The long (and I mean long) awaited Trillian Astra from Cerulean Studios was made available to those who were willing to sign up for testing purposes. I downloaded it today and installed it. Currently it’s just Windows-only for testing purposes.
Trillian was the first multi-protocol instant messenger I ever used years ago when they were at version 0.74, and for a long time Trillian was the only multi-protocol IM game in town. The currently available public version is version 3.1.12. The Astra version I have is version 4.0 Build 101.
With version 4, the look is different and a notable improvement. And it also supports more protocols. In addition to what it had before, it now supports social network stuff like Facebook, MySpaceIM, Skype and Twitter.
Two opponents Astra would have to overcome are Digsby and Pidgin. Both of these do just about everything Astra does.
Pidgin, while nice, is a bit clunky it its operation. It’s not that it doesn’t work, but it does need some work in the user interface department. In Linux, Pidgin seems to look and work better. In Windows, not so much.
Digsby looks good and performs good as well. But it is a memory muncher.
Astra’s advantage is that it looks better than its competitors, eats up the least amount of memory and does not require any huge learning curve to use it. In fact, Astra could even give Adium some competition if a Mac version is released.
But is Astra too late to the game to make a real splash as a new multi-protocol IM client? It might be because there really isn’t anything new here that the other guys don’t already have. And when it comes to multi-protocol IM clients, people don’t like to switch. The only time anyone changes clients is for features they don’t have with one they already use. And even though Astra looks good, it may not be enough to switch people over.
However.. there is also going to be a web-based version of Astra as well, something neither Digsby or Pidgin has. This means what’s in the client is also accessible on the web no matter where you are. No need to bounce between a client and Meebo sounds quite nice.
Astra is a solid well-thought-out program. It has the look and feel of a modern application, runs great on XP and Vista, it’s easy and has all the makings of a winner.
The largest drawback? This will most likely be a paid application. And that lets Pidgin and Digsby stomp Astra to oblivion. That is unless there’s a free version of Astra like there is for Trillian 3.1.12 at present.
I’ve been waiting for Astra forever! I have always used Trillian but got tired of waiting and switched to Digsby. I really like Digsby. I would say Trillian may have lost a ton of users because of how long it is taking them to release Astra and while they are working on features their competition already has, their competition is working on bigger and better things. I will definitely be trying out Astra, I have asked to be on the beta several times with no response. On top of that for their current version to be as good as Digsby you have to pay.
Trillian Astra works great! The twitter-function is very good, and the facebook-function is even better. I can chat with facebook-users as though it was ordinary msn or other im. Its quick, simple, and with everything I come to like with Trillian in the past, and much more. This is an application I would pay for (I just did)