Gaim - (Open Source)
Chatting with friends on AOL Instant Messenger, talking to a friend on Yahoo Messenger and stay on an IRC channel at the same time is possible when using Pidgin software.
Pidgin is an email client that allows to chat with MSN, Google Talk, AIM, ICQ and other contacts, from a single interface. Available in several languages, this software offers convenient features to comfortably talk.
Pidgin software brings together in a single window the AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber / XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu- Gadu, IRC, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MXit, MySpaceIM and Zephyr contacts.
The application gives the ability to chat with multiple contacts at once even if they come from different networks discussion. It is even possible to make a conference if necessary.
Even if the icons of contacts for each account are already marked by their respective icons, it does not prevent the user to create customized friends, relatives, colleagues categories, etc.
Pidgin offers several smileys to liven up the discussion. As the software supports adding plugins, user can also download more smileys on the Internet to enrich the library.
Notes:
2.5.0 (08/18/2008):
Daniel: Lots of good stuff in this release. Lots of people have worked
very hard on the updated MSN protocol, and it's finally time to bring
it to the world! There are myriad bugfixes, including some important
ones so you should be sure to update.
Hylke: Finally MSNP15 support. To celebrate this I refreshed a lot of
the smilies used in the protocol and added the long awaited indispensable
bunny icon. I think this is one of those releases that will make a lot
of users happy, especially MSN users.
Elliott: Oh look, my first NEWS! Well anyway, with that new MSNP15
support, this release is set up to be a huge success and a total flop
all at the same time. Here's hoping it's the "huge success" one for you.
Those icon changes that Hylke made, while minor, really make things look
a little cleaner, I think. Oh yea, did I mention that MSNP15 stuff?
Mark: Speaking of MSNP15, we'd like to welcome Elliott Sales de Andrade
as a full fledged developer! He took the last few strides mushing the
new MSN code into shape. Then he decided that wasn't enough and started
doing other great stuff.
Ka-Hing: "Reject"ing a certificate after your account is signed off is
not recommended. Deleting the file after you start sending it is also
discouraged.
Changes:
version 2.5.0 (08/17/2008):
libpurple:
* Ability to create custom smileys (currently only the MSN protocol
utilizes the feature). (Thanks to Mauro Sérgio Ferreira Brasil,
Marcus Lundblad, Jorge Villaseñor and other contributors)
* Add a configure option, --with-system-ssl-certs to allow packagers
to specify a system-wide SSL CA certificates directory. When set,
we don't install our SSL CA certs, so it's important that the
libpurple package depend on the CA certificates.
* Add SSL Certificates support to the NSS SSL plugin. (Thanks to Lou
Cipher)
XMPP:
* Fix a bug that caused the UI to not refresh and caused the client
to use 99% CPU when an XMPP account lost its connection to the
server.
* Possibly fix a bug where some clients could get into a state
where they moved a buddy back and forth between two groups in
an endless loop.
IRC:
* /ctcp command (Vladislav Guberini)
* Allow for auto-detection of incoming UTF-8 formatted text on
accounts which are configured to use some other encoding.
MSN:
* Update MSN support to protocol 15 (Elliott Sales de Andrade, Jorge
Villaseñor, Mike Ruprecht, Carlos Silva, Ma Yuan, Daniel Ljungborg
and others)
* Personal messages are now supported. They are treated as status
messages.
* Offline IM is now supported.
* Aliasing is now supported server-side.
* Buddies are now emblemed. Bots and web clients should now be
distinguished.
* Update smiley set for non-faces.
* Failing to update a buddy icon when the buddy has gone offline no
longer crashes.
* Custom smileys received in a chat no longer go to a new window.
* Processing is no longer completely frozen after the servers block a
message because it contains (what they consider) inappropriate text.
Pidgin:
* Custom buddy icons can now be added to and removed from buddy list
entries via the buddy list entry right-click menu.
* Resize large incoming custom smileys to a maximum of 96px on either
side.
* Offer to add new buddies into the same contact as existing buddies
in the same group if the alias given is the same.
* Minor smiley style update.
General:
* Group and Chat buddy list entries can now be given custom buddy
icons.
Finch:
* Added "Invite..." menu to chats.
* Added "View All Logs" menu in the buddylist to display a list of all IM
logs.
* Added '/msgcolor' command to change colors of different classes of
messages in a conversation. See '/help msgcolor' for details.
* Added tab-completion for commands in conversation windows.