What's the best chat program?

[Matrix]

I have ICQ for quite some time, but I'm planning to use MSN soon as well. Still, I prefer ICQ. I do know MSN, so I am able to compare them.

The only nasty thing about ICQ is, your contact list isn't saved somewhere on their server, unlike MSN. But the good thing about ICQ is you can order your contact list very neatly. Also, there's the possibility to send SMS messages easy and free! Plus the fact that it can act as an email notification program. MSN only supports Hotmail (just another Microsoft conspiracy) notification.

And there are many many many options for the lay-out and the use of ICQ, but these can always be ignored. It's easy to use, but advanced users have their fun as well...

Edit: I've added AOL and Yahoo! to the list as well, but I wonder if there's anyone who will choose one of those as best chat program. It's just there for completion...

 

[DaEezT]

mIRC !

I hate ICQ and it's clones
When u have 100 ppl in your list and another 200 in your adressbook it gets so damn annoying

It's fun in the beginning but then it gets annoying pretty fast
[punch]

 

[scorch]

Depends if you chatting, or using it for communication.

I have never used AOL or Yahoo, so they don't count, but i figure they are like MSN which sux.
MSN is out, coz i hate all MS products, plus, it has no features apart from chatting.
ICQ is pretty good, it has lots of features, including txt messages to cellphones, which is pretty cool.
What i dont' like about ICQ is that it takes up a ****load of ram, and crashes heaps, also it has way 2 many features that i don't use. I looked through them all, i use about 1/3 of them.

 

[Eli]

ICQ rulz.

 

[SlowwHand]

I'm not getting every IM under the sun, not even if they can be united under one program.
It's ICQ I use, and ICQ is all I'm going to use.
I'm not a chatterbox anyway.

 

[CornMaster]

www.trillian.cc

It intergrates ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, AIM, and mIRC into one program. It's the only one you need.

I use it for ICQ and MSN, as those are the only two I have accounts with. You lose some features like file transfer, but you gain some....like smilie support in ICQ. And it's less RAM intensive, it's skinnable, and it looks cool!

But I picked ICQ. I also hate most MS products. Except WinXP.

 

[SlowwHand]

Yeah, Trillian. That's the one. For all the "Chatty Cathy's" .

 

[amadeus]

Boo! ICQ lags the games too much, especially when you're on a 56k modem.

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

ICQ is trash.

Primative, resource intensive, causes all kinds of problems, and looks crappy.

AOL

More advanced, file transfer availible, easy to use, usually works.

Yahoo

Again, leg up on ICQ, file transfer, mail account availible, smooth operation.

MSN

Same things as AOL and Yahoo, is best looking program (MSN programs work well with MSN windows), drawback is frequent times system is down, but still preferred by me over other messenger systems.

I keep all four on all of my systems, as they all don't each much memory, but ICQ is the WORST, by far.

 

[damunzy]

Originally posted by Alcibiaties of Athenae
I keep all four on all of my systems, as they all don't each much memory, but ICQ is the WORST, by far.

If you use all 4 you'd probably love Trillian AofA. While you do have to give up file transfer, like CornMaster said, it is much preferred to running 4 seperate programs.

Warning about Trillian: When using the program you lose contact regularly, but the program does automatically reconnect you so it isn't too bad. Plus you have to learn a new way of doing things, but the flexibility of being able to talk to all my friends on ICQ, my wife on AOL, and my other family members on MSN is well worth it.

Hey matrix, do you thimk you could add Trillian to the list please?

www.trillian.cc
:mutant:

 

[CornMaster]

Originally posted by PaleHorse76
Hey matrix, do you thimk you could add Trillian to the list please?

Only MOD's can edit polls.

But I won't add Trillian because it's just an intergrator of the other programs. Unless of course Matrix WANTS me to add it, then I will...but otherwise I'll leave it off.

But Trillian Rocks...it even has colors, underline, bold, etc... Me and PH76 had some fun with those cool features. One of us should document them!!

 

[Fishheads]

i would rather run the seprate programs than triian

between icq and trillian..

trillian doesnt' see if i'm in N/A

Fish - N/A
Corn : are you there?
Corn : hello?
Corn : hey? you there?
Corn : helllllooooooo???????
Corn : hey i found something cool! look at this ASAP!
Corn : oh you missed it
Corn : hello? how come you don't talk to me anymore?
Fish : BECAUSE I WASN"T HERE! WHAT PART OF N/A DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND!
Corn : i can't see if your in n/a

christ sake..


you also can't send files thought icq and trillian

Fish : hey.. i found the most awesome program in the world.. it's a 1kb and will zip a 500 mb files into 5kb.. it's soo cool! i'm gonna send it
Corn : it won't send though here
Corn : mail it
Fish : i can't.. your mail box only accpets attachments no larger than 5bits..


i've always used icq.. so i'm preatty suck to useing it.. i never have a problem with it..
but the newer versions just get worst and worst when they put more and more useless crap on it.. icq 98 was perfect .. 99 was kinda crap.. and everything after that is crap.. i use 2000b cuzz corn pushed me into it.. yeah.. i wish i hadn't of listen to him!!! :_)

i've never had a problem with it useing memory or crashing on me.. works great actually.. infact when i'm working in 3dmax..

it takes up 10 mb of ram.. pift that's nothing.. (IE takes 14mb)

then again.. some times next week i'll have a 1 gig of ram :_)
mmmm :_)

the contact list is a bit of a pain.. cuzz it's only on your computer (it's easy to back up though)


i have yahoo.. it has a lot of nice features (a lot of things in icq are plugins which i dont' want to figure out and i doubt many others do either)

but yahoo is horriable.. half the time i dunno if people are ONLINE or NOT!! and it's slow slow slow.. and VERY unstable .. crashs a lot.. thankfuly i only have like 4 people on there

MSN messager.. i only have 1 person on there.. and hardly use it..

 

[CornMaster]

I think that example is slightly dramatized.

Trilian does show me that you in N/A, DnD, Away, etc...but it doesn't tell me which one...or what the message. Future version will I'm sure. Also file transfers are planned for the next version.

Second. I still have MSN (or Windows Messager as it's called in WinXP), and ICQ still installed. So I just need to open it to do file transfers. Plus I also have a cool site that tells you how to remove ICQ ads. But I havn't visited it lately...since I've be using Trillian.

 

[drake]

AOL is simple and fast. A chat program doesnt need bells and whistles.

Icq is slow, hogs resources and crashes systems. It is an abomination really. I haven't a clue as to why it's a standard around here.....

Havent used yahoo or msn but heard they are solid......

 

[Magnus]

I have sent files plenty of time using ICQ.

I have AOL, ICQ and MSN installed and use MSN most frequently, because that's what most of my friends use.

I really have no prefernece, otherwise

 

[Matrix]

I've found out a lot of people still use ICQ98, but I'm not one of them. ICQ2000b has a lot more very useful features! And I do use them!

I agree ICQ2000b is a bit heavy. But my computer is heavy as well.
I haven't noticed anything of instability of 2000b. But having Windows 2000 everything's solid as a rock! Furthermore ICQ2000b has the ability of sorting your contact list. I find that very handy!! I have 33 people of my study, 30 people of CivFanatics, 8 family members (and related) and 14 others. (I'm quite an intensive ICQ user. ) But it's very handy they're separated!

Well, sending SMS messages (cell phone text messages as someone else called them) is heavenly. I simply saves me money!

And the email notifier is also great. I was searching the entire internet looking for such a program until I figured out it was already in ICQ, exactly the way I wanted it. It can also check more email addresses. That's also quite nescessary for me, but not possible in ICQ98.

 

[scorch]

Well, what i reckon would be cool. Is if ICQ came with a 'shell' like winamp, and then you just added plugins.

Like a SMS plug, ICQ Active list plugin etc.

 

[dreadhead7]

I'm stuck with icq--the others suk, and don't work for me. Actually, the only problem I've had with icq is that there are still ding-dongs out there trying to send me porn when I have explicitly (sorry for the pun) stated that I DON'T want to receive such trash. Most of the time when I'm on, I have to keep my 'disconnect' signal on, because people will chat me up trying to talk sex.

Btw, do people use the chat room feature around here? I downloaded mIRC, but every time I go to the chatroom, no one is there.

 

[starlifter]

ICQ is big, if you use the latest version. I just started using ICQ 98a last week. It is small, but has file transfer. ICQ2000+ can take over 50MB of RAM, if you let it run wild. Insane. I fire up ICQ98a once every 2 days or so, for a few minutes. All such garbage programs are too buggy under the lame MS OS anyway... so I allow them to run only when necessary.