Digsby's buddy list.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Even though it's been around almost as long as the modern Web, instant messaging is still a great way to send short communication bursts without tying your ear to a telephone. But with great utility comes buckets of options: Do you use Yahoo IM? AOL IM? MSN? Google Talk? ICQ? What do you do if your parents are on one service, but everybody at your office uses a second, and your friends are all on a third?
Nobody wants to be logged in to half a dozen different chat programs simultaneously, which is where multiprotocol apps come in, to free up resources and streamline your experience by presenting a single interface for managing your contacts, regardless of their preferred networks.
In this collection we show off several of the best multiprotocol chatware apps around, some of which have portable versions that you can carry on a USB key. Google, AOL, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, and others are one and the same to these helpful apps. To keep things fair, I'm presenting the programs in alphabetical order.
With so many ways to network and socialize online, you may find it difficult to keep track of everything. Digsby promises to help keep chat, e-mail, and social-networking conversations in one convenient place, but it's still in beta and not without its flaws. It supports AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and Jabber for IM; Gmail, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, IMAP, and POP for e-mail; and LinkedIn, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter for social networking.
Miranda IM's buddy list and status options, with Google represented by Jabber.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)The contact list appears as a skinny rectangular box, with clear controls to add accounts to get started. From there you'll find a menu of IM and e-mail programs, and multiple social-networking sites. When selected, each simply asks for your log-in and password and connects to the system. Your various programs are displayed, with IM buddy icons separate from e-mail and social-networking e-mails. You can reorganize contacts regardless of network. Digsby is known for being sluggish, and although there have been vast improvements in this area, it doesn't have the best response times.
An unofficial portable version is also available, but many users have had significant problems installing it.
An interface refresh wouldn't hurt Miranda IM, but it makes up for the lack of pizazz by supporting most IM programs in one fully customizable package. It's got an older build for Windows 95, 98, and Me users, and comes in a portable version, too. Miranda supports 29 chat protocols, including AIM, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ, IRC, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, Google, MySpace, QQ, Skype, Twitter, and iChat, and allows you to manage the personal information for all your accounts from one central control panel.
Palringo's buddy list can include Facebook chat contacts.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Miranda IM's plain, gray instant-messaging window offers just the basics for typing and viewing messages. Text formatting options, emoticons, and other features can be added via plug-in. While this won't appeal to many people, if you're looking for a stripped-down application with features that can be built out only as you need them, Miranda is the strongest option. One plug-in even customizes where messages from a specific user appear on your monitor, and another tweaks hot keys.
Where Miranda's appeal is in being an IM kit with a multitude of Frankensteinian options, Palringo's strength lies in its portability across mobile platforms. It's available for your desktop as well as iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and other handhelds, and it supports MSN, AOL, Yahoo, Google, ICQ, Jabber, iChat and MobileMe, QQ, Gadu-Gadu, and Facebook Chat. It tends to consume a fair amount of resources, so it won't be as nimble as open-source options like Miranda or Pidgin.
Formerly Gaim, now Pidgin, this multiprotocol client offers a bit more out of the box than Miranda does--but it's still light on its feet and offers useful features like chat history and emoticons without tinkering. It, too, has a portable version. Out of the box, it supports Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Lotus Sametime, MySpaceIM, MSN, Novell GroupWise, AIM, ICQ, QQ, SIMPLE, SILC, XMPP clients like Jabber and Google, Yahoo, and Zephyr. Some of these, like Yahoo, are limited to the basics of chatting and file-transferring.
Pidgin's buddy list includes avatar thumbnails.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)Pidgin makes plug-ins easy to access, with more than 20 packaged to be accessible but not weigh down the program. Messaging with Pidgin is simple, if frills-free. Smileys, file transfers, group chats, Buddy Pounce, and logging and time-stamping make Pidgin worthwhile, even if it lacks IP telephony and video conferencing.
Trillian 3 hasn't been updated in a long time, but it still offers a sharp interface, tabbed chatting, enhanced messaging functionality, improved file transfers, and a new Instant Lookup feature. The program offers simultaneous access to five chat clients--Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, IRC, and AIM--but lacks Google and Jabber connectivity. Trillian also eats a ton of RAM and can be sluggish even under normal usage.
There's also a beta of Trillian 4 available, code-named Astra. Currently it's free, and it's been in development for more than three years. It services multiple chat protocol, including Google, MySpaceIM, and Skype. It includes POP3 and IMAP account notifications rolled in alongside the Facebook and Web mail notices. Astra is still a chatting behemoth, but it is more nimble than its predecessor.
Trillian Astra offers an Aero theme, even in Windows XP.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)VoxOx brings two unique features to its messaging client. It's got multiprotocol chat capabilities, social-networking support, and Web-mail integration, but it also offers a telephony service that includes call encryption, mobile-to-mobile calls initiated by either SMS or via a Web site, a free personal assistant-style call forwarding service, and a system for earning minutes by watching ads or responding to surveys. It's essentially Skype crossed with Digsby.
To entice you, VoxOx offers 120 free minutes of call time to all registrants at the U.S. rate, a free U.S.-based phone number, international calling, pay-by-minute upgrade plans, voice mail, customizable hold music, video conferencing--limited to VoxOx contacts for now--two-way text messaging, e-mail-to-SMS support, and both desktop and mobile instant messaging for MSN, ICQ, AOL, Jabber, Yahoo, and Google. Users can share files up to 100MB via a generated download link that they can then share via e-mail or instant message.
VoxOx's buddy list.
(Credit: Screenshot by Seth Rosenblatt/CNET)VoxOx is troubled by stability issues, and frequently the callback services don't work.
Out of these six chat clients, each one offers a different experience. The best one for you depends on your needs as a user, but one drawback they all have is that none offers the full feature set found in single protocol chat clients. Tell us about your favorites and the ones you like the least in the comments below.
Make sure you know exactly what you install with AIM.
(Credit: Dong Ngo/CNET Networks)The new update of AOL Instant Messenger, the AIM 6.8 Refresh, came out Tuesday with a new feature that allows you to send photos to cell phone users. I decided to try the new version out, mostly because I wanted to get rid of the annoying update notification.
Once the installation was done, I found out that the neat-sounding feature is limited to people using certain types of cell phones within the T-Mobile network.
None of my buddies meet the criteria so I didn't get to try it out, but I am not terribly impressed with the idea of this new feature, especially when cell phones these days can be used to easily check e-mail or receive multimedia messages. If anything, I am concerned.
The installation of the new AIM, much like that of any other instant-messenger app, still wants to significantly change the settings of your computer, including installing the terrible AOL toolbar, change the default home page to AOL.com, and change the default search engine to that of AOL (which is also terrible).
Make sure you pick the custom installation and uncheck all the boxes of features you don't wish to install before proceeding.
Updated at 11:30 am PT.
On Tuesday, AOL released AIM 6.8 for Windows. The version update of the chat client, which AOL is calling a "refresh," adds a mobile slant. One of the new features lets you share photos with buddies on the T-Mobile network (U.S. only) when you drag or import a photo into the instant messaging window. Friends can save the image or respond with a photo of their own, which will pop up in your IM window.
Two integrated plug-ins for AIM Chat and AOL Mail are also new additions. Clicking on the talk bubble at the bottom of the interface gains you entry to a chat room. To preview new e-mail messages, you'll click the envelope button that also resides below your buddy list. You can also open your in-box from there to manage e-mail, and can add more AIM plug-ins from the AIM Gallery.
AOL on Monday quietly released a brand-new version of its instant-messenger application for Mac users. Called "AIM for Mac beta 1," it's a replacement for version 4.7, which has remained untouched since February 2004.
Back then gas was a little over $1.50 a gallon.
Unlike the changes in oil prices, those four years have amounted to little more than what was offered in previous iterations of the program, or Apple's iChat application which comes pre-installed in every Mac computer. In the new version users can change emoticon sets and tweak background chat wallpapers--all things that you can't do with the current version of iChat. There's also tabbed browsing and contact search which the previous version did not have. Otherwise, it's largely playing catch-up to the PC version, which has received the most attention and is currently on version 6.8.
Also worth noting is how much the market has changed since the latest Mac release. iChat and third-party applications like Adium, Digsby, and Pidgin have the upper hand with compatibility for other protocols. AIM for Mac is currently limited to AOL and Yahoo contacts, while the others support things like Jabber, ICQ, and XMPP. In a more frequently fragmented market, with newcomers like Facebook and Google, these open platforms simply end up being more appealing.
AIM for Mac looks quite similar to iChat, although without the audio and video logos to let you know who is ready for media chatting.
(Credit: AOL Inc.)Despite the uncomplicated version number, open-source, multiclient chat app Pidgin 2.5 doesn't include any major improvements unless you're fascinated by bug-fixes or are a big MSN-messenger user.
Available for Windows, in a portable version, and for Linux, the update features support for Microsoft's Live Messenger offline messaging, and personal messages. The latter will show up as Status messages. Live Messenger's non-face Smileys should be updated, too.
Other improvements are much smaller in scale: Group and Chat buddy list entries now support custom buddy icons via the context menu, and there's the usual spate of stability improvements across the board. I had noticed some stability issues with Yahoo IM in the previous release, version 2.4.3, and so hopefully those have been resolved, too.
AOL has upgraded its AIM Express software, an online Flash-based application that replicates many of the features of the regular downloadable software (add your own review here).
Among the new AIM Express 7.0 features are tabbed conversations, status messages, text-message support to communicate with buddies' mobile phones, and compatibility with Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Mozilla's Firefox 2 and 3, and Apple's Safari 2 and 3.
The software is an example of the growing utility and sophistication of Web-based applications. Instant messaging, though, is somewhat more amenable to the task: it doesn't require the heavy processing burden of a spreadsheet, and not being able to work while offline isn't a big deal given that the whole point of IM is to chat with contacts on the network. Moving applications online poses some compatibility issues with various browsers or with software foundations such as Flash, but it can sidestep myriad other compatibility issues such as operating-system compatibility.
AOL also announced a new version of AIM for phones using the Windows Mobile operating system, including the Motorola Q, Samsung BlackJack, and some Palm Treo models. CNET Download.com editor Jessica Dolcourt reviewed the AIM for Windows Mobile phones beta in June.
Palringo's the first multi-chat protocol app for the iPhone.
(Credit: Palringo)The new iPhone app from Palringo brings an official multi-instant messaging client to the Apple device. It supports eight chat protocols and includes some useful iPhone-specific features, but also suffers from several irritating limitations.
Palringo can handle Apple iChat, AIM, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Gadu Gadu, ICQ, Jabber, and Windows Live Messenger. Assuming you've got no problems with the iPhone keyboard, creating a profile for one of these accounts is as simple as selecting the proper icon and typing in your username and password. First, though, you must set up a Palringo account. Not to worry: when you open the Palringo app for the first time, it will redirect you to their Web site for registration.
When you receive a message, it gets dumped into the universal in-box at the bottom left corner of the screen. This may sounds chaotic, but I was surprised at how well it worked. The camera feature worked flawlessly, too. When you select a contact to chat with, tap the camera icon in the lower right corner and you can either take a fresh photo that will be instantly sent, or send an already-saved photo from your album.
However, do note that the photo gets uploaded to Palringo's servers and stored there for 10 days. Users must then download images to keep them. Click here to see the image that Jason Parker sent me from his iPhone.
Palringo offers a variety of status options, but no clear way to log out of one client.
(Credit: Palringo)The big hang-up, if you'll forgive the pun, is that the app doesn't offer a way to sign out of an account once it's been created. You can change the status of an account to Invisible, Busy, or Away, with the default status being Online, but there's no way to be logged in to your AIM but not your ICQ.
Also, since the iPhone can currently use only one app at a time, you must be running the app to receive new messages. The phone vibrates when it does, but that won't do you much good without having the app always on. The promised voice-chat feature has yet to be implemented, too.
Even with these drawbacks, for people who don't have a jailbroken phone Palringo offers a solid and Apple-approved way to get access to all your IMs at once.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
After the sophistication of desktop chatting, mobile instant messaging services often tend to look like rough, rickety wire frames. Not so for AOL's first house-made application for mobile phones, a rich AIM client for Windows Mobile phones versions 5 and 6.
Released earlier this month, the IM application is in beta stages and there are plenty of known issues, including the one that number-locks the keypad on T-Mobile Dash phones and made for a dead-end first attempt. Past that obstacle, AIM for Windows Mobile phones offers a graphics-rich chat space with a few extras beyond basic messaging.
There's a status bar, AIM bots for guided chatting, and some light account management. There's also a visual solution to multiple conversations that earns a big, juicy point for creativity. Tabbed conversations and blinking messages are the norm for mobile IM, but AOL has opted to account for each open conversation by a buddy icon lined up along the left edge of the screen. During chats, each buddy icon is overlain with the number of awaiting messages, plus or minus an optional auditory accompaniment.
View, block, or tattetale on unsolicited messages.
(Credit: CNET Networks)The Windows Mobile application will also let users take advantage of text mode to send an SMS instead of an IM. This option was ghosted out during my testing, but I'm assured that by the end of the beta period, the feature will replicate the desktop experience.
Since IM wouldn't be IM without emoticons, AOL has taken care to include those, too. Emoticons are easy to add with a pop-up selector next to the text input field, but are too emo for my taste with their heavily bolded expressions. Tiny sizes don't help.
In fact, readability has been sacrificed in AIM for Windows Mobile in exchange for achieving a familiar desktop feel. Those with strong eyesight and no aversion to squinting shouldn't overly mind. Likewise, chatterboxes who prefer a greater graphical environment should weather the few extra nanoseconds it takes to switch between conversations.
AIM for Windows Mobile is a notable effort that serves AIM loyalists well, though with basic functionality. Let's hope future versions integrate with the phone camera and file system as well as with SMS.
AOL plans to launch a new program called AIM Money on Tuesday that lets programmers write applications that run in the AOL Instant Messenger buddy list--and lets programmers get a cut of any resulting revenue.
The move is made possible through use of an open interface in AIM 6.8, another new development. Version 6.8 also includes "mini-applications" that run at the bottom of the AIM buddy list window; 150 new CBS radio stations in AOL Radio; and restoration of the ability to save and import buddy lists, a feature that helps move a to a new IM identity.
As the computing industry has discovered the possibilities of applications running on the Internet, companies are rushing to curry favor with programmers hoping those companies' online offerings. Other examples of the idea are Facebook, Google and other members of the OpenSocial consortium, and the Yahoo Open Strategy.
Ultimately, richer applications can mean more users, more activity, more advertising--though the more lucrative elements of the strategy is largely rhetorical than real at this stage for many. AIM, however, has a well-populated list of active users, unlike many start-ups.
AOL announced the interface in March with its Open AIM 2.0 developer program, which lets programmers write software such as the mini-applications that plug into AIM's own chat software, bots that can communicate with humans on the network, Web-based AIM interfaces, and software that show when AIM members are available online through the service.
The revenue for programmers comes through sharing money generated by an advertisement that can appear along with programs that use the new AIM features. AOL serves advertisements using its Platform-A ad network and pays developers through PayPal.
To use the AIM API (application programming interface), developers have to use two of five AIM elements. The ad is one. The other four are bundling the AIM browser toolbar; providing access to AIM Expressions that customize the AIM interface; displaying the AIM Dashboard start page; and displaying buddy info.
Your mother uses AOL Instant Messenger. Your spouse prefers MSN. Your office insists on Yahoo. Your ex is on MySpaceIM (shudder). What are you going to do? You could run all those chat clients at once, or you could use the multichat protocol app formerly known as Gaim: Pidgin, available for Windows, Linux, and in a portable Windows version. 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 ICQ as well as lesser-known protocols such as Jabber and Gadu-Gadu.
Pidgin's IM features are unimpeachable: emoticons, 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 what John Travolta famously called "the little things" right: logging and time-stamping, for instance, are well-executed and easy to access. However, it lacks IP telephony and video conferencing, and minor bugs remain--most notably in the Help menu. Nevertheless, Pidgin is a highly recommended text-only messaging app.
