I will talk according to features,looks and memory requirements.Why use multi protocol clients? simple, i was using spark for jabber, MSN live for msn, yahoo messenger for yahoo and gogle talk for gmail at my company.These all eats all my memory and hangs my PC. I have much work to do.Instead i have to wait for my PC be stable sometimes.Spark is the worst because it eats 100 to 150 MB memory.Instead i choose to go for some simple solution which provides me basic needs.
Miranda IM
It is the best among three of them as per features.It is an open source project and having plugin based environment.You can download different kind of plugins as per your needs.Very light and runs at very low memory.It eats maximum 10 to 15 MB memory.
May plugins are available for it.Some other kind of protocols are also supported.
Saves all history log in one file in your application data folder.So its a very good thing.
some good (must have)features : broadcast (*),file send/receive,group chat(conference),tabbed interface,history in one log file,history view configurable,meta contacts(merge contacts of diff. protocols in one *),alarms(*),self update(*),birthday reminders(*),encrypted messages(*),themes and skins(*),icons-smilies configurable and many more...
(* means must install plugin for that feature)
HomePage : www.miranda-im.org
OS: windows
supports: AIM,MSN,Yahoo,Jabber (gtalk),IRC,ICQ and many more.
dislikes: -UI is not so good, but its ok because it gives full features.
-Too complex option configurations.
-In current stable version you cant create more accounts of same protocol.You have to copy the
Our rating: 5 star (Excellent in features, low memory and fully configurable plugin based architecture).
Stable version: 0.7.3
Pidgin
It is second best as per me. Its also open source gtk based architecture.Personally i like this most because of its simple and easy UI and options.Before its known as Gaim but because of some legal issues it is renamed as pidgin.it is GTK+ based and runs on windows as well as Linux.
HomePage:www.pidgin.im
plugins: not too much. you can have perl,tcl based plugins also.
OS: windows,linux
supports:aim,msn,yahoo,jabber,xmpp,irc,icq,qq,gadu-gadu and much more...
you can add more than one account of same protocol.
dislikes: -less plugins, less options.
-Broadcast not supported.They say this cause spamming and misuse ( i cant understand this, why misuse? )
-If you enable history saving for messaging,it will genereate separate file for each message session.It means every time you chat with same person, it will save log in new file. so at the end of the day, you have some 1000 files in your logs folder if you chat often.This is the worst thing because it makes big number of little fragmented files.May be this will be solved in the next version as this bug is showed in the bug-tracker for pidgin.Becasue of this problem i am using miranda im at present.
Our rating:4.5 star (quite good,low memory,simple UI,easy to configure.)
Stable version: 2.3.1
Trillian
Its good but its not free. You have to pay $25 for it.Or you can crack it but i will not do it because i have free wares available.It takes very less memory and good UI support. Very good history support.
plugins:very much configurable.
OS: windows
Supports: aim,msn,yahoo in basic,Pro version suuports jabber also.(But who cares, we have miranda and pidgin, use them )
dislikes: -in jabber, no group chat(conference) support.
-its a pay ware.
our rating:4 star(simple and rich UI, low memory, easy options)
So as per me, if you are not using logging( of messaging history) or you don't care about big number of little chat log files + you don't need broadcast then you must use Pidgin. Otherwise use Miranda im. Its also very good. but don't use trillian instead of these two open source things. :)
Be open, live open.But remember, Being open source doesn't stop piracy. :)
9 Comments:
Hi,
Good write up of these three messengers. Using Pidgin I've been missing the broadcast features and I'd like to give Miranda a try, but I cannot find the broadcast plugin that you mentioned. Do you have a link to it?
hi,
Fro broadcast feature, you can use 'Gajim' or 'miranda'. i suggest you to use gajim as its easy to use.
www.gajim.org is the site. ok?
and for miranda, you will need 'tabsrmm.dll' plugin.But at present, miranda addon site is down since last 4 months or so i think. So you have to get it from below link.
http://www.miranda-pack.com
which is promoting miranda with specific settings. but you will get this Dll in that package.
Download it and if its a .7z or .rar file, please use winrar or 7-zip to extract the contents.
Thank very much,
Gajim would be a good solution but I need this for a Windows machine.
I was able to get the tabsrmm.dll file from the Mrianda-pack download and it works well.
Thanks again!
Its fine that your problem is solved, but Gajim is working fine in windows machine also!
I am using it on Windows XP machine at my office.
So give it a try.
Enjoy!
Oops, I didn't scroll down far enough to read about the windows installation. Thanks. But I really like Miranda now! It's very good on resources.
Pretty nice writeup. I have done several of these over the years and have come to the resolution that I will no longer give a review...just list those that are available and let the end user decide which one to use.
Multi Protocol Chat Clients
Check out my most recent post about this...I think you might like what you find in there...and feel free to discuss!
-Terry
Trillian has a free and paid for version,
paid just includes video
Ya, and also the pro version supports jabber protocol. it means you can use gmail on trillian! :) i have used it but it has some problems in jabber file transfer.
i prefer, pidgin and gajim...both are lightweight..and GTK based...runs on linux and windows.
pidgin's main cons:
-small log files...each per chat session :(
-no broadcast(send message to multiple) message support
thats why i am using gajim.
Even i tried DigsBy. but it eats too much memory and very heavy. so stick to pidgin or gajim. :)
I used gaim until it was renamed to pidgin. It's sad but the reason was I hate pidgeons xDDDD
Miranda does the work now, but I think telling that it's "easy" is being very unnacurate.
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