, editors, you can do better than this.

Buddy! Do the sensible thing a drop the official AIM client. Grab yourself a copy of the freeware Trillian which is a truly excellent messenger and can connect to AIM, ICQ, MSN, YIM (yahoo instant msg) and IRC. I use it religiously when in windows.

Actually, recently, MS[N] alerted Cerulean to a change in their network that would affect interoperability with Trillian. They're not GIVING away specs for their system, but they're certainly not trying to DENY it to anyone (unlike AOL/TW).

In any case, Trillian hasn't had ANY problems with AIM interoperability in months now. (Seems Cerulean finally fixed the last exploit that AOL/TW was able to use to prevent other clients from using their service (OSCAR protocol, not the buggy and grossly outdated "public" protocol)...or AOL/TW was too busy making like Arthur Andersen and shredding their financial documents.)

I've found Trillian to be a great management tool for all my IM accounts. It allows the use of AIM, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Y! Messenger, and an IRC client all from one program. It winds up hogging less resources than running all five other at once, and provides great support, functionality, and customizability. (sp?)

MSN accidentally blocked it once, and AIM tried to block it for a few weeks, as it eliminates their revenue from advertizing. However, fixes were released very quickly, and Trillian is now unofficially allowed to run on the AIM network again. Give it a try, you just might like it.

Get Trillian Here

- Jones

I've found Trillian to be a great management tool for all my IM accounts. It allows the use of AIM, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Y! Messenger, and an IRC client all from one program. It winds up hogging less resources than running all five other at once, and provides great support, functionality, and customizability. (sp?)

MSN accidentally blocked it once, and AIM tried to block it for a few weeks, as it eliminates their revenue from advertizing. However, fixes were released very quickly, and Trillian is now unofficially allowed to run on the AIM network again. Give it a try, you just might like it.

Get Trillian Here

- Jones

> I use AIM, Yahoo Instant Messenger, and ICQ
In that case, I suggest you take a look at Trillian, which is a client for all of the above (as well as MSN and IRC) in a single program.

Microsoft was kind enough to alert us to a change in the MSN servers that would have negatively affected Trillian. Thanks, Microsoft!

Microsoft was kind enough to alert us to a change in the MSN servers that would have negatively affected Trillian. Thanks, Microsoft!

I use Trillian daily, it includes AIM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC all in one. I switched over about 6 months ago and haven't had a second thought since. It has never crashed on me, or conflicted with any other running programs (Unlike what AIM has done since the day I installed it). My friends, sick of AIM crashing and having to run MSN and AIM all the time, switched over as soon as I explained it to them. The NO ADS and the simplicity were very attractive to them (important, since they are the average joe user, unlike me) and they haven't had any trouble using it...plus it's extremely nice to have standard buttons (i.e. filesend) for every buddy, even though then send process is (under the skin) different for each messenger.

It includes every feature I've wanted in a messenger, and left out those that I didn't. Plus, I love the idea of not supporting AOL or Microsoft's low-quality, overdone, irritating products.

on windows, trillian is okay too. it can handle irc, aim, icq and msn. its free too (not as speech through). it even supports encrypted communication.

check it out www.trillian.cc

For those of you running Windows, look at Trillian. It's basically like Everybuddy, except with all the bells and whistles (file sends, chats, etc). Although it's not open source, the developers had hinted that they might open the project up when it is more mature (although I think it's mature enough :))

Try Trillian.

"MSN

Microsoft would also lose out from giving up the right to blast ads and spyware at all of the users of its network.
Microsoft fully intends to leverage a monopoly in the instant messaging arena to further its desktop and server monopoly. At that point they will begin charging for service. This would be less effective if they opened their network.
Keeping their network closed encourages more users to get Passport accounts, which Microsoft uses to harvest personal information and sell consumer dossiers and mailing lists."

From the Trillian homepage: Microsoft was kind enough to alert us to a change in the MSN servers that would have negatively affected Trillian. Thanks, Microsoft! "

Microsoft seems to be playing nice, maybe because they don't have the monopoly on IM and don't see themselves getting it anytime soon. Maybe because of the PR value. "Hey we didn't squelch tiny little Trillian." Whatever their motives, it is still good to see Microsoft playing nice for once. And it goes against your argument.

Enough said.

...how about Trillian? Yeah, I know it's not open-source, and it's for Win32 only (although one of co-workers uses it with the Crossover plug-in, and it works fine). It's still an outstanding piece of software, that allows these GlobalHyperMegaCorps to play their games, and still give us the functionality we users crave.

what will it take to unite all these individual IM networks under one umbrella?

Unless I'm mistaken AOL have the market pretty much sown up in terms of users. By opening up the protocol or moving to something more open, they will probably stand to lose more than they will gain.

And unless anyone can reliably convince them otherwise (and it would appear that so far they haven't) then it just isn't going to happen.

(As a side note, I use Trillian which combines a number of them including IRC)

At work we use IM as our primary means of communication. Since people come onto projects using their own favorite client, most of us end up using Trillian. Beats having 3 clients up at once which don't talk to each other.

I already have a unified messaging client. It's called Trillian

Not exactly perfect yet (but its not at 1.0 either), but definitely one of the best instant messaging clients I have used. For those of you using Windows, check it out. (Sorry, no Linux support AFAIK)

Try Trillian. It is free as in beer and has none of the AOL/ICQ fluff. But it is very reliable and can connect to many IM systems, has transparency and skins.

Trillian.

Supports ICQ, AIM, IRC, MSN and Yahoo. Does all the things you would expect (file transfer, etc.); has better icons (try the OS X skin or anything based on Odigo) and generally looks less clunky and less cluttered than any version of ICQ.

If you haven't tried it, you're missing out. Now you can talk to your one friend who insists on using AIM or Yahoo without having to load more programs...

This sums up the state of ICQ. I stuck to 99b for a very long time, then tried 2000a to alleviate the connection problems and then dumped it for trillian. If they had developed from 99b into what LICQ has instead of their AOLised crap, maybe I would have kept with the official client.

You can use Trillian instead. That way you can connect to ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo and IRC in one client.
http://www.trillian.cc

Now I understand why AOL might not want to integrate with MSN, Yahoo, and the like. But they control both the software development and infrastructure for both AIM and ICQ. Is it simply due to lack of effort that they won't integrate the two? (A little off-topic yes, but since NS7 is/will be just Mozilla 1.0, the parent not really all that interesting news-wise.)

They have integrated AIM and ICQ, there was a time a year or two ago where you could sign into ICQ using an AIM client in one beta version. They don't publicly integrate them, because then they would be closer to admitting that interoperability is possible. They'd rather continue claiming that other clients are a security threat to their network.

It's a load of hooey if you ask me

No, AOL has been picky about nasty clients, not good clients. Throughout the entire trillian fiasco, all gaim users using the oscar or toc protocol did not have any problems. AOL was directly targeting trillian.

I am a student with not too much money. I try to get freeware or Free (as in speech) software as much as possible (but of course you know how piracy is on university campuses for the commercial software that they use in the labs.)

The only pieces of software that I have paid money for (online) are the following:
- Turbo Navigator - US$10 - It is an excellent Norton Commander clone for win32- The Official Page is acting funny so check this Unofficial Page if you want.
- Query-Web - US$9.95 - A highly unique program that uses SQL in combination with HTML/XML to generate pages dynamically from MS Access databases. It is how Webattack is generated.

When I get into my job this summer I will have money again and probably pay for Trillian and donate to the Ogg Vorbis Project as well.

The things that these progs have in common are that I could have gotten it all legally for free anyway; There were no time limitations, nag screens or improved functionality promises for those who pay. I paid because the programmers did an excellent job of making a program that was useful to me and requested reasonable payment for it. Paying because the software will otherwise commit suicidce after 30 (90, whatever) days is not IMHO a good reason.

Going through my old credit card bills that's it for internet purchases of software but that does not include stuff like domain registration and buying computer equipment online. The things listed here are of course totally separate from the stuff bought in brick&mortar stores.

Trillian comes with built-in SSH (*gasp*) and, IMO, does a much better job of handling connections with the various networks (MSN, AIM, ICQ, YIM, IRC) and uses the OSCAR protocol instead of the outdated "public usage" protocol that AOL "provides" (read: was forced to do by court order). Not to say your experience differs, as it probably does, but I've found Trillian to be a breeze and INCREDIBLY nice.

I've played around with the jabber module in Perl, which was pretty easy to use.

Jabber started to disappoint when they stopped supporting AIM/ICQ. I don't know if it's permanent, I don't actually know if it's still not supported. But, since AIM is what I have to use for work (otherwise, I would still just be using ICQ to talk to my friends), I needed something that could stay connected.

I use Trillian now. It still does ICQ/AIM as well as IRC/MSN/Y!, which is why I need something like this, but it doesn't provide source code (which I only really want for the principle of it) and it doesn't support Jabber's protocol. (They're talking about releasing an API for writing plugins. At least it's free (as in beer). (I've got a few of my coworkers switched from AIM to Trillian...) Hopefully Jabber will fix up the connectivity issues (or have ALREADY fixed them up.) gosh, I should download WinJab again and check.

I got really excited about Jabber for the longest time. I'm sort of disappointed in it now, since it seems like they're still having problems connecting to AIM and ICQ. The AIM connection is the most vital for me, since our department uses AIM to send short quick messages to each other. Most of the people here are using AIM's own client, but I started to use Jabber so that I could talk to my friends on ICQ. (And promptly signed up for MSN and Yahoo, so I could catch everyone from everywhere.) Now I use Trillian, which only disappoints me by neither providing source code (which I only want for the principle of it) nor supporting Jabber itself (which does kind of bug me).

I guess the real issue is that 3rd party companies never get a chance to really show people that their stuff is better. I know a lot of Windows users use EVERYTHING that came on the computer and don't even know that you can use different browsers, email programs, IM programs, etc etc.

It was poorly said, I'll admit...but yeah, that's basically what I meant.

And being my family's main computer geek, I saw it in action quite a lot too...my sister still AIM's me for help.

Thank goodness for Trillian, or I'd have to install AIM.

Check out Trillian, which claims to do this. Caveat: it's not open source, and I haven't looked to hard at its security features, but it does list encryption over ICQ and AIM as features. I use it more because it's a unified client that does ICQ, AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, and IRC all in one.

No doubt! I really wanted to kick Windows to the curb, but really got attached to Trillian for IM (yeah, Gaim, Gaim, but My friends use Trillian and we use SecureIM to plot our world domination)

I bought Crossover PLugin 1.1.0 and bang - Quicktime, Trillina, RealOne, etc, etc. VERY cool. Best $25 I ever spent on software.

Granted, wine likes to suck up my CPU cycles, but hopefully the success of Crossover xxxx will help improve that.

Keep up the great work guys!

I was able to use the plugin to run a few applications that I just couldn't get to run well under WINE. Trillian being one of them.

You might not agree the plugin is best for Linux in that it lets folks continue with proprietary formats (WMA) and prorietary codecs (Quicktime) but it sure is nice to see WINE come this far. Using this plugin I can honestly say I can surf the web and use the net with all the features I want without needing Windows at all. Codeweavers did a good job here.

as long as they follow the simple "play nice" rules, unlike the idiots at Trillian

Please, if you follow AOL's rules you have to use the TOC protocol, which offers such a worthless set of features it's not viable for most people who use AIM. It's like MS saying they'll open up the API's for messenging and such, sure - it's nice, but nothing is ever able to work as seamlessly with the OS as MS's own products.

Trillian is one of the few programs that uses the OSCAR protocal, and is therefore able to actually be like the AIM client (plus a lot better - it supports all AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, and Y!, plus it has automatic conversation logging).

Just my .02.

EveryBuddy and Gaim are two alternative messaging clients that have access to the MSN chat system. I use to use Everybuddy but I prefer Gaim's interface now. Both are fully "skinnable" (using GTK themes) link Trillian is. There are plenty of alternatives to Microsoft's offering. MS's software would appear to make extensive use of scripting like most of their other products do, which does more bad than good with worms/viruses such as this one on the rounds. Gaim support perl scripting, but it's easy to disable it, and it's default state is disabled. I understand that most internet chat users probably don't realise that their software has this scripting ability. Maybe something needs done to make them aware of it and what it can (potentially) do. Then we might see less stories about people falling victim to these attacks. (hey!, stop laughing and saying they deserve it! that's not fair...)

just gave it a go, and it didn't affect me. running winxp with netcaptor browser (embeds ie) and trillian (im client that connects to the msn messanger network among others)

not that i was expecting it to work.

what amuses me though, is how the linked page from this article reads like a very handy worm writing primer, suggesting better propogation methods -

Optimized scanning routines, hitlist scanning, and permutation scanning can be combined to produce hyper virulent Warhol Worms. Since they are so fast, such worms would be the vehicle of choice for delivering malicious payloads to the net at large.

using the document.open bug in IE. Details of which were first published Here Users of third party clients are not affected -H2

Napster... symbolized the Net's challenge to hierarchical business and institutional structures -- until it showed the true power of corporatists. For years, the hackers believed nobody could stop them. After the Napster battles, it was clear that lobbyists and lawmakers, especially conjunction with wealthy corporatists, could.

As pious as this may sound (so please don't reply saying so), if you, by any chance, want to get with a very similar, very current fight, but this time with instant messaging, may I suggest downloading Trillian (for Windows), which connects to ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC, and is trying to stay connecting to AIM.

http://www.trillian.cc/
http://www.ceruleansoftware.com/

And like Napster, these guys have vowed to not stop fighting. Though some of its users have already tired of getting kicked off and have went back to the AIM client already.

I'd just like to say how much I enjoy using trillian and that it has really made things easy for my parents and grandparents who are too simple to understand concepts such as IM wars. Email works irregarless of what client you use, why the heck can't anyone figure out how to do the same with instant messaging? Selfishness has caused the electronic society to drop the ball on this one.

Trilliansucks.

I've been using Trillian for a while. It's a free (like beer) mult-medium chat client for Windows. The newest version supports 128-bit blowfish encryption for chatting over AIM and ICQ networks with other Trillian clients. This is achieved by using a key exchange method like Openssh. It is far from mature. As the newsforge article notes about other such systems, it lacks the authentication and key management aspects, so it is not really very secure yet; however, those could be achieved with relative ease, I beleive, and the general method might be a lot more viable for a transition from current insecure systems.

The point is that the way Trillian does it, all messages are encrypted into ascii-armored "messages" that are sent through preexisting messging protocols. A new protocol would probably be better, but it will be hard to get people to switch. Plus you need servers, and you will likely run into the same problems of the big companies working against interoperability. With Trillian, I can talk securely to those who care and have the client, and still talk to everybody else, and it doesn't take special servers, so we don't have to start our own or wait for AOL to finally think that security might be a good thing.

My point is not, "Hey everybody, switch to Trillian," but rather that the system of changing the client operation and leaving the protocol the same may not be as good as a completely redesigned protocol, but it may be more workable. ...However, if you use Windows, do check Trillian out!

I've been using Trillian for a while. It's a free (like beer) mult-medium chat client for Windows. The newest version supports 128-bit blowfish encryption for chatting over AIM and ICQ networks with other Trillian clients. This is achieved by using a key exchange method like Openssh. It is far from mature. As the newsforge article notes about other such systems, it lacks the authentication and key management aspects, so it is not really very secure yet; however, those could be achieved with relative ease, I beleive, and the general method might be a lot more viable for a transition from current insecure systems.

The point is that the way Trillian does it, all messages are encrypted into ascii-armored "messages" that are sent through preexisting messging protocols. A new protocol would probably be better, but it will be hard to get people to switch. Plus you need servers, and you will likely run into the same problems of the big companies working against interoperability. With Trillian, I can talk securely to those who care and have the client, and still talk to everybody else, and it doesn't take special servers, so we don't have to start our own or wait for AOL to finally think that security might be a good thing.

My point is not, "Hey everybody, switch to Trillian," but rather that the system of changing the client operation and leaving the protocol the same may not be as good as a completely redesigned protocol, but it may be more workable. ...However, if you use Windows, do check Trillian out!

Check out Trillian. It is a chat client that is compatible with 5 different instant messaging protocols plus it has encrypted messages when IMing other people with the same client.

> IM - is a world of divided standards, so you can only talk to AOL users if you're an AOL user, MSN if your an MSN user, etc

Goodness forbid we get a little competition in the IM 'biz'. Look ma, no ICQ number! Anyway, there are multi-network clients out there.

> email - is a world where you need to sift through 20 spam messages to find your one message. Also the monoculture of email clients created a nightmare reality of viruses.

Don't know about you, but my spam filter catches virtually all of the crap; but maybe I'm just lucky. Can't do anything about Outlook usage, though.

> nntp - spam is certainly a problem, as is the bulk of news services no longer carrying binaries.

There are more efficient ways to distribute files nowadays. I hope I'll never have to uuencode anything ever again.

> Search - pay per search, or commercially-supported search (ie - paid-for results placement).

Only an issue when the engine doesn't tell you it's a paid link. Don't know about others, since I mainly use Google.

> Stock Trading - find me a stock worth investing in today

I forget, were hugely inflated IPOs part of the original Internet spec?

> WEB - commercial consolidation funnels most people to portals.

I've yet to see statistics showing how many people use these portals, instead of switching to something else instantly. I know my 12 year old sister doesn't use her default portal.

> Nobody can afford to host anymore

Has it really gotten more expensive? I thought prices were going down, if anything.

> 70% of the URLs were dead

Creating and hosting a web page costs time and money. Did it used to be different?

> Free Music - the age of napster is finished.

Darn, why am I the last to know these things? I'd better disconnect from Morpheous then. Thanks for the heads up.

> Free Software - I'm not talking about Free Software, I'm talking about that which the BSA is making extinct. Warez.

Hasn't the BSA been making Warez extinct for about 10 years now? (Since the BBS days?)

> Marketing - ah yes. If you're an advertiser, the internet is your friend

Last I heard advertisers were leaving the Internet in droves. Of course, marketers are idiots who aren't used to getting any feedback on the "success" of any of their drivel^H^H^H^H^H^H ads.

> there's nothing out there for them but advertising and crap

I notice you're still here.

There seems to be a backlash against the Internet since the dot-com stock crash. People have gone from proclaiming it as the best thing since sliced bread to saying it's the worst thing since New Coke. I'm one of the unreasonable heathens who thinks it was something in between. I also think the average user does like having broadband. Web pages are getting bulkier (and flash-ier) all the time, music is still popular online, and nevermind all those online games.

Hate to burst your bubble, but I think this inter-net thingy might be around for a while.

Now, many of those formerly compelling reasons have evaporated:

IM - is a world of divided standards, so you can only talk to AOL users if you're an AOL user, MSN if your an MSN user, etc.

email - is a world where you need to sift through 20 spam messages to find your one message. Also the monoculture of email clients created a nightmare reality of viruses.

nntp - spam is certainly a problem, as is the bulk of news services no longer carrying binaries.

Search - pay per search, or commercially-supported search (ie - paid-for results placement).

Stock Trading - find me a stock worth investing in today. It was half a function of cheap trading, but also half a function of stocks where you could actually make money.

Nobody can afford to host anymore, so people's websites are either overrun with popups or they're very small, and hosted on very slow hardware, and anyone posting material of any worth has been shut down due to copyright concerns.

Anything interesting or non-mainstream is either impossible to find now, or shut down.

I recently went through my bookmarks.html list, of 500k, accumulated over the past 8 years or so - and a good 70% of the URLs were dead. Making me regret not saving the content to my local hard drive. (and I have saved a great deal anyway).

Free Music - the age of napster is finished.

Free Software - I'm not talking about Free Software, I'm talking about that which the BSA is making extinct. Warez. Right or wrong, it was one major compelling reason people got onto the internet.

The only compelling things left I can see are: email/im - despite the fact that they're not what they used to be, they're still very useful, but there's no need for broadband here.

Corporate Software websites - where you can usually get up to date drivers and updates. Most of the time, broadband isn't required.

Free Software - If you're a Linux-head - you still need broadband for downloading those isos.

Marketing - ah yes. If you're an advertiser, the internet is your friend, and a very compelling reason to get broadband, or even a T1. That is, until everyone who has signed up for the internet in the past 3 years finally realizes that there's nothing out there for them but advertising and crap, and drop the service.

If you think you have a better solution to these problems, how about proposing them, and actually DO something about it. Complaining here on Slashdot is not a guarantee that things will change.

Why don't you just use Trillian instead of ICQ? It does pretty much everything ICQ does with no advertisements. The newest version even does file transfer.

Note: I have no official affiliation with Trillian.