Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

What Makes a Good IM Client?

Posted by Cliff on from the no-skimping-on-the-features dept.

thesaint05 asks: "So I was sitting here at my job where and IM is a pretty integral part of communicating intra-office. However, I have 3 different clients installed, and each has a different user base. Within the office we have an SIP server and use Windows Messenger. The Google Talk client is for colleagues and friends on the cutting edge, and AIM is used by pretty much everybody else (including a bunch of clients). So, after holding 3 different conversations simultaneously on all 3 clients (Windows Messenger with a colleague, AIM with my girlfriend, and Google Talk with a friend at a different tech company) I got to wondering, what are the strengths and weaknesses of all of these clients? Which do you use and why? If you could combine features from all of the IM clients out there, what would they be?"

7 of 649 comments (clear)

  1. well... by daeley · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you could combine features from all of the IM clients out there, what would they be?

    Adium? ;)

    --
    I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
    1. Re:well... by JazzCrazed · · Score: 5, Informative

      Or Gaim for the Linux/Windows users, the core library of which Adium uses.

  2. Go with GAIM by Anarke_Incarnate · · Score: 5, Informative

    and be done with it all. Googletalk is just Jabber which works with GAIM. Windows/MSN messenger and AIM work, as do Yahoo and ICQ.

    1. Re:Go with GAIM by kryten_nl · · Score: 5, Informative

      From the GAIM news page:
      Summer of Code

      Meanwhile, Google's Summer of Code has drawn to a conclusion and we are very happy with what our students accomplished. Support for Apple's Bonjour protocol, UPnP NAT traversal, AIM and ICQ file transfer proxying, and support for the SIP/SIMPLE protocol are a few of the additions. See the news post at the top of our Summer of Code page for a detailed list.

      Working at Google

      I (Sean) have been hired by Google, moved to Seattle, and have been working on the Google Talk team for about a month and a half. The goal of Google Talk is to make real-time communication as open as possible, and in that regard, I've been working to offer all of Google Talk's features into other clients. Currently, I'm working on making it as easy as possible for other clients to use Google Talk's voice features. You can expect Gaim and other clients to be interoperable with Google Talk's voice features in the near future.

      --
      For the perfect anti-Unix, write an OS that thinks it knows what you're doing better than you do and let it be wrong.
  3. Two major ones by Bananatree3 · · Score: 5, Informative
    Two commonly used ones are (and fairly good ones I might say) are Trillian and GAIM

    GAIM is an Open Source program, and therefore is completely free. Trillian has a free and Pro versions, but the free version is still quite capable.

  4. lol by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    aside from the encryption, icq had all of these and more in 1997

  5. The Meebo Alternative. by crlove · · Score: 5, Informative

    And for those who want to use these IM clients but can't from work, there's always Meebo. Pick on AJAX all you want, but I can IM on MSN, Yahoo, Google, and AIM through port 80.