Best "All in One" instant messaging program

[sourceninja]

people still use IM? thought that stuff died out when text messages came along

IM = free
text messaging = money.


I'll use free instant communication over paid instant communication any day. This is why what I really want is a 3g or 4g ipod touch and a voip provider.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I only text people I actually want to give my number to. That's very few people lol. People are a tad too loose with their phone #'s these days...but maybe that's because it's so easy to just change them on a whim.

I tend to use Pidgen or Trillian.

 

[BeauJangles]

I've been using Digsby for the last few years. I tried all the others, and settled on Digsby. It used to work great, now it runs like shit. Crashes on me every couple of days, runs extremely slow, the email widget thing sometimes takes up to 3 minutes to show me 1 email.

Yup. A year or two ago, they changed their ToS and "upgraded" their software so that it ran like crap. Been using Pidgin ever since. I admit that Digsby had a better interface, but the other changes were not very awesome at all.

 

[dpodblood]

I use Trillian. My favorite thing about it is that I can keep myself logged in across multiple machines, including my Android phone. I prefer it over Pidgin and Digsby, bot of which I've used quite a bit.

 

[dougp]

Miranda. I've tried them all and it seems to be better about performance.

 

[SunnyD]

I use Trillian, though I'm seriously getting annoyed with it.

First, they used to have "lifetime upgrades" if you paid for it. That died with Trillian 3. Then they added this whole "Astra" thing, which basically aggregates everything. It's nice-ish if you want to use their web client, but it's kind of troublesome. Finally, Trillian 5 came out, and the "free" version injects ads right into your chat.

 

[RPD]

people still use IM? thought that stuff died out when text messages came along

This, not trying to sound like a dick, but I can't even remember the last time I used any messaging system. Could be due to my age as well, I think the appeal of messaging programs dies out around 27 years old, it did for me shortly after finishing college. 31 now.

 

[flvinny521]

Miranda IM. Doug has good taste.

 

[darkewaffle]

I used to use trillian but I ran into the problem of files sent over aim often simply not working at all, couldn't see them. Pidgin I tried but I thought it was clunky, never tried the other two. Trillian is also kind of fat as far as software goes.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I used to use Gaim a bunch of years ago, I guess it's called pidgin now ... sorta like how firefox used to be called Phoenix and then got changed to Firebird, and then eventually to firefox....