Pidgin -- another freeware multichat system

First of all, I have to admit that I'm not really keen on IM-ing. That said, sometimes I just have to do IM, e.g. to talk with tech support located in a different country (ugh). Or perhaps to give some assistance to (former) students.

Problem is, some of them use Yahoo!Messenger, while others use MSN Messenger (now called Windows Live Messenger).

I solve the problem of having to install 2 IM clients by using Trillian. The goodness that Trillian was allows me to not only login into Yahoo!Messenger and MSN Messenger at the same time, it also allows me to login using multiple accounts into both. Plus it also supported AIM / ICQ, the previous IM fad.

But lately, Trillian started to act up on me. I found out that if the first attempt to start Trillian always resulted in an error. The second attempt will succeed, though. Beats me what caused it.

But this ... um, 'incident', coupled with the fact that Trillian is kind of resource hungry (it felt sluggish), and also the small emoticons (and incomplete -- some Yahoo! Messenger emoticons are not supported) . . . finally led mo to search for an alternative multi-system chat client (multichat client).

I stumbled upon Pidgin. It's small, fast, light on the resource, and it generally felt far snappier than Trillian. In addition, it supports all Yahoo! Messenger emoticons. Now I no longer have to wonder what my chat partner is trying to convey.

Pidgin seems to be inherently extendible by downloading "plugins" which will add many functionalities. Furthermore, it supports many -- and I do mean *many* -- IM services. Far more than what you can shake a stick at. And unlike Trillian, it supports Google chat. Now that *is* nice.

The only drawback to Pidgin seems that, unlike Trillian, Pidgin does not support multiuser usage. That is, if I double click Pidgin, it will open the chat services that *I* have selected, using my credentials. If someone wants to have their own selection of services and credentials, they must log off Windows and log in as a new user.

No facility for multi-user using single Windows login

Well, since I am the only user of my computer, that drawback is nothing too vital for me. So I guess I will keep using Pidgin.

Try it. I believe the majority of us will surely like it.

Over and Out.