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!
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A review by richardleonard on trillian.cc September 28th, 2001
Author's product rating:
Quality of Discussions
Excellent
Advantages:
Connect to different IM systems
Disadvantages:
Not quite as advanced as some other applications .
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
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 list indicates if your friends are online (or not) and 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 all over the place, too many options to choose from and, the worst part, I didn't find it at all easy to add my friends to the list - which was the whole point of using it! So I decided to try the alternatives.
Microsoft was next on my (short) list. I've had a Hotmail account for ages - but since Microsoft have invented the "passport" I'd never made use of this facility. Downloading MSN messenger was simple enough and once it was working looked much simpler than ICQ. Adding friends was simple and the whole thing seemed much nicer. The added bonus was that it worked in conjunction with Outlook Express. So now I had 2 applications running - just in case either group of friends were online.
Then I read about Trillian.
As I described earlier, this free program replaces all your other IM programs. Which not only saves having multiple icons next to your clock, but is also more efficient on memory. In addition, it's much easier to use one application for all your messaging.
Download & Installation ----------------------- The program is a reasonable download of only 1.74Mb - which was straightforward. After starting the setup you simply select its destination, then configure the various options. Initially I thought it was compulsory to fill in all fields - which meant I actually entered details of an IRC account, which doesn't actually exist. For systems you are not a member of, simply leave these "pages" blank. After IRC you are the given the opportunity to setup your other accounts (MSN, ICQ etc). This was simple, and all your friends are added to your "contact list". An icon then appeared in the system tray.
Configuration ------------- The simple view is what I have stuck with, although a more advanced view is available. Currently this is beyond me and I haven't looked at it in any great detail. In a sentence, it's a bigger window, and seems to allow you to connect to specific servers or have advanced chats with multiple people - but don't quote me on that!
Adding contacts --------------- This is so simple. You click on the "Add" button, select a group to add the contact to (e.g. Friends, Family), select the contact type (e.g. ICQ, MSN), type in the name (e.g. 123456789 or someone@hotmail.com) and after clicking on the "Done" button, that's it. The person will be in your list with an icon corresponding to the contact type (ICQ, MSN). This is not only useful to know but also makes the interface seem a bit friendlier.
Online/Offline contacts ----------------------- Contacts are stored in the "Offline Buddies" section until they logon. Then they'll jump to the folder you added them. This is similar to other IM applications. If you wish to, you can be notified by a popup window each time someone connects - although this can be a little annoying if someone is on and offline all the time.
Sending messages ---------------- By simply right clicking on the online contact's name and selecting "send instant message", brings up a text window where you can type. That's it! Enjoy.
Conclusion ---------- There are a few other options to allow you to change how the program displays your contacts, or interacts with your system (such as "always on top") but these are fairly standard features. I love this program and would recommend it to anyone who even uses IM infrequently. The interface is attractive to look at, the tools are self explanatory and above all it's completely free. Give it a go, and you'll soon decide to uninstall the rest!!
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 ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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Advantages: Does everything it is supposed to, looks/sounds good. Disadvantages: A bit on the 'heavy' side
Years ago, when I started my interest in computers, there was no doubt; if you had to chat, you would use ICQ.
Unfortunately Microsoft started insisting on making their own messenger, and suddently I had to have two different clients.
I learned that there was programs out there, which could handle two or more protocols (as e.g. Jabber), but when I tried them, they always had som flaws, was unstable or kept logging in and out of the different clients.
... ...easy to install and use.
It features ICQ and MSN, which is all I have need for (Never tried it with AIM).
It features all the important features as chat, away-messages, and file transfers (which e.g. Jabber did not).
A side bonus is that it does not support winks etc, which anyway does nothing but annoy.
On the down-side it must be said, that it is 'heavy' on the ressources. It takes some time to load, and when it runs, the sounds of the program ...
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