What messenging program does everyone use? pidgin? trillian?

Elledan said:
You forgot: "Now get off my lawn, you whippersnappers!" while shaking your cane in the air :p

They often say that the current generation is so good at using computers. I instead think that they're mostly just well-trained monkeys, hence why you only see them use IM programs, or do the same thing on their cellphones.

Gawd, I feel old now :(
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The current generation is good at sitting in front of their computers and doing nothing, they're lazy as shit and expect everything. We're in deep shit and will be in deeper shit down the road.

Anyway :) I used IRC for a long time back in the day. Currently I use nothing(except at work and I hate it) because I'd rather call somebody up and talk to them or talk to them in person. Older I get and the more I learn about technology the more simplicity I want in my life. Strange how that works considering i'm in the IT field.
 
i might have to look into digsby with all the hype here. but like i said, all my messaging always ends up through texts- none of my friends use IM's. also, winmo6.1 is fantastic for texting, as it acts just like IM's. honestly i forget they are texts
 
Well, a lot of mobile companies are starting to bundle their own IM apps with a lot of phones (within the firmware) and they code it so that all IMs are charged as text messages... So they might as well be. :eek: I imagine that's harder to do w/higher end smartphones where you can just download your alternative IM app, but it seems to be a pretty common practice with cheaper phones. That's the only reason I pondered unlocking my Sony Ericsson phone but ehh... I don't text enough for it to really be a concern (or IM for that matter), I'm usually well under my plan's limit.
 
Pidgin. hands down. Been using it for 4ish years.

I don't understand the Digsby craze. I think it looks like something a 4 year old would use.

I use xchat for IRC.
 
pidgin caused me too many problems.. now I use digsby and will never try anything else
 
criccio said:
I always wondered who the one person who used Jabber was. :p
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I use it as an internal IM client for a few reasons...
1) Not YIM/AOL/MSN compatible unless I specifically setup a Gateway account for a user. So it keeps file transfers and crap down, and work high.
2) Plugins. Running Openfire server, and I log freakin' every single message sent or received. That way when there's employee issues we can monitor that.
3) I can control the contact lists. Get a new employee? I can automatically update everyone's contact lists.
4) ____ Tons more stuff I didn't list.

spacetrader said:
i might have to look into digsby with all the hype here. but like i said, all my messaging always ends up through texts- none of my friends use IM's. also, winmo6.1 is fantastic for texting, as it acts just like IM's. honestly i forget they are texts
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Blackberry is the same way. You can even set it up (It does it by default) to where a text or an email is just a "Message". Only way you can really tell is that email doesn't break it apart every 160 characters and it also obviously has an email address.

I tend to stick with email because A) It gets logged as a Sent Item in my Mailbox and B) no character limits.
That is, unless the person is someone who just texts.

illuminate said:
Pidgin. hands down. Been using it for 4ish years.

I don't understand the Digsby craze. I think it looks like something a 4 year old would use.

I use xchat for IRC.
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I thought the same thing about Digsby at first, but it's awesome.
One great feature is your account sits on their servers... So if you move to another PC all your communication settings and preferences carry over.
Also great because it was the FIRST to have Facebook Chat integrated. Very few use IM, but you'd be surprised how many people are on Facebook at any given time.
 
TechieSooner said:
I thought the same thing about Digsby at first, but it's awesome.
One great feature is your account sits on their servers... So if you move to another PC all your communication settings and preferences carry over.
Also great because it was the FIRST to have Facebook Chat integrated. Very few use IM, but you'd be surprised how many people are on Facebook at any given time.
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Ah, sweet! I run facebook chat and Twitter through pidgin. I may have to try out digsby
 
digsby won it for me. simple, easy, good skins, and it brings in gchat and everything else i loved about pidgin.
 
Vashypooh said:
Digsby without question. Far superior to pidgin.
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QFT! I was using Pidgin for years and it always had some sort of bugs, even after each update.

Digsby has been working GREAT for the past several months I have been using it for. It also has the best/cleanest options menu I have EVER seen in an app. I will NEVER go back to Pidgin. :c)

I use Meebo when I'm not at home.
 
Interesting recommendations from of Digsby from several ex-Pidgin users... Main reason why I always liked Pidgin was how light on resources it's always been, how's Digsby in that regard? Definitely gonna try Digsby on my desktop soon, I'm wondering whether I should try it on my netbook as well.
 
Impulse said:
Interesting recommendations from of Digsby from several ex-Pidgin users... Main reason why I always liked Pidgin was how light on resources it's always been, how's Digsby in that regard? Definitely gonna try Digsby on my desktop soon, I'm wondering whether I should try it on my netbook as well.
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I dunno what pidgin used, but right now Digsby is using 8mb of ramish
 
trillian astra using 5 meg

the ranges as it is opening though is 1meg up to 30 meg then down around 5 meg which is what it idles at in xp at least...
 
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Lunas said:
trillian astra using 5 meg

the ranges as it is opening though is 1meg up to 30 meg then down around 5 meg which is what it idles at in xp at least...
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I still can't get in on the Beta... I had been trying.

The current version of Trillian was a hog though. Bloated, and it locks the system up when it starts (Had that happen on three different systems, so I it's a problem with Trillian).
 
TechieSooner said:
I still can't get in on the Beta... I had been trying.

The current version of Trillian was a hog though. Bloated, and it locks the system up when it starts (Had that happen on three different systems, so I it's a problem with Trillian).
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i have the pro version of the current one it didnt have any issues like what you describe and it usually had a memory foot print of around 10 meg.
 
It took me 6 months and 3 trys to get into the Trillian Astra Beta program.

I have it, I use it. It is da bomb.

Seriously I've been using trillian on my home PC for years.

At work and on my laptop I was using Digsby, but since I finally managed to get into the Trillian Astra Beta....Astra is by far the best. No contest.


I am a bit pissed off that you have to renew the Pro License every year. Thats a crock if you ask me.
 
3 years and 6 months? lol How long has the blasted thing been in beta for?
 
Mackintire said:
It took me 6 months and 3 trys to get into the Trillian Astra Beta program.

I have it, I use it. It is da bomb.

Seriously I've been using trillian on my home PC for years.

At work and on my laptop I was using Digsby, but since I finally managed to get into the Trillian Astra Beta....Astra is by far the best. No contest.


I am a bit pissed off that you have to renew the Pro License every year. Thats a crock if you ask me.
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Oh i thought it was a lifetime thing 25 dollars is not something i would pay for when i can use the free version.

Also 25 dollars seems a bit steep for a im program that the owners of the servers dont charge for...

And astra has been in alpha for 2-3 years beta 3-6 months...
 
Yea I hear you,

The Pro version adds Advenced video conferencing and chat logging, along with an amazing number of ways to sort that data.

With trillian (and Astra) I can look up an entire conversation I had 4 years ago, with no issues.

The old Trillian does not charge for chat logging and the advanced skype video features. The new one does. Their perspective is it costs them bandwidth and extra to support those higher bandwidth services so they should have to charge for them. I say its bull that it costs extra to log my chat locally on my own machine, but I can understand charging for the xtra bandwidth, but again NOT $25 per year.

Trillian Astra does almost every chat medium I have ever seen, including facebook and myspace. It also supports plug-ins for add on support. If they add chat logging back and offer some decent skins, and as long as the Astra setup wizard does not make the install overly complex, I really do believe that Trillian Astra will own the majority of the chat market within a year.

However, I would not underestimate Digsby, lean, clean application that just works. Heck, I have digsby working on Ubuntu via Wine.

I can not understand using pigin or maranda unless you have issues running one of the others in nix. I can understand why someone would choose to use Meebo, since you do not have to install it to use it.
 
Impulse said:
3 years and 6 months? lol How long has the blasted thing been in beta for?
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Can't beat Gmail ;)

Mackintire said:
With trillian (and Astra) I can look up an entire conversation I had 4 years ago, with no issues.
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Digsby does that too though.
My only complaint is the Facebook logs are stored by Facebook's UserID number, not username. Understandable since user names are able to change on Facebook, but they've got to have a better way to look up a past convo...
 
I don't know if they're just auto-approving Astra Beta testers now, but I signed up this morning and got an email with my download link....
 
Mackintire said:
Yea I hear you,

The Pro version adds Advenced video conferencing and chat logging, along with an amazing number of ways to sort that data.

With trillian (and Astra) I can look up an entire conversation I had 4 years ago, with no issues.

The old Trillian does not charge for chat logging and the advanced skype video features. The new one does. Their perspective is it costs them bandwidth and extra to support those higher bandwidth services so they should have to charge for them. I say its bull that it costs extra to log my chat locally on my own machine, but I can understand charging for the xtra bandwidth, but again NOT $25 per year.

Trillian Astra does almost every chat medium I have ever seen, including facebook and myspace. It also supports plug-ins for add on support. If they add chat logging back and offer some decent skins, and as long as the Astra setup wizard does not make the install overly complex, I really do believe that Trillian Astra will own the majority of the chat market within a year.

However, I would not underestimate Digsby, lean, clean application that just works. Heck, I have digsby working on Ubuntu via Wine.

I can not understand using pigin or maranda unless you have issues running one of the others in nix. I can understand why someone would choose to use Meebo, since you do not have to install it to use it.
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Trillian is just a front end to hook into microsofts, aol, and googles servers they dont host any of those chat clients server side. Trillian and all the others like it log into your aim account on aol's servers...

And the pro version just adds a history interface so you can search and look at your history in astra it still logs it as a txt file in the basic version
 
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I've been using the Trillian "free" version for many years now, it's always kept a history of all my chat sessions. It also keeps .txt log files in the C:\Program Files\Trillian\users\default\logs directory for every chat session with every buddy you've had.
 
Trillian Astra... Honestly I'm liking Digsby better at this point. Trillian Astra is definately a step up (and supports a ton of protocols... Like Jabber!) however Digsby's implementation just seems better IMO.

While Trillian was taking 3 years of Astra being in Beta, Digsby's been kicking butt, IMO I don't know if they'll recover.

Then again I've just used this a day, maybe it'll grow on me ;)
 
I use miranda for aim and msn. It has some pretty nifty features like autospell correction for the lazy, and uses the autochat bot ALICE for the lazier.
 
globalist said:
Ummm, hello? Google Wave?
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Looks neat, but that's more like an email/personal-forum hybrid.

OT for a minute: It's strange; I wonder if Wave is the reason Google has never significantly upgraded Gmail to make it compete with the new Hotmail or Yahoo (right-click support (Hotmail), and just plain good looks (Yahoo))... as if they're not wanting Gmail users to get too attached to Gmail, so that they have a reason to upgrade to Wave, once it's out.

Unfortunately, from prolonged use, I've grown to hate Gmail (I don't use it anymore), but only because of 2 things: 1) if your contact decides to reply with an updated/changed subject (since they probably aren't using Gmail), it starts a new thread. Nightmare when you're trying to have a long, meaningful correspondence with someone... For some reason, there's just no option (at least back when I was using it) to merge conversations. 2) The interface is 1990's ugly. Seriously, Google has this mindset with MANY of their apps (aside from Picasa) that 'simple' is automatically aesthetically pleasing, when much of the time, all it achieves is making their interfaces look like they got completely bypassed by the art department. And they often use this hideous font, like Arial or something, making whatever it is look like 90's fan-site pages. Like on this forum. :D
 
People use GMail's web interface? I have used its IMAP interface since I registered an account and haven't looked back since.

Not sure about Wave. It may be great, it may suck. We don't know yet until we try, I guess :)
 
I use Digsby, more stable then Pidgin which I used for years and it allows web cams.
 
Yeah, I've used IMAP w/my Gmail account for a while as well. Though the web interface is sort of skinnable and tweakable know IIRC. I used to have my Yahoo account setup to download thru POP but then they made that a paid feature (years ago)... I like their current web design, but it's sluggish, and they've been having random issues lately too (messages that won't forward right, etc.).

I find Gmail's conversation/thread schtick tends to confuse non-techie users who are used to dealing w/regular e-mail and folders and whatnot. The whole tag concept and the fact that messages in any one location just goes over their head. That and whenever they send out a mass-email and they have 40-50 people responding within the same thread they just tend to flip. :p Gmail's interface as a whole is very hit or miss imo.
 
Digsby has taken over all my PCs. It dethroned Trillian which I've used for years. Trillian Astra may get a good look from me in the future but for now Digsby is the shit. ;)
 
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