A few blurbs before starting this one:

I have a love/hate relationship with instant messaging.

On the one hand it’s very convenient and reliable (more or less). Click a "buddy’s" name, type a message, send, done.

On the other hand it absolutely drives me up a frickin’ wall because some people absolutely will not communicate on the internet with anything but instant messaging. For example, I personally think sending any file over IM is 100% retarded. It’s slow and routinely fails no matter what IM service you’re using. File attachments are best suited for e-mail, period.

But I digress.

Pidgin is a free multi-protocol multi-platform instant messaging client. Prior to Pidgin I was a die-hard Trillian user. While it’s true that Trillian "Astra" will be available soon enough, the existing v3.1.8 client is old, ugly and is purposely limited in the "basic" version (the "pro" version costs $25). Pidgin on the other hand is free and does everything without costing a dime.

At the time of this writing, Pidgin is at version 2.3.0. I am using the Windows version under Windows XP. It requires GTK that fortunately installs itself along with Pidgin if you don’t already have it.

Being that I have a crapload of instant messenger accounts (including ones I never use), I decided to connect to all of them just to see if I could do it.

(click image for larger version)

In the screen shot above I have 11 different IM accounts from 6 different chat providers connected in Pidgin. And they all work.

Here are my cheers and jeers about the Pidgin client:

Cheer: Strip out all formatting easily

One thing that bothers me is when people send custom formatted text over IM. They colorize/bold/italicize/underline their text, use a custom font (which of course you don’t have) and blah blah blah. Pidgin, like Trillian, can strip all that crap out easily so all you see is nice readable text.

Jeer: Bundled sounds suck

The default sounds that come with Pidgin are terrible. Fortunately you can change them easily.

Cheer: Easily see service provider in Buddy List.

If you go to Buddies / Show / Protocol Icons you see a small icon indicating what chat service that buddy is using. This is particularly useful if you have buddies that use the same username across different chat services.

It looks like this:

Note the icons on the right side.

Jeer: Periodically will crash for no reason

This is probably due to the fact I have a ton of accounts connected in the client. If you have less than 5 connected I seriously doubt any wonky issues would occur.

Cheer: Tabbed windows

Multiple chats with multiple protocols is a breeze and it works very nicely.

Jeer: Insecure account data storage

Pidgin places a plain text file called accounts.xml in a directory called .purple under the Application Data folder in Windows.

Even though it is explained why this is, it is strongly recommended that you DO NOT configure Pidgin to save any passwords whatsoever. This is easily done by viewing your Accounts list, modifying an account and unchecking "Remember Password". Simple enough.

To note: You should never have any instant messenger program save your password – ever. None of them have any security that would be deemed as "good". Better safe than sorry.

Cheer: Loads super-fast

This app is programmed for speed. Speed is good. Accounts connect quickly and you’re ready to roll in almost no time.

. . .

Final word (for now):

I use Pidgin as my only instant messaging client currently. Trillian seemed to get worse and worse over time and had a really hard time starting up when Windows started which is why I made the switch originally. Pidgin has no issues starting up or connecting.

And for those that are wondering if I tried Miranda, yes I did. I hated it. I know there are those out there who swear by it, but Pidgin is much more to my liking.