- Quick specs
- Price: Free
- Operating system: Windows Me, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows 98
- Date added: December 09, 2007
- Total Downloads: 547,051
- Downloads last week: 1,577
- See full specifications
A newer version of Pidgin is available.
(Download doesn't provide access to previous versions of this program.)
- CNET editors' rating: stars
- Average user rating: stars out of 217 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 Google Talk and MySpaceIM as well as 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 text-only messaging app.
Publisher's description
From Pidgin :Pidin (formerly known as 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. Pidgin 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.
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, and iconify on away. Version 2.3.1 includes unspecified updates.
What's new in this version:
Version 2.3.1 includes unspecified updates.
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User reviews of Pidgin 2.3.1
- Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 217 votes
- My rating: 0 stars Write review
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Showing 5 of 13 user reviewsSee all 13 user reviews
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
Version: Pidgin 2.3.1
Pros: I love Pidgin! I found out about it when my laptop had Ubuntu on it, and Pidgin first started out as GAIM. This chat client has pretty much everything you need. It has history logging in plain text or HTML. Smooth sounds, very nice interface, low resource usage, customize names for your buddies, it goes on multiple users at a time, it allows you to set your status the way you want it, it never really crashes (not on me), very useful plugins, you can easily mute sounds instead of going back and forth (like AIM), and like I said, it has tabs, you can do multiple "file transfers", it's VERY customizable on viewing your buddy list the way you want, and best it's free, and I think it works better than Trillian!
Cons: Well, when you are direct connected with someone and you or your friend sends a file, it doesn't show you the statuses. I haven't seen any popup notifications or skins (although this I don't mind.) Most fonts viewed in 8pt and such doesn't really come out as 8pt. History logger and buddy icon files tend to clog if you don't clear it often. Also, it updates often to a new version and sometimes it's hard to keep up with.
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1 out of 1 people found this review helpful
Version: Pidgin 2.3.1
Pros: I used GAIM (its former name) for years now, and it worked pretty well.
What I like about it, is that it allows for multiple IM accounts PER im protocol (ie: multiple yahoo, multiple msn, etc, not just 1 each as trillian was allowing).
Cons: This new renamed version showed some bugs, such as crashing occasionally, as well as showing the other person's name instead of my own in dialogs and in the other's friends list. I'm a guy and all of a sudden it was showing me as Melanie, which was the name of the person I was talking with. I also don't like the emoticons... they are reminiscent of the mid-90's ICQ emoticons.
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3 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Version: Pidgin 2.3.1
Pros: For a long time I used Trillian and it held its own for multiclient chat program. I recently gave Pidgin a try and I like it. Simple and Clean. Flawless. AND I can chat on ALL my clients at the same time. It's easy to use and I dont have to run AIM, MSN and Gmail Chat separately. Why wouldn't you want this program? MonthsForever.blogspot.com
Cons: The Down side is that there are no skins. You can skin trillian like mad. This program comes with something called a "theme selector" which sounded promising but not only could i figure out what it is, I googled it and no one else knows "clearly" either. Bummer.
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Version: Pidgin 2.3.1
"Very good! Access for many IM networks"
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1 out of 3 people found this review helpful
Version: Pidgin 2.3.1
Pros: Useful for multi-acounts
Cons: Have some crash-bugs :s
- See all 13 user reviews Write review
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