This information was cause for a lot of indignant responses regarding whether Digsby is secure, which in turn led to a somewhat startled reaction from the Digsby team. In a few days, they had explained everything in several blog posts, and took serious efforts to clarify matters with their current users, as well as making the avoidance of these ‘unwanted features’ easier.

Personally, I’m siding with Digsby here. They’ve done some great things for us so far, but such a support – understandingly – can’t be kept up and running without the income of at least some money. As such, I didn’t think a moment about switching, and am still a fervent Digsby supporter.

However, I can understand that not all people are as focused when installing a piece of software. Most people just flick through an install, clicking yes and accept where ever it’s necessary. For those people, it’s important to know what they are doing — more specifically, where not to press ‘Accept’ if they want a secure ad-free install if Digsby.

In this article we’ll highlight the ad-ware placements in the installer, as well as tell you how to disable certain revenue features afterwards to make Digsby secure.

1. A Safe Installer

Digsby normally tries to install using InstallQ. This is an installer container which downloads Digsby and tries to install several other applications. The easiest way around is to use the additional installer.

This installer – which can be used to install to a USB drive (or if you’ve got trouble with InstallQ) is located bottom-right on the download page. If you can manage to ignore the big download button, you’ve avoided most of the problems already.

Contrary to InstallQ, this installer does not ask permission to install third-party software. You’ll have your lovely chat-application, and that’s that. Just make sure to uncheck the browser modifications at the end if you’re happy about your current homepage and search engine.

2. Keep a Look Out

As said before, the easiest way to keep clear of any ad-ware is to use the additional installer. If, however, you want to keep using the InstallQ package, this is where you have to tred carefully.

To install the application, it’s necessary to agree upon their terms. That’s 1 accept.

On the three succeeding screens, however, you can decline without stopping the installation process. Accepting here will install ad-ware, third-party applications that will bother you with (amongst other things) shopping notifications.

After a few declines, you’ll be safe from ad-ware harm. Just choose which search engine you’ll want to use (actually, both are good, so there’s no harm there) and you’re on your way to enjoy Digsby.

Disable Digsby ‘Research’

Another source of Digsby’s income lies in their ‘research’. They use your idle processing power (when you haven’t touched your computer for a while), to conduct research (e.g. testing out AIDS models, or optimizing grain molecules).

This is actually a pretty non-intrusive way for them to earn money and I would advise you to leave it on.

Nevertheless, people should have the benefit of choice, and might even have a reason to decline participation if they’re on a low-spec computer, or are trying to keep the electricity bills down.

Turning this off is as easy as navigating to Tools -> Preferences -> Support Digsby and hitting Disable. I urge you to read the other options as well, and do everything you can agree on to support a great, free application and keep it free.

I hope you’ve learned something from this article, and will be able to benefit from it. If you’ve got anything to say, or got a remark to make, you can do so in the comments section below. We’d love to hear your stance on alternative monetizing techniques.

Today, I’m going to put in my own plug for Digsby, an application I use every day, by showing you six things Digsby can do that will save you time, energy, and RAM space.

Digsby has come to replace my use of several other applications ““ no longer do I need a Gmail window, Twitter window, Facebook window, and IM window open all at the same time. Instead, I just use Digsby!

Here are five features that make Digsby the only application you’ll want to always be open, besides just being the best multi-IM client out there:

Email Checking

Got a POP or IMAP email? Of course you do. That means you can use your email with Digsby. Setting up Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo with Digsby is incredibly easy; others are a little harder, but still entirely possible.

Once you set it up (under “Digsby” and then “My Accounts”), Digsby lets you check, read, and respond to your email without ever leaving your IM window. Mark emails as read, write them, or just head over to your Inbox to check them out- all using Digsby. I used to always have a Gmail window open to make sure I never missed critical email ““ now all I need is Digsby.

Twitter

After spending forever looking for the perfect Twitter client, I’ll tell you this- it’s not Digsby. But what Digsby is perfect for is reading Tweets. It’s a great way to stay on top of your replies and direct messages, as well as write tweets quickly. Digsby’s not the solution for power Twitter users, but it’s a great way to stay on top of all the Tweeting you do on a daily basis.

Facebookery

Just for the record, I love the new Facebook layout. But that’s beside the point. Using Digsby, you can do just about anything you would on Facebook, from right within the Digsby interface. You’ll be alerted when you have a new message, wall post, alert or notification. One click in Digsby, and you can see all the things waiting for you on Facebook. One more, and you’re sent right to a Facebook window within the Digsby application. Update your status easily, answer your wall posts, and stay on top of your social networking, all from within Digsby.

One of Digsby’s newest features is the addition of Facebook Chat. Now, you can chat with all your online Facebook friends from within Digsby. I love the idea of Facebook Chat (being able to connect in real-time with your friends on Facebook, which I have more of than IM buddies), more than I like the execution on the Facebook site itself. Digsby does a great job of using your friends list, and integrating it into its fantastic IM client to make chatting with your Facebook friends better and easier.

Socializing

Digsby’s options for social networking go far beyond Facebook. You can use Digsby to check your LinkedIn or MySpace account, and receive notifications, send messages, and interact with your network right from within Digsby. Each account gets an icon in your Windows system tray, and one click brings up a pop-up window letting you manage your social networks just as you would in a browser.

Got a new message? Digsby tells you about it, then lets you respond to it all without leaving the Digsby interface. It’s simple to use, not a memory hog, and an awesome way to manage multiple online identities from one place.

The Little Things

My favorite thing about Digsby is that its team pays such close attention to the little things: the small features that you never noticed before, but can’t live without once you start using Digsby.

My personal favorite is the pop-up notification box: when you get an IM, a pop-up comes up. Not exactly revolutionary, but what IS awesome is that you can respond from within the popup. No switching back and forth between IM windows and other applications ““ just type in the popup, and it goes away once it has been idle for a few seconds.

There are tons of features like this within Digsby: mass-changing of your status and away message, easy hiding and showing of the application, and endless customization of how it looks. I spent a while getting my Digsby to look exactly how I want it to, and big props to Digsby for giving you so many options.

What’s your IM client of choice? Why?

Photo: BigBlue

To recap, Digsby is a messaging application which lets you talk to people on all of the major instant messaging networks such as MSN, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, Gtalk and even Facebook Chat. More than that it also lets you connect up email accounts and social networks accounts including Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. It also supports customization, skinning and even synchronizes your account details and Digsby skins between computers.

Steve Shapiro is the project manager for Digsby and he took the time to answer a few questions concerning this project:

Tell us about the ‘Digsby’ logo/mascot…

We wanted something that was a mascot and not just a logo so that it would “be Digsby” – we felt this would be a good way to brand it as a consumer friendly product. Another important aspect of it was that it needed to look good as a 16×16 or 32×32 icon since it is used on the desktop and in the tray.

How many people do you have working on this project? Is this purely a hobby project or do you hope eventually Digsby will provide some kind of revenue stream?

Digsby is developed by a company so we do need to pay the rent and keep the lights on.

What about this project aren’t you currently happy with? Is any part of the application frustrating you feature-wise?

We would love to finish stabilizing the Windows build so we can release for Mac and Linux!  We’ve had tons of requests.

What Instant Messaging application did you use before Digsby?

I used AIM 5.9 + Gtalk.

What is your personal favourite feature?

The email integration.  It’s nice not to have to keep checking my inbox through out the day.  If I get an email that’s important I can open it right from there.   If it’s spam, I can mark it appropriately without ever going to my inbox.

I’m interested to hear your comments on the whole ‘perpetual beta’ a lot of companies have going on these days. Are you working towards an actual version 1.0 release, or is Digsby going to do a Google for the next few years?

It’s a little more complex than that.  There will never really be a 1.0 or a 2.0 but it will also not stay in beta for years.  We adopted a development cycle that is more typical of a website than a software product. A software product typically releases version 1.0 and then there is a massive effort to release 2.0. You need to then convince people to start using 2.0 because it is better while also providing support for 1.0.

With a website, every time you visit the site you see the newest version.  Digsby auto-updates each time you run it so you are always running the latest release. We release new versions almost every week.  Check out http://changelog.digsby.com.  Once it is a bit more stable we will remove the alpha or beta tag that we put at the end of each release but the fast release cycle will remain unchanged so there won’t be a version 1.0 and version 2.0…..just constant builds that keep making Digsby better and better.

Any hints you’d like to share about something big which is yet to come?

Mac + Linux releases!

What do you think of Digsby becoming the ‘Firefox’ of instant-messaging applications?

We have seen that tag line in many reviews and are honored by it.  Firefox is a great browser and being put on the same level makes us smile and encourages us to push even harder to improve Digsby.

Do you have any opinions you would care to share on the latest Windows Live Messenger?

It’s a great IM client in my opinion.

So thanks to Steve.

If you haven’t tried Digsby out yet then I would very much recommend it!