What do you use for IM/conferencing?

[UtwigMU]

Here's my story:

At first I used ICQ, that was in the last millenium still, lol, it was even before AOL bought ICQ.

After a while other procols and clients have shown up - the Yahoo Messenger and MSN Messenger. Obviously a need to be present on all networks arose.

After a pause in online activity I installed Trillian, but did not like the cluttered interface.

After reading AIM Alternatives for Windows article on Ars, I decided to give Gaim a try and I like it.

But the universal clients only handle instant messaging and some even handle file sending on some protocols.

If you'd like to converse via mic and heaphones, you're still stuck to proprietary clients. So I keep Y! Messenger arround for such occasions.

But I didn't like the quality and the sound. There's got to be a better way.

So after joining a fun Enemy Territory clan for a fun league, I discovered teamspeak. It has better quality compared to Y! messenger. And if you host your own server, you have better control over it.

So I succesfully configured and installed TS server. The key is to have either static IP or dyndns.org or no-ip.com or similar account and configure port forwarding to the server, if it's behind router.

Hopefully I'll convert the proprietary clients-friends to Teamspeak.




So in my opinion:
Gaim for messaging and Teamspeak for voice conferencing.

[leech]

Hopefully the Gaim-vv project does some great work and we'll have video and voice with gaim as well. I love Gaim (use it in windows and linux) but I would like it a lot more once I have video and voice support...

I haven't ever tried Teamspeak. I've been trying to find an easier way to get video/voice conferencing working between Windows and Linux (Gnomemeeting/netmeeting works, but it's a pain to get it working through a firewall...)

Leech

[lecter]

MSN Messenger is the one for me, been using it since v. 1.0 and have all my contacts that use IM on it...I like the simple interface (something that ICQ could not match in a million years) and the Hotmail integration. Yahoo seems to be a more complete client, I think it just depends which webmail service you've been using. Since I've had a Hotmail account for ages, I prefer MSN.

[KeiFront]

IM: Miranda on Windows (ICQ,MSN), Fire on OS-X(ICQ,MSN)
IRC: Xchat on Windows and OS-X

And I'm sometimes using teamspeak when gaming.

[GT98]

I use Yahoo Messenger most of the time.

If you want an all in one deal Try Trillian..can use Yahoo,MSN Messenger,AOL,ICQ and IRC all at the same time in one program.

[Ribbit]

Does anyone here use Jabber? Seems like a great project which just isn't getting any exposure.

[High_Jumbllama]

Signed up for ICQ then my email account got flooded very quickly. Thankfully I used a free Yahoo account.

[XHotKolaX]

GAIM for the 1on1 chat clients. I started using it after discovering how advanced it was over miranda. I stopped liking trillian after they branched into the "Pro" thing. Also, no *nix support. AOL's AIM started using sound in its banners recently, which pretty much forced the GAIM move.

XChat for IRC.

I'll give teamspeak a go. I don't like Yahoo's IM too much because of bulk.

[Jammrock]

ICQ for chat, using Trillian micro skin. Yahoo Messenger for Video/Webcam.

[UtwigMU]

Originally posted by High_Jumbllama
Signed up for ICQ then my email account got flooded very quickly. Thankfully I used a free Yahoo account.

I have hardly any spam in any of the yahoo accounts, even the one I use for registering things arround. Not even the one I used for ICQ registration.

[Ajax]

Use Yahoo, mainly because it's the only client that gets through our firewall where I work.

[Byock]

Yahoo for Chat. MSN for Voice/Video.

Didn't like Trillian, as I like the Emoticons, and Trillians suck.

[Wombat]

You can load different emoticions, I think.

[Greebe]

You have a huge choice of emoticons in Trillian

[VJ]

How do you do that ?

BTW, I'm using Trillian to connect both my ICQ and my MSN...

Anyone here use Miranda ? I tried it once, but couldn't quite get the hang of it...


Jörg