CNET Editors' review
Miranda IM lacks the slick design of most IM programs, but makes up for it by supporting most IM programs in one fully customizable package. It's easy to add your various IM accounts--including AIM, Yahoo, ICQ and MSN--and you'll have the same icons and status messages for each program. You can even manage the personal information for all your accounts from one central control panel.
Miranda IM's plain, gray instant-messaging window offers just the basics for typing and viewing messages; you won't find the text formatting options, emoticons, or links that a program like Yahoo Messenger offers. You will find numerous options to customize how chat or IM windows behave, including a handy option to have messages from a specific person always appear in the same location on your screen. You also can assign hot keys for a few actions like opening the program or reading a message.
Miranda IM is offered as freeware. You'll give up some of the unique features of your IM programs, but Miranda IM allows you to conveniently monitor and manage many of your chat and messaging programs in one place.
Publisher's Description
From Miranda IM:
Miranda IM is the smaller, faster, easier instant messenger with support for multiple protocols. Designed from the ground-up to be resource efficient while still providing a rich feature set, Miranda includes support for AIM, Jabber, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo, Gadu-Gadu and other protocols. Additionally, with the choice of hundreds of plugins, icons, sounds and other content, Miranda IM gives you the ability to modify, customize and extend functionality to make it your own.
What's new in this version: Version 0.10.12 has fixed memory leaks in options.
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All versions:
3.9 starsout of 89 votes
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Current version:
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"good informative one,.........."
Version: Miranda IM (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7) 0.10.8
Pros
the programs can be run on different platforms and machines,.........
lolCons
difficult to understand and heavy options,......................
Summary
good informative and readable one,........
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"love it since 1969"
Version: Miranda IM (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7) 0.10.4
Pros
small and subjectively the best for me
Cons
didnt find any didnt find anydidnt find any
Summary
very gooda proggy very gooda proggy
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"will not pop up message to foreground"
Version: Miranda IM (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7) 0.9.20
Pros
Light usage of computer resources.
Cons
Messages do not pop up in the foreground.
Summary
What good is an instant message program if you don't know you have received a message? If you would have asked me a year ago, I would have rated this 5 stars. Somewhere along the way, an update took away the ability for messages to pop up in the foreground. They claimed to have fixed this many versions back, but I keep updating and it has never worked since.
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"Good multi protocol IM"
Version: Miranda IM (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7) 0.9.17
Pros
Multi protocol, plug-ins, including encrypted IM.
Cons
sometimes has had stability issues in older versions.
Summary
There are tons of add-ins for this, however some are old and sometimes hard to find all the add-ins that rely on add-ins. Be nice if they moved the encryption to the base along with the most popular plug-ins. They seem to keep up to date with IM service changes which can be a bummer when someone like MSN, ICQ, etc.. make a protocol change.
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"Does what it claims"
Version: Miranda IM (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7) 0.9.15
Pros
Fast, easy to install and configure.
Cons
None so far.
Summary
If you have several active chat clients, this is a nice program for bridging and connecting with other users with either the same or different programs.
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"the great utility to work in all IM in one program"
Version: Miranda IM (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7) 0.9.10
Pros
Small memory usage, usability, free and easy to configure with rich plugin assortment
Cons
Sometimes in urgent need of updating due to a sharp change in the basic protocols of MI. Of it as a rule, in contrast to the version of the main program, there is no visible warnings
Summary
Another would do well to make a site to synchronize the history, but probably consider it a lack of properly.
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"POTENTIALLY great. But too many issues"
Version: Miranda IM (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7) 0.9.10
Pros
Miranda is extremely customizable. If there's something about the program you don't like at first, odds are you can change it. There's an endless string of plug-ins available that will change just about every detail of Miranda.
Cons
Extremely un-user-friendly.
It's true that every last single detail can be changed. But the process of changing them is laborious and unclear. Everything is in one Options screen that is filled with confusing, under-explained menus and sub-menus.Summary
Miranda is like a fidgety kid. It's full of energy and ideas, but doesn't behave well.
There's a million and one plug-ins, but each new one introduces new quirks and kinks. I installed a spell checker (why isn't that built in from the get go?), it changes the appearance of the message window. Why?
Going into options to sort it out is never as straight forward as you expect. Layout is confusing and awful. Changing the simplest things is more difficult than it should be and will probably require a forum search.
If you like to tinker endlessly with a computer program (sometimes I do), Miranda will be right up your alley. If you want an IM program where you can set it and forget it, use Digsby or maybe Pidgin.
I've kept Miranda installed and will sometimes launch it just to fiddle with the details. But I always wind up going back to Digsby for day-to-day use. -
"Customizable, with the proper knowledge"
Version: Miranda IM (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7) 0.9.3
Pros
The most customizable chat client I've ever seen, light, lots of nice skins available (especially on deviantart), can do almost anything if you know how to utilize the plugins.
Cons
Confusing to set up, lacks forums with recent activity for help, takes about a year to customize the first time.
Summary
Miranda IM has proven to be the best client I've had so far, better over for pidgin for aesthetic customization, better over digsby for simplicity and better over Trillian astra because, well, Trillian is horrible.
While I was able to get this result (http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/9104/mirandaim.jpg), it took almost an entire day to figure out exactly how to customize this program with skins and plugins. It doesn't seem that all of the tutorials found on forums are up to date to be used with the current version of the client.
My overall opinion on this chat client is that if you're fed up with pidgin being ugly, this is your ticket. You need to be willing to spend some time working with it to make it better, so if you are looking for something with a setup wizard that will do everything for you, you will be very disappointed with this. You must add all files to the appropriate places and it takes quite a bit of patience. It lacks ALL features in it's "out of the box" state, but with customization, it has proven to do nearly everything that pidgin does and more with it's ability to...not look like pidgin.
Thumps up from me and I recommend it to anyone who is sick of trying to mess with pidgin's gtk themes only to find that they're all just as ugly. My desktop looks about 10x better. -
"did not work-my computer refuses to open it."
Version: Miranda IM (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7) 0.8.27
Pros
none at all.
Cons
My computer would not recognize this software or open the program,after i downloaded it.
Summary
My computer refused to open the program and would not recognize it. So i had to uninstall it. End of story!
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"my favourite one"
Version: Miranda IM (Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista/7) 0.8.27
Pros
My favourite IM client. Free, fully customizable; plugins support, ...
Cons
takes some time to configure





