Best Messenger? Adium vs. Fire vs. Proteus?

[edesignuk]

iChat AV is the best messenger by far. Not for the text chat features but for clear video and audio chats with other pure .Mac customers.

Which is exactly what makes it the most useless client for me, and I would imagine a massive percentage of others. In reality how many people care/use video & audio chat. For the vast majority it's about having text chats with friends who will be using aol/msn/yahoo/blah.

Adium rules the roost, unless you do happen to be one of the few that actually wants video/audio chats.

 

[takao]

adium here as well

first i tried on the mac

sadly it dosn't have an invisble feature (or i haven't found it)

personally i only know 1 person with an web cam and perahsp 2 with microphones etc. so all this audio-video stuff is rather useless anway (and non of them is a mac user )

 

[BornAgainMac]

I use iChat AV to talk to my parents that live on the opposite side of the U.S. It takes about 10 hours to fly to visit them if you count stop overs. I make the video full screen so that I can see both of them while I can be walking around my house or cooking. I can even see what they have on the TV in the background. It reminds me of the video chat on the bridge on Star Trek. My parents are 76 and 81 and they can't type very well. iChat AV is simple to use like a phone and it has become more natural for them to communicate compared to email and text chat.

That is why I think iChat AV is the best. I got to look into that Jabber feature more and see how I can talk to MSN clients. It isn't obvious how to set that up yet for me.

 

[BornAgainMac]

The trick for the best video chats is to be away from your computer. If you get too close then it will not be making eye contact on the other person's monitor because you will be looking at your monitor at their video. The chat session will feel cold. It is hard to look at the camera and not your monitor when you are up close.

 

[ebuc]

Poll?

This would be a great poll topic.

What's your primary instant messenging client?
Adium
AOL Instant Messenger
Fire
iChat
Proteus
And all those other clients for MSN, ICQ, Yahoo! and the such.

 

[IanC]

Adium - though i only use it with MSN

 

[number9]

Personally, I use and love Adium. iChat is a great program, and you definitely cannot beat it when it comes to video and voice chat. In fact, I have an iSight for that reason, but as much as I like it, there just aren't that many people with a webcam and a mac, or a webcam and a windows machine that isn't behind some rediculous firewall at their college that limits the quality or just whether the chat works or not. I am still on Panther, and will be upgrading to Tiger soon, and I'm looking forward to the changes made to iChat, but for now I will continue using Adium because of its ability to be customized, its functionality, and it just wokrs well to begin with. I'm anxiously awaiting the opensource video messenger stuff (Gaim-vv i think it is) to come into fruition, because the Adium devs. have said they are waiting for that to be finished and will eventually implement it into Adium. But until more people actually have set ups that allow me to use the viedo/voice cetup in iChat, Adium is the way to go for me.

 

[katie ta achoo]

adium here as well

first i tried on the mac

sadly it dosn't have an invisble feature (or i haven't found it)

personally i only know 1 person with an web cam and perahsp 2 with microphones etc. so all this audio-video stuff is rather useless anway (and non of them is a mac user )

adium .8 has invisible! go to status then to "offline"
It won't sign you off, but you'll be invisible.


EDIT:
I'm a moron, it DOES sign you off. I just had a 30-second lag between clicking and signing off.
Grr, I can't think well when I'm sick.

 

[MBHockey]

adium .8 has invisible! go to status then to "offline"
It won't sign you off, but you'll be invisible.


EDIT:
I'm a moron, it DOES sign you off. I just had a 30-second lag between clicking and signing off.
Grr, I can't think well when I'm sick.

to set your status to invisible, just go up to Status, then hit Custom, then from the pop up list, set invisible. If you save the custom status, it'll be much easier to get to after that.

 

[trainguy77]

I use mercury. I have looked at many different ones, but i like mercury the best!

 

[MBHockey]

Ew..Mercury is MSN only.

BOO!

Adium = multi-protocol

 

[number9]

You can actually go invisible....you have to make a custom away status with it though...If you go up to the status menu bar icon, and go down to "custom". Then in the "state" drop down menu, there is an option for invisible....just select that and then check "save custom status", then "ok" and then any time you want to be invisble, just select that away status from the menu. Voila! you're invisible but you can still talk to people.


crap...someone already posted about it...for some reason that post didn't show up before...lol...so much for being useful

 

[freeorangeshoes]

slightly OT: i love it how whenever someone is posting a screenshot of their adium skin or what have you, they ALWAYS blur out their buddy list names. yeah, like i really want to talk to your friends or something...

 

[MBHockey]

It's a privacy issue, you box.

 

[Abstract]

I'd use iChat if it worked with MSN Messenger, as all my friends are on that one.

 

[JonMaker]

Adium > *

I agree.

I have tried most of what is available, including the "official" clients, and others under Windows or Linux. I still prefer Adium on the Mac.

Adium is almost infinitely customizable, supports all the protocols the average IMer will need (including Bonjour), and is free.

 

[katie ta achoo]

to set your status to invisible, just go up to Status, then hit Custom, then from the pop up list, set invisible. If you save the custom status, it'll be much easier to get to after that.

Score! I was only half wrong!


but I don't see why invisible mode is so important.. can someone explain why they love it so much?

 

[mileslong]

ive tried them all and it adium hands down for all the reasons mentioned above. most of my friends are on yahoo so i never even use ichat. i know two girls who use their cam and in those cases i will go to yahoo messenger to see the lovely ladies but thats it.

if adium ever adds video/audio there will never be a reason on a mac to ever use any other im client. great app.

 

[jalagl]

Am I the only one that uses Fire ?
Given the responses here, I need to check out Adium.
I use it for MSN only, and the reason I use it is because the official MSN client kept getting disconnected, so I asked a fellow Mac user and he told me he used Fire.

 

[unfaded]

Adium.

But I am an Adium Forum Moderator. So a bias may exist.

 

[nbs2]

but I don't see why invisible mode is so important.. can someone explain why they love it so much?

I don't use it a lot, but if I do, it is because I am usually waiting for my fiance to come online so we can discuss whatever bit of wedding planning we need to do, but don't want to get dragged into a conversation with someone else and don't want to be rude - a lot of my friends don't really think too much of away messages.
This week, I've been keeping it open but invisible because I'm studying for finals and don't want anybody to talk to me, but I keep track of others to see who I can ask questions to.
And when I had my PC and used MSN, I used to use invisible a lot b/c I wasn't online to chat but wanted instant notification when I had mail (i used to use hotmail).

But other than than the occasional moment, I reassly don't use it much anymore

And I use Adium (it's a dock;anon)

 

[Big_Baby_D]

I have only had my mini for a few months, but I love Adium. In fact, my friend just got a powerbook (jerk), and I suggested Adium to him also. I am a youth pastor that has teens and friends on all three of the major clients, so Adium is awesome for me.

 

[javiercr]

I like Adium but it's a petty the standard icons are so ugly and the standard sounds so unbearable (imho), but you can change that.

 

[MBHockey]

You adium users should try my brushed metal adium build. click the link in my signature.

 

[kgarner]

I'd use iChat if it worked with MSN Messenger, as all my friends are on that one.

Your wish has been granted.

http://allforces.com/2005/05/06/ichat-to-msn-through-jabber

The one thing he messed up was that the account in Address Book needs to be in the following form:

mailto:email%emailserver.tld@msn.jabberserver.tld (e.g. user%hotmail.com@msn.jabber.freenet.de)

I couldn't make it work until i discovered that trick. It should work with Yahoo! and whoever else. I have been chatting with MSN using friends and family for a few months now ans it works great. I get the great video/audio features for chatting with my family, and I can still chat with others without switching programs.