trillian.cc

Advantages: Connect to different IM systems
Disadvantages: Not quite as advanced as some other applications.

Do you use instant messaging (IM) but have friends who use a different program to you? Are you tired of having MSN, ICQ, Yahoo! and IRC running all at the same time just in-case one of your friends logon? Well, the answer to all your problems is Trillian! In case you're not familiar with IM - it's similar to a real time, online text chat. You have a list of friends (or buddies as some systems call them), which you can type to in a text window. The ...
...allows you to easily communicate with them. Most systems also allow you to set your own status e.g. online or unavailable. I'd never really been a big fan of IM until a friend of mine suggested I join ICQ (the most popular). I was a bit sceptical at the time and didn't bother. Then one day I did. Firstly, I thought the ICQ program was one of the worst applications I'd seen. The only word I can think of to describe it is "clunky". There were buttons ... Read review

Advantages: Network integration that works, unified and skinable interface, good IRC client
Disadvantages: Lacks some advanced features, slightly buggy, could be too much for many people

There are many ways of chatting in real time over the 'net. The most popular method is using an instant messenger (such as ICQ). The less well-known but much older option is IRC (internet relay chat). But what are you to do if you have friends using different IM networks and also want to chat on IRC? Running several clients at once is not only a drain on system resources but is also difficult to manage. Here's where Trillian comes in. It is a single ...
...Yahoo and MSN) and IRC into one interface. I was more than a little sceptical about this, having previously tried Jabber (which does a similar thing) and having experienced numerous problems with the network operators trying to block Jabber's connections to their networks. AOL is particularly notorious for not allowing third-party clients to operate. Happily, I experienced none of these problems with Trillian. How it avoids them I don't know, I just ... Read review

Advantages: Looks good, very functional, great idea, free.
Disadvantages: Not for beginners, will need 'tweaking'.

Tierd of ICQ clogging up your RAM and making your PC crash? Wish you could have all your friends on one Instant Messanger rather than having four of them set up for different friends? Well Trillian has the answer with this world first. Instant Messangers are programs that let you know when friends are online and let you chat to them. Sounds great - but there's a catch - there are many different I.M.s available, and the chances are that in order ...
...install two or more. Not only are I.M.s quite resource hungry (especially ICQ), but it can become confusing if you have to interact with many different interfaces at once. Trillain solves this problem and allows you to connect to 4 different I.M. servers and IRC. The services include ICQ (the biggest and in my opinion best), MSN (major player in UK market), AOL (major player in American market and Yahoo messanger. It also lets you connect to IRC ... Read review

Advantages: Fast, IRC, ICQ, AIM, Yahoo! and MSN messenger medium support. Free, Small, no ads and now file transfer support.
Disadvantages: Groups in ICQ lists may not be maintained? Possible file transfer difficulties.

Stop Press: Trillian 0.71 has come out recently, new features include the ability to invite users into a group chat (like MSN) on MSN and AOL protocols. It also has a lot of bug fixes and more, go get it, my old review is still relevant!! Opinion now updated (12/12/2001) based on the excellent Trillian 0.70! I'll tell you how I have seen the world from an Instant Messenging perspective: First I had MSN, used it to chat to one mate, then I forgot ...
...that for a very long time. It became very bloated indeed however, and was very slow to load. Also my friends started using MSN Messenger. It sucked to have two apps open. So I got Miranda ICQ. A very good program, for nobody who has used it, it is a very slim client for ICQ only, good, but not multi-medium like Trillian. Then I went back to ICQ & MSN for a bit. Until I found Trillian.cc. It blew everything away. It rocked. It gets better with every ... Read review

Advantages: Free, Brilliant, Powerful
Disadvantages: Tricky to configure at times.

Trillian, named I presume after the character from the Douglas Adams charcter, is a hybrid internet chat program. Available from the producers at www.tillian.cc the software is a client for MSN, IRC, ICQ, AOL Instant Messanger (AIM) and Yahoo 'Y!' Messenger. More than this, Trillian can connect you to all the networks at once. You can be available on all of these five networks to chat all at once, without having to have all the clients open at once. ...
...on your taskbar and provides a central chatting resource. In you buddy window you can have people from all networks and chat to them in similar ways. They will never know you are other networks as well, and, if you set Trillian up properly, neither will you. Trillian is a pig to configure. Yet it has all the options of every network to take care of, so you can't expect it to be simple. However, if you want to manage multiple accounts and log into ... Read review