Instant Messenger Clients

[Azazel]

So, what's the current popular choice?

I use Trillian Basic 3.1 so I can run Yahoo, AIM, MSN and ICQ (I remember when ICQ was the only one, heh).

Anything better than Trillian? Anything major that I didn't list?

az

[Dell]

trillian for me as well...though i dont log on it much, but ppls have my AIM sn, sends messages to my phone =]

[Mase]

Trillian works, and if you're ever running a linux platform I'd recommend Pidgin. They also have a windows version but I haven't tried it, no need to switch anyway.

[Guthrie]

Trillian is the popular choice as a multiplatform client. Although Gaim works just as well if you want to use that.... lol I use trillian

[Azazel]

Looks like Gaim has been renamed pidgin. Heh.

Anybody have experience with Trillian Pro?

Az

[Lesk]

I'm old school (BUT NOT SO OLD SCHOOL THAT I'D BE USING ICQ! ALTHOUGH... half a decade ago, I was forced to use ICQ cuz SOME PEOPLE *withholds names* didn't want to get MSN or AIM), I use the actual independent clients. For MSN (now known as Windows Live), I use Live Messenger... and for AIM, I use Miranda (rocks!) you can add on to it with like a zillioooooooooon plugins that you can browse from their library... Or, you can code your own! Not too hard either! There's this plugin: Status Message Change Notify... friggin' A dude. There's also this lovely plugin "KeepStatus", it makes it so that if ever you get logged out, it will try non-stop to get you logged on again. So basically, even if you get kicked off the net, and the net comes back like 3 hours later, as soon as it comes back, the plugin will ensure that you get back online.

This is unlike other clients and the normal AIM client <- cuz there's a timeout.

hmm i'm surprised no one's even mentioned IRC.... (although I've never tried it myself, it seems to be popular among the gamers at my uni)

[Azazel]

I always liked it better when there was just one IM program.... til somebody showed me Trillian.

Older versions of Trillian supported irc - but the current free one doesn't. The newest version is rumored to bring this support back.

Az

[Karik]

Trillian does seem to be the popular choice of multi-client availability.

I think I have it somewhere on my computer.

....lets see, no that is a DOS CMD window...

---here it...no...that is an old PONG program...

...maybe this...no...thats the original DOOM...

...ah here it....nope...this is HERETIC...

ah well, it's around here somewhere.

[Askim]

Ah.... Memories.....

Remember Descent?

And dude.... DOS rules!!!

[Lesk]

YO I SO remember Descent! A childhood friend bought me that game! Along with Apache! (although I never really played with Apache ... dang... he was so pissed that I never opened it).

BUT, Descent rocked! Best starship game ever!

They don't make games like they used to.... Does anyone remember 7th Guest... and 11th Hour? They don't have games like that anymore...

I so loved 7th Guest.... too bad I could never ever get it working on my old Packard Bell...

Maybe it'll work on my PC now I'm sure it's got the RAM reqs and GFX reqs ... oh wait, what's that? oh it only runs on Windows 95 and below? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

[Mase]

Descent was great, I remember having huge LAN battles for hours, we'd always yell at the person who blew up the core and stomp on them the next round.

Heretic was good, but I thought Hexen was awesome. I liked the hub-style levels. Maybe Hexen is too new-school for you though Karik .

@Lesk: There are several quality DOS emulators and tools for running win95 games out there that you can find for free. I was always a huge fan of the LucasArts adventure games like Monkey Island, Full Throttle, The Dig, and especially Grim Fandango, although I guess that one is only 10 years old now.

[Lesk]

Wow. Nice. Well when I have time after December (when I'm through stressing and studying to pull off at least a B in this -indescribable- class).

[damien]

when at work you can use trillian off of a flash drive or meebo (web based client).

[Azazel]

Trillian issues an update today, and when I checked their forums trying to find a change log (I'm assuming it's a security fix, getting spammed with bot messages) - I found a forum post mentioning this. It looks promising:

http://www.digsby.com/

az

[Lesk]

...O_o... wow that's just... like wow... what are the odds of that!

They're probably wondering: "now why would vampires need AIM?"

[Azazel]

There was a big mud debate/discussion on running Trillian from a jump drive.

I'm not sure how that was resolved.

I'm sure others would find this interesting.

IM or Mud clients that can be run from jump drives would be very useful for some people.

Az

[Alakina]

LOL

Before ICQ, there was POWWOW!!! But it was more of a straight out P2P thing if I recall. ICQ was shortly after Powwow, I believe?

[Rikus]

I tested Trillian myself from a flash drive, and it worked just fine on a computer that did not have the program already installed. I also used to run gmud off a floppy all the time, so I would assume it would work from a flash drive as well.

[Isaac]

Any program that does not need dependacies that it installs in multiple locations, it should be fine. Pretty much every windows system has the main files most programs need.