Trillian is SLLLLOOOOOOWWWW

[coolVariable]

I have been using Trillian Pro for years and I absolutely love it.
But it is starting to really get on my nerves because it is so slow.
When I click on a contact it takes easily 20-30 seconds before the contact window is loaded and I can start IM'ing.
Admittedly, I have years of IM histories saved and my contact list is probably 100 contacts across different IM connactions (MSN, AIM, JABBER, ...) but I disabled showing histories in the contact window and disabled everything I could to make trillian faster.
This is getting really, really frustrating since I am starting to consider trillian unusable but do not want to loose my IM histories.

Any ideas?

 

[PepePeru]

back up your chat logs and switch to Digsby?

 

[dguy6789]

Pidgin is by far the best messaging client I have ever seen. It's fast, small, and very clean looking.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Pidgin is by far the best messaging client I have ever seen. It's fast, small, and very clean looking.

Yea, I moved from Trillian as well due to their amazing lack of updates in the last few years.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Pidgin is by far the best messaging client I have ever seen. It's fast, small, and very clean looking.

Yea, I moved from Trillian as well due to their amazing lack of updates in the last few years.

:thumbsup: I've been using Pidgin since it was named gAim.. probably close to 8 years or so.

 

[coolVariable]

Is it possible to take the chat histories along/convert them for pidgin or digsby?

also definitely want the contact grouping from trillian (so the AIM, JABBER, MSN accounts for 1 person can be grouped to show as 1 contact).

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: coolVariable
Is it possible to take the chat histories along/convert them for pidgin or digsby?

also definitely want the contact grouping from trillian (so the AIM, JABBER, MSN accounts for 1 person can be grouped to show as 1 contact).

You can collapse users in pidgin as well.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

another vote for pidgin, it is awesome!

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: coolVariable
Is it possible to take the chat histories along/convert them for pidgin or digsby?

also definitely want the contact grouping from trillian (so the AIM, JABBER, MSN accounts for 1 person can be grouped to show as 1 contact).

You can collapse users in pidgin as well.

but no history? and now way to transfer the history over?

 

[QueBert]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Pidgin is by far the best messaging client I have ever seen. It's fast, small, and very clean looking.

Yea, I moved from Trillian as well due to their amazing lack of updates in the last few years.

Lack of Trillian updates are because they've been working on Trillian Astra for a few years now. It's either going to be the greatest IM client ever, or blow chunks. I'm guessing with it having been in beta since this time last year they're not working on it much at all. But what do I know.

I like Trillian for skin support, and it works well overall, but I use Pidgin also from time to time. It's kind of ugly, but it's quick and gets the job done.

 

[coolVariable]

Ok. I made the jump and installed pidgin.
Was a mess to resort all the contacts and rename them (I !@#$!#@ hate those non-descript screen names where it takes you forever to figure out who the I#$@ is).
Using that log reader plugin, all my Trillian logs show! It's great!

Cons so far:
- No grouping of offline contacts?
- No way to change the location where the logs/settings are saved? (this one is a biggy and might force me to abandon pidgin; I want to move those into a folder where all my documents are kept, so they get backed up consistently)

 

[StageLeft]

This is the evolution of all software. It gets worse and sh*tier over time. Case in point ICQ, went from a lean app to requiring about 15 DVDs to install and 30 gigs of memory to run, also case in point Winamp, which went from a lean tiny app to necessitating about 15 high-end PCs daisy chained together to get it to work. The reason this happens is that developers constantly modify what they have, but in some cases they don't need to. What these programs all have in common is that they worked, basically from day 1, to do what they were supposed to, and their requirements have not increased, but the dev teams' "solutions" start changing so they shove in more useless crap and end up turning their applications into garbage.

 

[sourceninja]

Is Digsby really that good? I keep hearing about it. I use pidgin on linux and windows and adium on my mac.

 

[Tarrant64]

Originally posted by: QueBert

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Pidgin is by far the best messaging client I have ever seen. It's fast, small, and very clean looking.

Yea, I moved from Trillian as well due to their amazing lack of updates in the last few years.

Lack of Trillian updates are because they've been working on Trillian Astra for a few years now. It's either going to be the greatest IM client ever, or blow chunks. I'm guessing with it having been in beta since this time last year they're not working on it much at all. But what do I know.

I like Trillian for skin support, and it works well overall, but I use Pidgin also from time to time. It's kind of ugly, but it's quick and gets the job done.

They're working on Trillian Astra every day. As far as Trillian Pro I'm not sure how often they have been pushing out updates to it. I've been a Trillian Pro user for some time, and Astra for a couple years now. It has been in Beta for quite awhile but they are working to make it exactly what you said: "The greatest IM client ever". They even have a web login for their chat client that was pretty sweet (when it was up and running).

A few months ago they even updated the client so that it works on Mac OS X. Cool, huh?

That being said,
I've never had issues with Trillian performance that the OP has listed. I've had some serious crashes though that have led to restarts, but that's mainly due to plugins. OP, what happens if you back everything up and do a clean reinstall?

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: Tarrant64

Originally posted by: QueBert

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: dguy6789
Pidgin is by far the best messaging client I have ever seen. It's fast, small, and very clean looking.

Yea, I moved from Trillian as well due to their amazing lack of updates in the last few years.

Lack of Trillian updates are because they've been working on Trillian Astra for a few years now. It's either going to be the greatest IM client ever, or blow chunks. I'm guessing with it having been in beta since this time last year they're not working on it much at all. But what do I know.

I like Trillian for skin support, and it works well overall, but I use Pidgin also from time to time. It's kind of ugly, but it's quick and gets the job done.

They're working on Trillian Astra every day. As far as Trillian Pro I'm not sure how often they have been pushing out updates to it. I've been a Trillian Pro user for some time, and Astra for a couple years now. It has been in Beta for quite awhile but they are working to make it exactly what you said: "The greatest IM client ever". They even have a web login for their chat client that was pretty sweet (when it was up and running).

A few months ago they even updated the client so that it works on Mac OS X. Cool, huh?

That being said,
I've never had issues with Trillian performance that the OP has listed. I've had some serious crashes though that have led to restarts, but that's mainly due to plugins. OP, what happens if you back everything up and do a clean reinstall?

Same thing. Have had this issue for 1 year now and can't take it anymore.
I do have approx. 60MB in logs but that is no excuse for such crappy performance.
Trillian is crap.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: coolVariable

Same thing. Have had this issue for 1 year now and can't take it anymore.
I do have approx. 60MB in logs but that is no excuse for such crappy performance.
Trillian is crap.

Are you running any plugins? Have you tried recreating your profile in Trillian?

 

[coolVariable]

Originally posted by: GeekDrew

Originally posted by: coolVariable

Same thing. Have had this issue for 1 year now and can't take it anymore.
I do have approx. 60MB in logs but that is no excuse for such crappy performance.
Trillian is crap.

Are you running any plugins? Have you tried recreating your profile in Trillian?

No plugins except the ones to connecto to the various services.
Trillian = the suck if you actually keep your logs and have more than 50 contacts.


Still couldn't find any way to counter the 2 cons for pidgin so far.

Cons so far:
- No grouping of offline contacts?
- No way to change the location where the logs/settings are saved? (this one is a biggy and might force me to abandon pidgin; I want to move those into a folder where all my documents are kept, so they get backed up consistently)

 

[lxskllr]

You could make a small .bat file that would backup the logs every day. Run it as a scheduled task, and you won't have to think about it.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: coolVariable
No plugins except the ones to connecto to the various services.
Trillian = the suck if you actually keep your logs and have more than 50 contacts.

I've been using Trillian for *ages*. I know that it has issues, but I think that Astra is infinitely better than the "old Trillian". For what it's worth, I just counted 150 contacts, and those are my MetaContacts... I have a *LOT* more than that counting each of the contacts within MetaContacts. I don't have any major problems with Trillian. And yes, I keep all chat logs, except for a few certain people that I don't log.

 

[randomlinh]

I was not a fan of Astra at all. I've been using digsby lately, but not sure I like the idea of stored accounts (ditto w/ astra). But pidgin does something that really annoys me... when you set your status, you can't go "away" while retaining that same status. I know it's a small thing, but it's frustrating as hell.

 

[Rottie]

I have been using Trillian Pro for many years and have no major issues. I love it. 2 weeks ago Trillian updated it and it is working. I have tried Pidgin on my old laptop running Win 98se it is ok the interface is hard to learn. I am looking forward to see new Trillian Astra when the beta is finished.

 

[coolVariable]

Tried pidgin for 1 week.
It kicks Trillian's ass to the moon.
Wow.
5 out of 5 stars and that is despite the 2 issues (see above) still not working.

Thanks to everybody who recommended it.

 

[LongTimePCUser]

I have been using Trillian for years and liked it.
But, I run Vista and have been noticing that Trillian takes forever to launch when rebooting my PC. I recently upgraded my mother board. Most everything starts up fast now, except for Trillian which comes up and then just sits there loading plug ins and connecting for about 30 - 40 seconds.

I am going to try Pidgin.

 

[Slugbait]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
This is the evolution of all software. It gets worse and sh*tier over time. Case in point ICQ, went from a lean app to requiring about 15 DVDs to install and 30 gigs of memory to run, also case in point Winamp, which went from a lean tiny app to necessitating about 15 high-end PCs daisy chained together to get it to work.

Dude, this is NOT the evolution of "all software". This is the deterioration of all software that is purchased by AOL.

Normally I would follow with some whimsical emoticon to emphasize that I'm joking, except this time I'm not.

 

[Rottie]

Originally posted by: LongTimePCUser
I have been using Trillian for years and liked it.
But, I run Vista and have been noticing that Trillian takes forever to launch when rebooting my PC. I recently upgraded my mother board. Most everything starts up fast now, except for Trillian which comes up and then just sits there loading plug ins and connecting for about 30 - 40 seconds.

I am going to try Pidgin.

It does same thing with my notebook with vista...but I am not complaining as long as it is working anyway....I hope Astra will load faster with Vista.

I know Astra beta comes out now if you want to test it.