Best Chat Client: Trillian

For the record I been using Trillian since the year 2001 and ever since then I been loving it.  But now it gotten better.  I will tell you why in a bit.  Let get to the general features of Trillian first if you don't know anything about it.

Basically what does is combines all your favorite chat clients into a single program.  Albeit a few missing features with the basic version.  More about that soon.  So what services does it include?  It got...

• AIM
• Yahoo
• MSN
• ICQ
• Google Talk
• Myspace IM
• Facebook
• Skype
• Bonjour
• IRC
• Twitter

I use the first 5 services almost every day.  I did dabble with Twitter but I just did not like the layout on Trillian.  So I immediately disabled it.  As for the ones I did try, they work pretty well as a basic chat.  One feature I do like is that it saves your chats for you in .txt file.  Which you can open in Notepad or open it from Trillian.  I love the new Astra look  It more sleek and cleaner then previous versions.  One small fact about Astra was that it been in development for many years and it finally came out like a year ago.  You can also reduce clutter and have tabbed chat windows.  Neato huh?  Plus the fact that when you start it up, it automatically logs in the services you to want use.

Astra Interface

The downside to Trillian is that the IM services themselves provide more features for free then Trillian.  You have to pay $25 just to get those features.  For me, I'm ok with just installing those clients and running those when I need  it.  Only one color scheme available for the free version and the default blue scheme.  The rest you would have to pay the $25 to get.  Not wise in my opinion.

Here what really made Trillian stand out for me.  They just included a web based client.  No download required.  You goto http://www.trillian.im and sign in to what ever chat service you want.  If you signed up for a Astra account,  that remembers your log in information.  So just log in using your Astra account and BINGO!  Your logged into your chat services,  No need to log in to each one separately.  I love that!!  Now I can goto work and use trillian with out downloading anything.  Go on trips and still be able to chat with my friends.  Yes Meebo does offer the same thing.  Although I have not used it.

Click to Enlarge

There you have it.  Few reasons why I love it.  There other clients out their the does the same thing.  For example, Digsby is another multi-client chat program.  Just be careful with it because I've read reports that it contains software you don't want.  So when you do the installation, be sure to watch out for that.  Trillian does not do that.  No worries with them.  Ok my readers, thank you for reading.  Be sure to come back tomorrow for Website Wednesday.  We will find out who fans are dumber.  See you then!