Coming back to windows world. Need recs.

[FearoftheNight]

Used a Mac as my primary. Got a new win 7 desktop. Can someone recommend a good mail and IM client?

 

[lxskllr]

Thunderbird for mail, and Pidgin for IM.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

agreed there lxskllr, i use them both at home and am very happy with them.

 

[TheStu]

You won't find anything to replace Mail, I am sorry to say. I have tried almost all of them, they all kind of suck. Outlook is the closest, but I only had the beta.

Pidgin is great, it is a fork of Adium which is on OS X. Gaim started, the Adium guys forked it and made it better, and then Pidgin forked Adium to port to Windows, replacing Gaim. It is the vicious, ridiculous world of OSS.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

what does mail have that outlook or thunderbird don't have? outlook 2010 and thunderbird 5 are quite good i think.

Also, i am loving the new conversation view add-on for thunderbird!

 

[TheStu]

what does mail have that outlook or thunderbird don't have? outlook 2010 and thunderbird 5 are quite good i think.

Also, i am loving the new conversation view add-on for thunderbird!

Like I had said, Outlook is closest, Mail is simpler than Outlook, which is both a pro and a con, but they are both fairly fast and responsive. I ran an experiment about a year ago where I tried basically every desktop email client that had a decent number of users, and none of them were good. The great things about Mail, at least for me, are;

1: It is fast. Switching between messages, folders, and deleting messages is all almost instantaneous, and that was pre-SSD. On my Air, it is amazing.
2: It is free (in this case built into the OS, but same difference)
3: Type in your gmail user/pass, it is configured.

I cannot recall if I ever tried Thunderbolt 5. I tried Thunderbolt, but I cannot remember what version it was.

 

[Nothinman]

It is the vicious, ridiculous world of OSS

And if GAIM was closed source neither Adium or Pidgin would exist now. I'll take ridiculous forks and name changes over closed, shitty products any day.

 

[FearoftheNight]

hey guys. how are other IM clients for windows? Pidgin looks a bit too plain and ugly....
Or is there a way to beautify this thing?

 

[Venom20]

I don't recommend it, but if you want "pretty" you can always try Trillian. I would recommend Pidgin over it though, looks kind of bloated (but that is just me). Personally I use Psi specifically for the simplicity.

In regards to mail clients, I will second the recommendations for Thunderbird.

 

[FearoftheNight]

What about digsby?