Computersight -

I have been using instant messengers since 1999 when a friend of mine told me about ICQ. For quite a long time I used the ICQ client itself but honestly I wasn’t impressed by it. That is why around 2002-2003 I started searching for alternative instant messengers that support the ICQ protocol.

For Linux Kopete and Gaim were decent choices and I used either of them always when I was running Linux. However, with Windows I was out of luck. For a couple of months I used Trillian but still it wasn’t my cup of tea. Then I switched to Miranda and used it for a couple of years. Miranda had many plugins and I liked it but stability and compatibility were far from perfect.

That is why around 2006-2007 I switched to Qip. This is another decent IM client for Windows but I missed all the plugins of Miranda. I couldn’t make Qip my instant messenger and that is why I was always on the look out.

Some time ago I was browsing the Net for something completely different, when I found Pidgin. Actually, Pidgin was nothing but the good old Gaim for Windows. You can have a look at the screenshot to get a feeling of Pidgin:

For me one of the main advantages of Pidgin is that it has tons of plugins. Support for MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo, AIM and other chat networks also comes handy because this way I can run all my accounts with these networks from one place. But certainly for me this comes second to the large collection of plugins.

I haven’t tried all the plugins I am interested in yet because this takes a lot of time. Instead, I downloaded just a handful of these that looked the most exciting. I have been running Pidgin with a couple of plugins for over a month and I haven’t experienced a single crash!

The default GUI of Pidgin is certainly not a masterpiece of art but everybody, who is genuinely pissed by heavy user interfaces, this minimalistic interface is more than welcome. I myself would gladly trade appearance for functionality and I couldn’t care less if an interface is ugly or not.

Actually, after one month of heavy use of Pidgin, I don’t have a single complaint about it. I hope that finally I have found an instant messenger that meets my not so modest requirements.