Clearly iPhone users have a serious need for instant messaging. After the App Store launched it seemed like everybody and their brother created an AIM client (including the protocol’s creators, AOL). Since then, I’ve been looking through the list and sorting the good from the bad. As it turns out, the 3rd party developers really busted their butts and turned out some fairly impressive apps. Even the AOL-made app is solid.
What if you’re at school, at work or using a public computer and there’s no instant messaging client installed? You could try downloading it but chances are that you’ll bump into quite some ‘guest restrictions’. In the past I solved this by installing the files into the My Documents folder, or right on the desktop, but that’s so unprofessional.
So what else can you do? You could use an online IM client, like imo, eBuddy or meebo. By using one of these three websites, you can chat with your buddies without installing a single thing.
I gave a review of Digsby on Make Use Of a couple of weeks ago and concluded that although you can expect it to still be a little rough around the edges; it just may be the most promising multi-messaging client we have seen.
In your comments a few were from people who had tried Digsby a while ago and found it too buggy to be a serious alternative to their current chat client. Despite being less then a year old, it came third in our poll about favorite Instant Messaging client. I can now confidently say that after the number of recent updates, Digsby is at a point where I can now confidently say it should be perfectly safe to download and try. Errors, CPU spikes and especially RAM usage have been considerably optimized over the last few weeks.
Here at Make Use Of, we like to give you choices. Explorer add-ons? Here’s seven. Want your blog to get noticed? Here are six ways . Online desktop? Try eight ways.
If you want instant message aggregation, there are a number of applications. You could try Trillian, Pidgin or any number of other lightweight multi-messaging applications. Or you could check out Digsby and for me there is no choice.
I have been using Digsby since it was in early beta, and it has rapidly became a favourite of mine. Digsby is a messaging application that integrates instant messaging with easy access to your email and social networks:
If you are a user of Mac OS X you’ll probably know that the MSN application that Microsoft has developed for OS X isn’t really that amazing. For starters you can’t have a video chat with a friend or talk via a microphone using MSN on OS X. Also the interface for the application doesn’t look all that amazing.
So I have decided to make a list of five alternative chat MSN applications out there for Mac OS X that have better functionality and allow you to customize the look and feel of the application.
(1) Adium
Instant Messaging has become an indispensable online tool these days, and messenger applications have therefore become popular in connecting with people. With the wide variety of programs coming out in this arena, the experience only gets better. Here are some add-ons to add additional features to your favorite chat program.
Not add-ons, really, but these multi-protocol IMs help a lot in connecting to people from various networks - you need not necessarily have to install every other Instant Messaging software around. Give them a go!
I widely advertise my instant messaging ID’s as I want potential clients to be able to find me easily. But the problem with doing that is that I end up with a lot of spam messages every day.
Never a day goes by without automated robots sending me instant messages inviting me to talk dirty with them or to go to a certain website to stock up on my Viagra tablets. Now normally I would just block them but this only really works for one or two messages a day.
Pidgin (formerly GAIM) is a good multi protocol instant messaging client. I won’t say it’s the best out there, but it’s still good and worth using. If you frequently hang out on multiple instant messengers, dispose them all and start using Pidgin. Here are some tips for those who’re using Pidgin already and those who’ve just downloaded it:
Plugins
Ah! Most Open Source applications allow you to install plugins to add additional features, and Pidgin is no exception. It comes with a set of plugins that are deactivated by default. You can go to Tools >> Plugins to configure them.
Meebo is a web service that allows users to access several IM (instant messaging) programs from a single webpage. You can think of it as an online messenger program which can simultaneously connect to:
Meebo has nicely designed and user friendly interface which makes it look very similar to other desktop messengers. As long as you are on broadband you should not feel any speed difference between Meebo and other desktop messengers like Yahoo messenger or MSN. I have tested it out on 128 kbs (which is very low) broadband connection and did not expereince any lag. I did not try it on dial up but can tell you for sure that it is not a good idea.
