Alternatives to AIM?

[scrawnypaleguy]

Originally posted by: talyn00

Originally posted by: scrawnypaleguy
I have an aim sn, but I don't want to use their software. Trillian and Gaim both suck. Is there anything else?

What exactly is it about gaim and trillian that you don't like? Those are among the best alternative programs to aim and provide access to the other IM services which IMO are much better than aim.

Firstly, the whole skins idea is terrible. I just want the window to take the appearance of my desktop (I have Windowblinds), but they both default to some stupid looking gaudy skin and all the ones on the website are either ugly or are too old to take advantage of the newer features. I have tried Trillian several different times, and I just consistently don't like it.

 

[Tremulant]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
Gaim is pretty good, only thing I don't like is the lack of skin support and no rendezvous plugin.

Gaim will use any GTK+ Skin.

You just need the GTK skin switcher utility (assuming you use Windows)

I downloaded it last night, works great.

However, I can't seem to find the utility right now, but I have it on my home machine. I'll post a link to it when I get home.

 

[Tremulant]

Here's the link to the skin switching tool: http://members.lycos.co.uk/alexv6/ - Click "GTK2 Runtime installer, themes package and theme installer for win32" then click "Downloads" (Or just scroll down on the page)

If you have GAIM installed already, then you already have the GTK, so you'll want to download "gtk2-themes-2005-11-21-ash.exe" instead of "gtk2-runtime-2.8.9-2005-12-15-ash.exe"

 

[HN]

meebo.com?

 

[kaishaku72]

I use Miranda:

http://www.miranda-im.org/

I prefer it over GAIM and Trillian.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: skunkbuster

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
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Or perhaps the extremely bloated interface of trillian..

wow, talk about exaggeration

It takes me at least 10 seconds to load trillian while gaim takes less than a second and its already loaded. And if I launch trillian while offline it takes even longer to load.

Have you tried using the scroll bar or opening a chat message dialogue? While some may not mind waiting two-three seconds to open a chat window, I prefer gaim because its much more responsive.

The only program that I can think of that's less responsive than Trillian is Steam. Sorry to Trillian, I've been using them for a year now, but I'd rather have a faster IM client. There's my exaggerant $.02.

Originally posted by: Tremulant
Gaim will use any GTK+ Skin.

You just need the GTK skin switcher utility (assuming you use Windows)

I downloaded it last night, works great.

However, I can't seem to find the utility right now, but I have it on my home machine. I'll post a link to it when I get home.

Oooh, sweet! I didn't think of it like that. Thanks a bunch! Now I have a sweet black theme.

And I've heard something along the lines of a rendezvous plugin for gaim that's being worked on. Soon my gaim experience will be complete!

 

[videogames101]

Still wasting time with text I see? Ever tried google talk?

 

[scrawnypaleguy]

Well, I formatted my hard drive for the fourth time in three days. That did the trick. I've been trying to get my new hard drive up and running for days (my maxtor was going to die) and something like this always comes up and I have to redo the whole thing. Ugh. Least everything's finally working now.

 

[kaishaku72]

Originally posted by: videogames101
Still wasting time with text I see? Ever tried google talk?

Voice communication does not replace text-based communication.

Google, heh.