What Makes a Good IM Client?

thesaint05 asks: "So I was sitting here at my job where and IM is a pretty integral part of communicating intra-office. However, I have 3 different clients installed, and each has a different user base. Within the office we have an SIP server and use Windows Messenger. The Google Talk client is for colleagues and friends on the cutting edge, and AIM is used by pretty much everybody else (including a bunch of clients). So, after holding 3 different conversations simultaneously on all 3 clients (Windows Messenger with a colleague, AIM with my girlfriend, and Google Talk with a friend at a different tech company) I got to wondering, what are the strengths and weaknesses of all of these clients? Which do you use and why? If you could combine features from all of the IM clients out there, what would they be?"

Each Protocol Has Its Good Points

[duerra]

I was asked this question a few days ago, my response was that there is a little something from every network that I would like to combine for use into one standard.

MSN - Ability to change your nick. Ability to accept or decline others from adding you to their buddy lists.
AIM - Ability to set auto-reply messages. Direct connect for quicker file transfers.
Yahoo! - Ability to send messages to people that are offline that they will receive next time they sign on. Ability to go invisible.

There's stuff I'm missing, no doubt, and I didn't cover every protocol out there, but those are the major things for me.

I'm not sure of all of the Jabber specifications, but I know there's things in there that specify encryption stuff, among a number of other nice things.

Right now, I think strong encryption (like with the gaim-encryption plugin) between client to client (not client to server) is one big thing that all of the major players need to address.

One Simple Thing - Social Networking

[under_score]

I actually haven't seen this in an IM client, but it would be cool. Tie in to a networking system like LinkedIn or build in the capacity so that if you choose, you can browse and create connections through your friends list.

i use all at once.

[ilf]

just get http://bitlbee.org/ [bitlbee.org] (with irssi on a screen, yeah!).
or miranda..

Userbase

[prurientknave]

The one thing i'd like to add from all clients is a userbase. ;) The multi-im clients come close to this functionality and as far as I'm concerned it is the only important feature they need to share. Text messaging everyone I know without inconveniencing them by asking them to switch to a network of their choice is ultimately the point of im. Open interfaces for enhanced features like games, picture and file sharing would also be nice but there is little reward for each of the hosts of these services if they can't guarantee commercial advertising.

Re:lol

[duerra]

Yeah, it's too bad that ICQ has that stupid number instead of a username, though. Numbers are hard to remember, hard to give to people on a whim, etc.

ICQ was so close to being perfect!

Re:Easy.

[Evil Closet Monkey]

Beat me to the Trillian punch by a refresh. Trillian is great -- the free version is nice, the pro version is worth the money (IMO). Pro is the only way you can using GoogleTalk with Trillian (ala the Jabber plugin), but look beyond that to the fact that Trillian was written by two guys. Two random guys who sat down and created one of the best darn chat clients available. That deserves a $25 high-five. :)

Gaim

[Finnegar]

I've got Gaim (gaim.sourceforge.net/ [slashdot.org]).

Includes basic (text only, if you use things like voice, video and sending files often, it is not for you) support for AIM, MSN and a whole bunch of others. There is a way to make it work for Google Talk via their Jabber client, but I can't tell you first hand how well that works.

As for features, I like the tabs the most. You would be having your three conversations as three tabs in one window, with color coded notification if they are typing or have posted something new. All chats can be logged, so you can easily go back and see what was said. There is also a built in spell checker that I haven't yet bothered to get working. Finally (that I can think of now), if you've got folks with multiple accounts you can have them on your buddy list as only one name, cutting down on clutter.

As a big plus, a new version (if I did my math right from their announcement) should be coming out pretty soon, for which they promise many great things on the website...



If you don't like Gaim, might be something on here? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_instant _messengers [wikipedia.org]

Adium, Adium, Adium

[illtron]

A good client will handle multiple protocols.
A good client has a beautiful, well thought out interface (including the prefs)
A good client does not have games.
A good client does not have a stock ticker.
A good client does not have a giant SUBMIT button (Everybody knows enter/return sends).
A good client will let you organize/arrange your contact list to suit your needs (Sorry iChat -- yes, even in Tiger)
A good client is extendable.
A good client has a no-brains-needed logging feature.
A good client plays well with others (Growl, baby)
A good client has tabs (Nobody wants a dozen chat windows).
A good client will not try to reinvent the wheel (Why does control+Z minimize the chat window in Gaim?)
A good client will let me effortlessly send files (uhhhh....)

I'm thoroughly sold on Adium, but since I'm stuck on Windows at work, I use Gaim there, because it is the simplest. Trillian is extremely overrated. AIM is absolute adware garbage.

On the Mac side, only iChat lets me transfer files without issue (official AIM might, but I won't install it to find out).

Proteus and Fire are nice, but Adium is *nicer.* I won't fault anybody for trying the others, but I think it's worth anybody's time to give Adium a day or two to win them over.

Did we read the question?

[hubbah]

I think the poster is asking what makes a good IM client, not which IM client we happen to prefer. Related questions to be sure, but not the same.

Contrary to folk wisdom, IM clients can be specialized, they're not all trying to outdo each other at the same tasks. So it's important to ask yourself what you're looking for. Fun & features? Try Yahoo's 'IMvironments' (or whatever silly thing it's called), sharing pictures? 'Hello' has some picture oriented, well-designed UI affordances in their chat client.

Personally, I look for the following things in a client:

- Simplicity (I want to think about IMs as little as possible)
- Universal compatibility (I don't want to run more than 1 client, I don't want to ask my friends to get xyz client in order to talk to me)
- Configurability
- No ads

I haven't tried every available client, but Gaim fits the bill for me. It's small, simple, highly configurable and speaks pretty much every lingo out there. It's not strong in its file-transfer capabilities and its ability to send pictures, but those features are not as important to me.

Plus, it's open source.

Hubbah

Security, Solid Features, Stability, No Ads

[Fearan]

1. Any IM client that isn't secure could one day prove to be a huge problem for a company or a userbase. Fortunately, there hasn't been widespread IM viruses, but who knows?

2. The ability to VoIP, change nicknames, block certain types of users, send images, create smilies and a variety of other features are always fun to have. But they can't be intrusive. I hate MSN's interface, way too many useless gadgets that try to be cool. On the other hand, Google Talk is very clean but Jabber isn't the most feature-full system.

3. I don't want to see ads when IMing. I don't want to get popups from using software, and I don't need daily news. Google Talk is awesome for this, as is Trillian and Adium.

Re:One Simple Thing - Social Networking

[osssmkatz]

Let's think about social networking for a second. I as a college student use The Facebook, and Livejournal. Livejournal lists people's instant messaging identifiers, but no way from Livejournal to send people an instant message. Why not? Second, if I pay my phone company $50/month for unlimited communications, why can't my IM client use that line to make calls and let me talk on a headset?

The computer needs to be the Rolodex of the future, with phone, e-mail, and text messaging built in.

They still haven't perfected that yet, because all the IM providers are wasting time on a feature war, and the computer manufacturers (excepting Apple) have not built capable hardware for voice and video communications into their boxes.

So that's the feature I want: communication that works and is free, whether by phone, or IM.

--Sam

Re:Go with GAIM

[slavemowgli]

Unfortunately, though (and this is not intended as a GAIM bash!), when you go beyond the basic feature of being able to talk to people etc., GAIM frequently breaks in annoying ways. I've used GAIM since its 0.5x days at least (not sure if I tried it before that), and there's *always* something - file transfers are a frequent problem, for example, as are direct connects, inline images, etc. Depending on the version, it's also rather prone to crashing - versions around 0.59.x were best, IMO, then things degraded pretty seriously, and the current release (1.5.0) has recovered again for the most part.

GAIM is a nice program, and I certainly prefer it over closed-source clients who might do goodness-only-knows-what on my box, but it does have its flaws, too.

Re:Go with GAIM

[Jotii]

Personally I hate GAIM's user interface. I prefer Trillian, with it you can use as many protocols as with GAIM.

Re:well...

[zootm]

Thing with Gaim is that the interface isn't as polished as that of Adium — it could use a bit of work. The back-end (which, as you say, Adium uses) is top-notch, though.

Bitlbee changed my life

[Crimsane]

Bitlbee [bitlbee.org] is an irc gateway to all the messenger clients. This means that I can communicate with my MSN contacts over (what appears to me to be) irc.

This means I can run screen+irssi+bitlbee on my home server, and will never disconnect from any of my msn,aim,irc,etc and will be able to rejoin my clients from wherever in the world I am (very important for a laptop user like myself).

It organized all of my streams of communication into one single, easy, clean interface (irssi, really, but still) and allows me to manage my time much more efficiently then before. (not to mention the benefits of never logging off, so people can send you messages and you can pick them up without having to be "on line" at that moment.

I'm looking forward to naming my firstborn after it.

Re:Trillian, Trilllian, Trillian

[lonb]

Trillian does all of these things, and much more. Instead of just saying things it SHOULD NOT do, how about moving those things into prefs or optional plugins, via a rich api for plugins.

I think Trillian is by far the best I've seen. I bought the pay version (like $25) because I loved the free version. The pay version is even better, with the best logging/activity history I've seen.

Re:Miranda

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir are correct! I have been using Mirand-IM for many many months and it is by far the best client I have ever used. Simple, clean, no-nonesense - it just works.

AIM steals focus

[British]

The worst aspect of AIM was the "focus stealing" aspect, also present in MSI Installer. NO program EVER should pop up a window and instantly put focus to it. Never, No. Flash it, but don't come up to the front.

Imagine you are talking dirty to your girlfriend in a long typing message, and then an unexpected IM from your grandma pops up, and it's too late, you hit enter. Your message of "....and I'm gonna lick your clit" ends up being sent to grandma.

Yeah, it's never happened to me(happened to someone on bash.org), but a good IM client wouldn't let you do that.

Pseudo troll alert

[dustpuppy]

> Trillian is extremely overrated.

How about saying why?

I have used GAIM, Trillian Basic and Pro versions and found all were pretty good. In the end, I found GAIM to be a bit too 'clunky' and settled on Trillian Pro (of which I have been very happy with it's performance and stability).

One feature none of them has (as far as I know)

[Atario]

A filter that slaps you in the face if you start typing in IM-speak.

"u" for "you", "4" for "for", etc.
More than one instance of "lol" per minute
More than two exclamation points (possibly mixed with ones) in a row
Smileys on more than one quarter of your messages
And so on.

It might sound very insignificant, but...

[FauxFoe]

One of my favorite features of an IM client (which is present in both Google Talk and Adium) is the automatic grouping of multiple IMs from the same person. For example, if I type 5 lines before you type another, it only shows my name once with all 5 messages. I think it makes reading conversations much more pleasant :)

Here's a screenshot of how Adium does it:
http://www.adiumx.com/screenshots.php?show=overvie w.jpg [adiumx.com]

Re:Each Protocol Has Its Good Points

[cheezus_es_lard]

I'd like to see the ability for you to have speech recognition, but also text to speech... I mean, if you're using the same client, you can train your client to recognize your voice, and also record the information on it; timbre, pitch, tone, etc... store that in a profile and have the client transmit it automatically (if desired) the first time your buddy tries to text-to-speech your incoming IMs. The recieving client could apply the settings from your profile to your incoming messages, reading them in a voice similar to your own (I'd expect eerily similar as the technology developed). I can't imagine this being that difficult, and with modern processing capabilities, rendering speedy text-to-speech isn't that hard, so I don't see why it couldn't be reasonably usable.

Aside from the obvious creep-out and privacy invasion issues, are there any technical reasons this would be hard, and is anyone working on something like this?

just curious ;-)

Re:Good protocol is useless, if

[deceased comrade]

How do you explain this to your idiot friends, who will invariably want to know if smarterchild will be there? Jabber is a wonderful idea, but until people are forced to move (or are persuaded to by their current IM service by way of fees, or ineptitude), until people need to they won't want to change anything, because to 99% of the populus, "hey, whats up" needs no plausable deniabilty, and those conversations that do ("150 for an ounce?!") get lost easily enough to provide shelter in statistics. Basically, people dont care if their messenger is that great, because i run google talk, and it does me no good all because my buddy isnt there too.

Re:Trillian, Trilllian, Trillian

[Watts Martin]

Adium is an open source IM client licensed under the GPL and based on libgaim. If you're calling it proprietary because it's Mac-only, when we're comparing it to the Windows-only, closed source Trillian, that's a little... dubious.

Jabber is Underrated

[vga_init]

Granted, I've always been a huge jabber advocate, but I honestly don't see why more people here don't recommend it. A lot of features that are cited in other posts that are foudn in the more popular protocols that make them unique from one another are already present in jabber: permissions, offline messages, various status options, logging (not really a protocol feature). The protocol is easy-as-pie XML, and the is open and standard so that the sky is the limit as to how clients can choose to interact with one another. I've always found the protocol to be very flexible, and there are a lot of tiny little features that make it a pleasure to use (subscription management, anonymous chatting, etc etc).

Re:AIM steals focus

[mdarksbane]

I don't know how many times I've died in an MMO or other game because of this one stupid design flaw.

Re:Adium, Adium, Adium

[John Nowak]

This isn't at all a reason. When you port software, there should be a basic effort made to follow the conventions of the target system. The truth is Gaim is just a mess in this regard on every platform, even Gnome. Trillian also craps all over conventions. The only solid AIM client out there that behaves itself is Adium, and it goes so far beyond that is well. Things like Adium, Quicksilver, etc, will keep me on the Mac platform for a long time.

i'll tell you

[bennyp]

adium, growl and quicksilver, that's what

word

Mobile!

[ritterwolf]

I think an important feature of an IM client is the ability to take it with you. An all-bells-and-whistles version chained to a PC is pretty useless if you are in the middle of a conversation and need to move..cos really, the important feature of an IM client is the ability to have A CONVERSATION. Are they on AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo??? Who gives a rats-ass...you have the conversation thru the medium that is convenient.Even though i work on a laptop, i am not about to carry that with me on the train or to a game. Even a PDA is more than i want to carry most of the time....actually...all of the time! My zaurus has been laying dormant in a draw for months. Anyway...needs to be mobile....and i have only seen 2 applications that run across a variety of phones that support multiple protocols... Oz Mobile IM http://www.oz.com/ [oz.com] & mobichat http://www.mobichat.com/ [mobichat.com]. At $1 per day per protocol, Oz mobile IM is going to sting the wallet a little though.

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