Featured Freeware: Trillian
Cerulean Studios' Trillian has long been one of the top multiprotocol IM clients. The program offers simultaneous access to the fab-five chat clients: Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, ICQ, IRC, and AIM, but still doesn't support Jabber/Google Talk in the basic version. For that, users will have to upgrade to Trillian Pro.
Despite lacking this major chat protocol, Trillian's interface is slick and sharp, a professional design that's way ahead of its competitors. Users can import passwords, buddy lists, and client preferences, as well as transfer files and encrypt chats. SMS text messaging and audio chat are supported in the basic version, with video support restricted to the pro edition. Trillian's skin support has improved in more recent versions, as has AIM stability. So if you need help managing your schizophrenic chatting identity, don't go all Sybil on your friends--just get Trillian.
Seth peers into the deep, dark corners of software so that you don't have to. He has yet to suffer a single nightmare about OS/2. You can follow him on Twitter. 
- by firefoxluva95 May 17, 2008 12:33 PM PDT
- First off, I'd consider it quite lucky that I was able to get into the Trillian Astra Alpha testing program. Anyway, the new Trillian does seem to be lighter on resources but the interface is a bit Vista-esque so XP users may not be happy with the default skin. One of the major changes is the new XMPP plugin that includes support with Jabber/Google Talk although it is still quite unclear if this will be packaged with the free version or not. Trillian also has a native Myspace plugin and Bonjour serverless IM plugin. Trillian also has a feature where you are able to sync your status with the song that is playing in WMP, Winamp, or Itunes. There may be other players that work as well. Unfortunately, Trillian does not package a Facebook IM plugin which is why I sometimes use Digsby instead. The other options for multiclient IM are Pidgin, Miranda, and Digsby. Digsby looks like it can really take on Trillian and I'd like to see the showdown once both exit their prerelease statuses.
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