The Great Instant Messenger War

I’ve tried out a whole bunch of Instant Messengers – meebo, Windows Live, Pidgin…  here, from my opinion, is their pros and cons.

Windows Live Messenger
Pros
- Looks nice
- Connects to other messengers
- Very very very few bugs or freezes
- Nicely set up contact list
- Easy to change picture or status
- Backgrounds
- Nice integrated games and webcam chat
Cons
- Only works on Windows
- Not so easy to add friends
- The status line can’t display hyperlinks

Yahoo!  Messenger
Pros
- Nice friend adder
- can be accessed from the web at http://webmessenger.yahoo.com
Cons
- Purple color scheme (I don’t particularly like light purple, so It’s a con for me)
- Webcam is pop-up
- Only the one look

Meebo Web Messenger
Pros
- Connects to pretty much everything (for a full list, look at my older post about it)
- No new windows for your poor overcrowded Start Menu bar
Cons
- Opens the Meebo Blog in a chat tab when you open it
- has a pop-up thing at the bottom that opens if you mouse over it… which is, as it turn out, easy to inadvertently do
- Bulky webcam chat

Pidgin
Pros
- Linux!  
- Opens all your conversations in one tabbed window
- Works on Linux, Unix, Windows, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu
Cons
- No webcam capability

So there you have it.  Enjoy your IM service. 

BTW, I tend to use Windows Live Messenger and Meebo, depending on whether I open Firefox first or Windows Live Messenger first.  I have all four, though.

For downloads:
Yahoo! Messenger
Windows Live Messenger
Meebo (this links to the meebo website)
Pidgin

Also, I’m sorry I didn’t post anything for a while.  Hopefully two in one day will make up for it.