Good Multi-Instant Messenger Client
 

So anyone know of any good programs that allow you to use AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and everything in between?

I know of Trillian, but if there's any better ones, I'd love to hear them.

Miranda IM

Miranda IM - Home of the Miranda IM client. Smaller, Faster, Easier

I'm assuming a Windows machine, so pidgin is your other free option. Random bugs pop up, but not often.

instant messaging client

I also vote for pidgin.
Use the team's bugtracker to report bugs, otherwise they won't get fixed. You have the possibility to let the devs know your problems, so use it.

I know some people who use Meebo

Meebo is good if you're on a machine where you can't install software, since it's web-based, but I wouldn't use it at home. Everything is contained in the browser window, so you may miss a new IM if you don't have that window open.

For anyone on Mac then Adium is the thing to check out, it's a fab little app that does multi-client chat stuff.

I know this is a little old, but I've been using Digsby. It's a relatively new client, still in beta [use the code 'neowin' to register], but it's pretty nice. You can use most of the Adium message styles, sound schemes, and a few other Adium extras with it, too.

I use to use Trillian for a long time but I've recently switched over to Pigdin. Dumb ass name, but great chat client. It seems a bit more stable too, although its not entirely the case.

Right now though, Trillian has the superior sound effects, but Pidgin 'feels' better. I don't know, its a vague thing to try to convey exactly.

Pidgin is great, but is there no Xstatus feature/plugin? I can't see my buddies' status messages in addition to the idle,busy, etc.

Miranda is also great. I love it, but I can't get avatars to load correctly.

Pidgin is GAIM without the suck.

I've used Trillian for years, but its tendency to fail on connecting to IRC really pisses me off. I'm toying with the thought of looking elsewhere...

Also, if you're stuck behind a firewall or at work, Meebo is *fantastic*. I used it rather well offshore so far, despite the crazy-ass firewalling they do. This boat being an exception, of course. Bandwidth constraints, etc.

Pidgin is GAIM. It's the same software project, the same developer team - just a different name.

AOL were bugging them because of the AIM in GAIM. So they changed it, that's all :-)

Pidgin got forked. Devs got pissed at the power structure of pidgin and went on their own. Going to take a look at it and see how it compares.

Thanks, I didn't know about that. Very interesting...
Hopefully the projects are merged again in the future. Doesn't make sense to keep a fork with only one (reasonable) change to the UI.

Supposedly, it has more to do with UI. The devs who left claimed that pidgin wasn't addressing any of the community concerns, including the UI. One thing I heard was that their Jabber module was interfering with certain Jabber servers and the Pidgin devs were refusing to help out.

another for Pidgin :)