- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP/NT
- Date added: May 19, 2005
- Total Downloads: 547,051
- Downloads last week: 1,577
- See full specifications
A newer version of Gaim is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 234 votes
See all user reviews
CNET editors' review
Reviewed by: CNET Staff
Your mother uses AOL Instant Messenger. Your spouse prefers MSN. Your office insists on Yahoo. What are you going to do? You could run all those chat clients at once, or you could use Gaim, now renamed Pidgin. Like Trillian, Fire, and other third-party IM clients, this open-source messaging application lets you access multiple IM networks from one window, including lesser-known protocols such as Jabber and Gadu-Gadu.
Pidgin's biggest change is the redesigned interface. The Buddy List can be viewed in Basic or Advanced mode, and the most important features, including the Plug-in List, have been graduated from the Preferences window into their own panes. Twenty-two plug-ins come prepackaged as Pidgin repositions itself as a highly extensible chat client.
The IM features are unimpeachable: smileys (you can find tons of emoticons on the developer's site), file transfers, and multiperson chats. The Buddy Pounce feature lets you automatically perform certain actions (play a sound, execute a command, open an IM window) when a contact signs on or off. Pidgin also gets lots of intangibles right: logging and time-stamping, for instance, are well-executed and easy to access. However, it lacks IP telephony and video conferencing, and there are still some bugs--most notably in the Help menu. Still, Pidgin remains a highly recommended messenging app.
Publisher's description
From Pidgin :Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, and Zephyr networks.
Gaim users can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on AOL Instant Messenger, talking to a friend on Yahoo Messenger, and sitting in an IRC channel all at the same time.
Gaim supports many features of the various networks, such as file transfer (coming soon), away messages, typing notification, and MSN window closing notification. It also goes beyond that and provides many unique features. A few popular features are Buddy Pounces, which give the ability to notify you, send a message, play a sound, or run a program when a specific buddy goes away, signs online, or returns from idle; and plugins, consisting of text replacement, a buddy ticker, extended message notification, iconify on away, and more.
Version 1.3.0 fixes some security problems.
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User reviews of Gaim 1.3
- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 234 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 34 user reviewsSee all 34 user reviews
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Gaim 1.3
"recommended multi messenger client"
Pros: just simple interface to my liking. Tabbed chat windows to prevent clustering. Mosy interestingly, theres a new feature thats not avaliable in other messenging clients. That is when pple close ur chat window, u ll be notified. Well, useful to me as I would noe who is interesting to talk to me. In all, its better than Trillian for my taste.
Cons: Its version 1.5 already for goodness sake. Go to Gaim homepage to download it!
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4 out of 6 people found this review helpful
Version: Gaim 1.3
Pros: The things I liked the best was the fact that it's free, and it looks a lot like AIM mixed with Yahoo with a little bit of MSN, but that's pretty much it.
Cons: Even though I somewhat liked the appearance of the interface, it needs more. There aren't any big buttons at the top of any of the windows. To change your display picture you have to go through the Connections menu, when your display pic should just be displayed at the top of the buddy list window. The connection process is also a drag. Instead of displaying your connection status in the buddy list window, it's in an entirely different window. I also had problems getting it to run. I would double click the icon on my desktop and it wouldn't do anything, just freeze my PC. I highly recommend Trillian over Gaim.
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1 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Gaim 1.3
Pros: Very easy to use, houses many options. Probably the most customizable mutli protocol messenger client out there. A protable version for jump drives can be obtained from portableapps.com
Cons: Just a little weird thing that caused me not to give 5 stars. Sometimes me pc will suddenly slow way down though i'm not running many programs. I bring up the task manager and gaim is hoggin everything. This happens rarely though.
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Version: Gaim 1.3
"GOOD FOR LINUX BUT NOT FOR WINDOWS"
Pros: Although it does what is planned to do it works perfect on linux but it has flaws as far as windows is considered(I havent tested on MAC). If you are a linux user I suggest, otherwise look for trillian or Miranda.
Cons: It doesnt work well on Windows.
It needs to have installed the GTK environment in order to work.
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5 out of 5 people found this review helpful
Version: Gaim 1.3
"Not perfect, but pretty good!"
Pros: The best cross-protocol IM client I have ever used. Fast and stable, and cross-platform compatibility (Windows and Linux) is always a bonus in my book. Trilian and Kopete just cannot compete.
Cons: The Preferences menu is downright terrible. Navigation is so-so, but finding and remembering preferences is not intuitive at all. A Mozila-style Preferences menu would go a long way.
Away messages are also confusing, even for an advanced user such as myself. It took me a while to figure out how to set the default message.
- See all 34 user reviews Write review
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