If you guys haven't heard of Trillian, then you've really been missing out. This program can run MSN, Yahoo, AIM and ICQ all simultaneously in the same friends list. You can set different away status's for each seperate account, block people, become invisible whilst being available on another. And it does all the functions the other programs do, including transferring files

There are no popups, no commericals, saves history logs, looks uber stylish and can be transparent at whatever setting you want. You can browse the internet whilst keeping an eye on your contact list and with transparency, you can read the stuff from webpage areas that is behind the program, without having to constantly drag it out of the way. You can also disconnect freely from one program to the other and if anything else, it isn't a system hog. If you're a person like me who used to have 3 programs running at once just to keep an eye on friends with different programs, you'll notice that it slows down your PC, especially with MSN as the commercials just keep on piling up.

The program is free and I recommend it to all :D
Have a look at it and download it from the link provided
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/learn/

And no, nobody's paying me to do this :P

So that's the thing thats been in Trin's sig for a year that I'd never bothered to click on! :P I'm gonna download it now.

Meh I've tried it, but don't really like it. Probably cause I've been using MSN for however many years and I'm not used to something different.

If I had friends who used other clients, I'd try and use it, but as it stands, all my friends use MSN. MSN is fine for me because i patch it to get rid of all the ads and all the useless junk I don't need. I also use Plus! with a couple of pluginds that make things much better. Tabbed conversations anyone? I don't like the direction MSN is going however so I might consider changing one day if it gets much worse.

Does trillian work with webcams, handwriting, currently playing song etc?

It doesn't do handwriting, and webcam support is there but it doesn't work 100%. Microsoft have a whole bunch of crap in MSN Messenger as well as on the network that makes it hard to emulate things like that. Basically they make the protocols and authentication overly complex so that it's hard for anyone who isn't Microsoft to replicate. The last time CS got it working, M$ went and changed the way it works so that Trillian would need to be reworked, making it look bad, etc.. I think it's at the point now where things like webcam fixing are on the backburner, and the devs are more focused on further improving the things that make Trillian unique rather than incorporating useless Messenger "features" like nudges.

Basically if you like the features of Messenger, use it. If you want a streamlined, intuitive and extremely flexible messaging experience, try Trillian.

Auhsor- Tabbed conversations are possible in standard Trillian, and have been since the initial versions (aaaaaaaages ago, I've been using it since v1.7 which was around 3 years ago). The whole thing is based around XML so it's extremely skinnable (as in a complete UI change, not just a different color scheme), and there's virtually no limit to what you can do with plugins (these are supported by CS, they're not program hacks). The skinning & modding communities on the official CS forums are massive.

Like my sig says, 25,000,000 downloads can't be wrong!

I don't get it, are you all being payed to say this stuff?

Trillian is a good replacement for messager systems but not for IRC.

Also be aware that Trillian is not 100% compatible with the different networks out there and some more advanced applications may not work as expected.

I've been using Trillian at home for a couple of months now, saves me having to load up both Messenger and ICQ.

Other users custom emoticons don't seem to work, but I don't really care about any of the other stupid messenger functions as I am happy just dealing with text.

Why is that? I only just found out about the IRC plugin the other night and connected to #Hyperactive just fine (apart from the fact it took about a minute to connect). Other than that it worked, unless there's some IRC stuff it can't do that I'm not aware of (never really used it before)

Heard about it around 3 years ago and never bothered to check it out. I'm still not going to, as i've never used AIM and i don't used ICQ anymore. Plus MSN doesn't have ads, so i don't know what you are talking about.

Actually MSN does have ads, at the bottom of the main window, and a hyperlink ad at the bottom of some conversation windows.

I'm talking about pop-up ads. The one at the bottom doesn't bother me in the slightest. It bothers me so little that i forgot it was there until you just mentioned it then.

It's probably because of me and my purple text. :P

Hmm I've downloaded it and it looks pretty snazzy but I can't see myself using it too often. I only use MSN and Xfire (and IRC occasionally) and thier fine to leave open for me.

If you wanted a true ultimate messenging program, you'd go for one that is free.

i.e. Miranda IM http://www.miranda-im.org/ or GAIM http://gaim.sourceforge.net/ Both of which don't have any ads and support practically all networks.

Personally I just use MSN, don't really have a need for multiple network support at the moment.

It sounds good by what you are saying Trinity, but I'll only go to it if MSN gets too annoying.

Also, to get rid of the ads and all the junk in MSN, just do a search for either A-Patch or the Mess Patch

Yeah, I just use MSN with MSN Plus, and it's all fine for me. :)

I tried it once years ago and didn't really like it. It's probably a fair bit better now, but I'm happy with just MSN.

actually i just started using it last nite. after finally getting sick of all the new versions of msn and going back to msn 4.7 only to find it doesnt work anymore. i remembered being told about trillian some time ago and decided to try it - it is good? and i am using it for more or less a straight replacment of msn, it is soo much more streamlined and easy too use.

i do have one question, i am using version 3.1 basic and it keeps linking random words to wikipedia definitions. is there anyway to kill this? it is annoying having lots of random links thru the text.

Try looking around Trillian's preferences, go to Message Windows tab and under the heading "Instant Lookup" there's an option asking you if you want to underline words with encyclopedia entries. Untick this option and hopefully that'll solve it

I haven't encountered it myself and I'm onto my 4th month now, so if it doesn't work, don't blame me :P

it works. thank you. now trillian is quite possibly perfect?

Yeah that certainly makes it a big no no in my book Trin. :P

If you don't plan on doing anything particularly tricky on IRC then you wont have issues with Trillian but due to it being something of a non-player in the IRC world it isn't exactly well supported. I stick with mIRC, it has a buttload of support and gives me all the power I want at my finger tips.