These days I don’t do as much non-work related instant messaging as I did in the past but I thought it would be nice to post up my favorite to IM software packages.
Windows: Pidgin
Pidgin is a multiple protocol, Windows based instant messaging programing and it does a really good job with a fairly simple interface. Pidgin supports many different IM accounts including AIM, MSN (or Live), GTalk, Sametime, and Yahoo to name a few.
The software is easy to install and set up, doesn’t use a lot of system resources and has a nice set up for multiple sessions. You can also combine various accounts from the same contact person under one heading, this helps keep your buddy list clean.
OS X: Adium
Adium is a great IM program for OS X because like Pidgin, it also supports multiple IM accounts, is easy to set up and runs quite well. Adium also has a lot of customizable options including the dock icon, sounds and how your message window looks. There is a large amount of user created customizations to choose from.
I like Digsby, and I’ve heard about Raptr recently, which also sounds interesting, anybody out there tried it yet?
On but I use pidgin on Ubuntu much different than windows.