what Instant Messenger Does everybody here use?

[vampireshadow]

From Msn Messenger ICQ Aim Insant Messenger and Yahoo Messenger and Excite Instant Messenger ( it Goes with excite.com)

out of thoses 5 Instant Messengers which one do you Like the BEST? and why? just thought i'd put up a Topic like theses for thoses people that are searching for a Instant Messenger to try and use, or for thoses that are thinking about Switching Instant Messenger(s)

 

[nessonite1]

They all have their good and bad points.

AIM-
Good: easy to use, nice interface, customisable alarms you can add to certain buddies, play games, can insert pictures into IMs, voice support, file sharing
Bad: definate lack of good smilies, no webcam supportunless you use XP

Yahoo-
Good: Impressive array of smilies, text effects, webcam and voice support, really fun games and IMVironments, IMVironment that lets you chat and share a doodle pad! Too cool!, Ability to be invisible and to keep people from adding you to their buddy list
Bad: File sharing NEVER works right, Dont know about you but IMVironments tend to crash the program but when they work they're awesome

MS Messenger-
Good: I dont really use this one but the smilies are good. Ability to use webcam through netMeeting and the frame rate is AWESOME if you can get it to work.
Bad: Its from Microsoft so it's huge, buggy, and requires that stupid Passport thing which I hate and can never get to work right. And nobody really usus it so dont bother.

ICQ-
I dont use this...havent for years so I cant make a valid opinion. I do remember it allowed you to see what they other person was typing while they were typing it which was cool but I wouldnt want someone to see all MY typos. 😛

The ability to insert pictures into IMs alone makes AIM the choice for me. Though I dont really like that I have no control over who can see when I'm online unless I know who they are. I use Yahoo pretty much only when I want to do webcam or play that really really funny Starburt game which I hope is still there. If it is you should check it out under interactive IMVironments. 😀

 

[joham1]

My rundown:

AIM-
The official client isn't so good, but there are good third party clients that get rid of the ads and are customisable.
<b>Good points:</b> fast protocol, file transfers, group chatting, Rendezvous (on the Mac clients), ability to turn off smileys, ability to reformat incoming messages with your own font/colour choice, ability to set aliases of your buddies (so bob546753 becomes "Bob Smith").
<b>Bad points:</b> Tends to be 'ban happy' if you have a flakey connection. Bans you for 10 minutes at a time if you log in too often. Can't be invisible - so can't chat to one friend without letting everyone know you're online.

Yahoo-
Haven't used it before.

MS Messenger-
<b>Bad points:</b> made by Microsoft. assumes IE is the web browser you want to use, even if it's not your default, crashes, bloated, buddies can change their names at will making it annoying to keep track of people, needs crappy Passport thing, CPU heavy on the Mac, lives in system tray on Windows. Can't be easily uninstalled in Windows.
<b>Good points</b> none.

ICQ-
<b>Good points:</b> old school. Used this way back when computers were steam powered. Fast messaging, little bloat. Ability to be invisible. used to run off a zip disk or floppy so I could use it at uni on the lab computers.
<b>Bad points:</b> client has become a little bloated since AOL bought it out.

I like AIM, since the Oscar protocol is pretty flexible so there are a lot of good third party clinets out there if you don't want to use the official one.

It's even better on the Mac since Apple released iChat in collaboration with AOL as the new official Mac client - it integrates with your address book and your mail reader so you know when friends are online, and keeps all their details consistent across applications. However, I like Adium - it does all that but allows for things like transparent windows and floating buddy lists and things.

 

[Raichyll1]

Actually, both AIM and MSN allow you to be invisible. You can choose to only allow people on your entire buddy list to see you with no outsiders, choose to only let a select list of people see you, or choose to block out a select group of people.

I believe MSN works in a similar fashion. I don't know anything about any of the others.

The one complaint I hear most about AOL is the fact that you cannot change the way your name appears on others screens on the fly, and you can't change avatars as easily as you can on MSN.

I have both on my machine but I tend to you AOL's more than Microsoft's.

 

[vampireshadow]

yeah i just Downloaded ICQ. it seems like a Cool instant messenger! 🙂 no body is added onto my buddy list yet. But so far i'm happy with it

 

[nessonite1]

Changing your avatar on AIJM is really simple. Whats not simple is FINDING one! For some reason they made them a teeny bit smaller than normal avatars so you can't just use the same one you do here without some editing. There are websites with cool avatars for AIM and some of them change your icon for you just by clicking on it in the website which is cool. 😀
My avatar currently says
Will Work For Beer

 

[SyDemon1]

I use mostly ICQ. I've been using it for years and see little reason to change to anything else. I also use MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger sometimes because I have both a hotmail and yahoo mail account.

Basically I'll recommend using whoever software is more popular around the user's area. Many of them has similar features and capabilities or their equivalent, so just use the one most of your pals are using.

 

[Flatfoot]

I mostly use AOL, since most of the people I talk to use it, even though Yahoo's got some nice features. I wish I could log in to AOL in Invisible mode, though. Yes, you can block out everyone but buddies, but what about the buddies you sometimes don't want to talk to? As far as MSN goes, I don't touch it. Also, I used to use ICQ, but the bad thing about it is all the spam chat bots you get directing you to porn pages, not to mention the fact that it has security holes which allow people to easily hack into your computer.

 

[ElfTickler]

I prefer to use MSN and AIM. It just seems easier that way. ICQ... I tried it, and I didn't like it. It seemed like a "newbie program" to some extent, it wasn't very graphical and had a very irritating program layout... of course, that was a while ago.

 

[vampireshadow]

ICQ ver 4.0 is out now. but i haven't Downloaded it yet! since i only have like two buddies on ICQ and nither of them sign on.

 

[vampireshadow]

i also used msn messenger...... but i got rid of that.

But what i wanna know IF i did Download msn messenger again!

is there a easy Way to Delete all my msn messenger email accounts that have Gotten piled up over time from me Downloaded msn messenger over and over more then once?

thanks