MSN Messenger Alternative

LiE

LiE

LiE

Caporegime
Joined
2 Aug 2005
Posts
26,372
Location
Milton Keynes
What alternatives do you guys use for MSN Messenger? And do you have any screenshots? Thanks.
 
I use Pidgin, although it's not without its own foibles. You might need to do the security certificate fix depending on which server you connect to IIRC, but it isn't hard.
 
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/pidgin_portable

pidginportable.png
 
Trillian. Will run MSN chat, GChat, Facebook chat, Yahoo (I think) and check mail for respective accounts. Pretty pleased with it so far.
 
Another vote for Pidgin here.

Clean, light weight, multiple protocols, cross platform (linux and widows at least which I use). Think I've tried all the alternatives and always preferred it.
 
On Linux I run Pidgin, but on Windows I run Digsby (www.digsby.com, screenshots on site). It's free to use (there's ads in the conversation windows to pay for development costs, but you can turn them off easily) and I find it much nicer, sleeker and easier to use than any of the alternatives.

Digsby features:
-IM:
AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, and Facebook Chat, plus the ability to send SMS messages
-Email:
Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL/AIM Mail, IMAP, and POP
-Social Networking:
Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn, including the ability to browse feeds, get notifications and post statuses.
 
Digsby looks pretty good. I like the neater contact list.

One problem I have with Pidgin, it's lack of online/offline groups.

I'll give it a chance though, I'm going to look for some addons to make it look like I want.

Still, I'm liking it over WLM at the moment. Much quicker and nicer to use.

Craig
 
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Messenger is just horribly woeful and the most disgusting, bloated, ad-ridden piece of crud I've ever had the misfortune to be automatically installed via windows update!

I use Pidgin in windows and linux, it's pretty good and it does the job as well as anyone would really need. The certificate problem should be fixed in the latest version, if not, it's dead simple to put right anyway.
 
alexhull24 said:
Messenger is just horribly woeful and the most disgusting, bloated, ad-ridden piece of crud I've ever had the misfortune to be automatically installed via windows update!

I use Pidgin in windows and linux, it's pretty good and it does the job as well as anyone would really need. The certificate problem should be fixed in the latest version, if not, it's dead simple to put right anyway.
Click to expand...

Didn't have a problem with the certificate on Windows. Logged straight in no problems.

WLM ads can be stripped, but I agree it's still not as good as Pidgin :)

Craig
 
Another pidgin user here, love it!

One question though. I've used the windows plugin to allow it to run at startup, but how do I make it start minimised to system try/stop the main window starting with windows?
 
Tim said:
Another pidgin user here, love it!

One question though. I've used the windows plugin to allow it to run at startup, but how do I make it start minimised to system tray/stop the main window starting with windows?
Click to expand...

It seems it remembers the settings, which is nice. So if you've got the main window open and restart the machine, the main window will load. If you've just got it minimised to systray, that's how it'll be when you restart. Neat:)
 
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