Instant Messengers - what's new?
Today there are a few messengers of top popularity. Each provided by a particular company that requires to register email address with them... But don't worry, it's almost never a problem.
MSN Live Messenger - (for Windows XP), Publisher - Microsoft. file size: 8.93MB. Ta da! It's the next-generation MSN Messenger. Along with everything you already love about Messenger, your contact list, emoticons, and instant access to your friends, there are brilliant new ways to connect and share photos (and other stuff). As always, it's free to download Messenger and use most of its features. Windows Live Messenger also serves up the standard emoticons, multiplayer-only gaming, free PC-to-PC calling, mobile phone messaging, and video chatting in a full 640x480-pixel screen. VoIP capabilities allow you to call telephones around the world for a fee, although you can't receive inbound calls from landlines or cell phones.
Yahoo! 8.0 messneger with voice - Publisher Yahoo! Yahoo Messenger is a free service that allows you to see when friends come online and to send them instant messages even when they are offline. It also can alert you to new e-mail in your Yahoo Mail or Yahoo Personals accounts, or when you have upcoming events recorded in your Yahoo Calendar. Offers firewall support, a standby mode that minimizes the program until an Internet connection is made, the ability to save and print your conversations, and a tabbed interface that provides quick access to your favorite stocks, news, and sports scores. Other features include the ability to create a chat room automatically, stock price alerts, the ability to send messages to friends (even if they're not online when you are), a Quick Compact mode that hides the Messenger tools to maximize your viewing area, Messenger Themes, and voice chat, which allows you to talk for free to anybody else on the Internet. It also includes Launchcast Radio, Yahoo Games, and Yahoo Audibles. Using a Webcam, you can see who you're chatting with or view the Webcam of any Yahoo member who has granted you access. Version 8.0 adds PC-to-PC and PC-to-Phone calling, compatibility with Windows Live (MSN) Messenger, direct access to Yahoo! 360 friends, and a slew of plug-ins to customize your experience and access news, weather, stock quotes, and movie trailers.
ICQ 5.1 - Publisher - ICQ. File size 5.8MB. ICQ Lite has all the essential features of the full version of ICQ. You can message people, exchange files, send SMS messages, do voice chat, and meet people. It also includes multilingual support, the ability to save your chat histories, and a typing indicator that shows when a contact is typing you a message. In addition to familiar features such as chat, SMS messaging, and file-transfer capabilities, ICQ also includes Xtraz, which allow you to send personalized greeting cards, apply custom icons to your buddies, play online games, and customize your shortcuts panel for one-click access to all your favorite features. The ICQ Xtraz platform enables ICQ to present users with a selection of new services as they are created, without the need for you to download a new client. Xtraz also supports the creation of new ICQ features that can be built separately from the core ICQ client and then delivered and automatically updated over time. The new interface also is clean and intuitive, so you can start chatting quickly and easily. Users now have more options to customize ICQ 5.1's newly designed interface. ICQ tZers allow users to send short flash animations to their Contact List friends as well as newly designed boyz and girlz skins and emoticons to add more personality to their messages.
AIM Instant Messenger 1.0.4 - Publisher: America On Line. File size 5.96MB.
You don't have to be an America Online member to experience the immediate cross-Internet communication made possible by AOL Instant Messenger. This program allows Internet users to communicate via private, personalized text messages, and indicates when friends, family members, and business colleagues are online. AOL Instant Messenger combines AOL's Buddy List and Instant Message features, enabling users to send and respond to messages immediately. Other features include a user directory and buddy chat capabilities, personalized news, and a Neighborhood Watch feature so you can disconnect when crank chatters contact you. You also can send personalized greetings from your Buddy List, forward a copy of your Buddy List to a friend, and add your own comments to an entry on your Buddy List. AIM 5.9 introduces You've Got Pictures, a new feature that allows you to store and share digital photos. Note: After downloading AIM, be sure to register a screen name.
Trillian 3.1 - Publisher: Cerulean Studios. File size: 8.58MB. Trillian is a fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. It provides capabilities not possible with original network clients, while supporting standard features such as audio chat, file transfers, group chats, chat rooms, buddy icons, multiple simultaneous connections to the same network, server-side contact importing, typing notification, direct connection (AIM), proxy support, encrypted messaging (AIM/ICQ), SMS support, and privacy settings. Without stealing your home page and with no other included software, pop-ups, or spyware, Trillian provides unique functionality such as contact message history, a powerful skinning language, tabbed messaging, global status changes (set all networks away at once), Instant Lookup (automatic Wikipedia integration), contact alerts, an advanced automation system to trigger events based on anything happening in the client, docking, hundreds of emoticons, emotisounds, shell extensions for file transfers, and systray notifications. Version 3.1 adds a new identity feature that helps you organize your home and work contact lists, HTML editing for AIM profiles, UPnP support, enhanced IRC performance, and speed enhancements.