UBB.Developers Forums General Discussion Chit Chat What's the best - MSN IM, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo (ewwww), other?

IMO:

1. MSN IM.
2. AIM.
3. ICQ (used to be my favorite, but now it's buggy)
4. Yahoo (ewwww )

I'm a relic. I don't use any of them

-Tacks

I have all of them. IMO not one of them has a killer feature that sets it above the rest. I think ICQ added a spell check in the latest release but it's so overall buggy it doesn't make it worth it.

I stick with AIM because that's what most of my friends use. I'll run ICQ once in a blue moon too and only use MSN to chat with my grandmother on her WebTV.

The key is interoperability. Once all these IM clients share member lists THEN it will be a question of which one is most feature rich and stable.

trillian handles all of them fairly well, they should have a new version out soon.

I actually prefer MSN IM for it's speed and feature set, AIM is next, ICQ, then yahoo...

www.trillian.cc

ICQ and AIM.

I have to vote for AIM personally. I have like 50 or 60 people on my buddy list (small compared to some, I know, but still...) that I don't really feel liek transferring to any other program. It's fast, small, and non-bugtacular. And it just gets the job done. And hey, buddy icons!

Call me a hypocrite, but MSNIM just reeks of Microsoft - specifically, Microsoft trying to convince me that they're smarter than me in everything I want to do on the internet. And Microsoft trying to convince me that they're the absolute pinnacle of all things communicative. I'm almost driven to the point of disgust, when MSNIM comes literally attached to Outlook Express (yes, I do use that for email) - it starts when OE starts and doesn't quit unless I force it to. And Microsoft says they're not trying to bundle things.

ICQ is also decent, just cuz I (used to) use it for so long. The single thing that bugs me about ICQ, though, is it doesn't remotely store your buddy list. With as many computer problems I've had lately, and now being stuck downstairs on the public computers, I can run AIM and have my full buddy list no matter where I am or what I'm doing. In ICQ, every time you format, you lose your buddy list. And I don't feel like memorizing so many strings of numbers, really. It took me long enough to memorize my own number.

Yahoo, well, just, um, NO! Blech. I honestly believe Yahoo should never have attempted to become anything more than a search engine.

---Skorpion

1 - Old school ICQ (<2000a)
2 - New ICQs (2000, 2001)
3 - Jabber
4 - MSNIM
5 - Yahoo
6 - Odigo
7 - AIM

Nuff said. AIM is at the bottom not because of the interface but because of the idiots that try and IM me whenever I pop on. Interface & technology & whatever-wise, it's around MSN...

AIM by far, but i LOVE Windows Messenger's features like whiteboard it's great

the new version released this week stores your buddy list remotely

--mark

1) AIM
2) MSN
3) ICQ
4) Yahoo

I agree with Travis.

1)AIM
2)MSN
3)ICQ
4)Yahoo.

1) Msn
2) Icq
3) Yahoo
4) Aim

beacause all of my friends use msn and it is good with much futures....

1. AIM
2. MSN
3. ICQ (too much memory usage, ICQ numbers are hard to remember)
4. Yahoo

Trillian isn't bad either...

haha, I know what you're talking about Skorpion. I also use OE for email, and this has proven to be quite the annoyance (even though I never use it).

I stick with AIM. Everyone I know has it, and it works great for me.

I use AIM, MSN & ICQ (although, to be honest, I only use AIM because of one or two people (that includes you Jamin! )).

I must say, I like them all, but I like MSN the most, although it treats me like an idiot, I like it's interface .. and seens as I use WinXP its pretty much a core operating system component (i.e, I can't remove it without first applying the hack.) so, I have just learned to live with it .. and I like it!

hmmm depends what I'm doing
in general I prefer icq, especially now since you can upload your contact list to the icq servers so you won't lose it, that used to be my biggest gripe with the program.
msn's ok for convinience and speed...although it only has minimal features compared to icq.
yahoo's only good for voice chats

aim plain sucks

1.)MSN
2.)ICQ
3.)Yahoo
4.)AIM

AIM cause everyone i need to talk to is on it, then agane i hacked mine to go over theblist limit and have no ads, custom imags and colors, yes i have WAY to much time on my hands

icq
aim
msn
------------------------------------
prefer icq above all else for sheer versatility. i can queue a send file while they are offline, i can get im's while im offline (biggest plus), i can read the history of anything i do. (big plus when disputes arise hehe) filesharing is neat and its a lot more streamlined with the latest version. yes its a pain to setup but once done its a fine tuned little bugger. aim is cool because many people i know are on it, but file transfers really are buggy and firewall denials happen all to often. msn has cool paging features to cell phones and text pagers, and u can change ur name on the fly hehe. with offline icqs tho i barely ever email at all

I use MSN, AIM and ICQ. I could probably survive with just ICQ, but it's easier this way, my fav is probably MSN .. I just like it.

aim... easy to use, although ICQ 2000a was pretty cool... MSN is OK, and Y! is just plain not good.

New version of Trillian released recently ( 0.70 ) - very nice... www.trillian.cc

Trillian 0.70 rules! I am using it now, and I like it all hella kinds of muchos!! It rocks, I strongly suggest anyone who uses more than one IM client downloads it now.

indeed

thanks allen

i liked the new icq version alot too. keeping the buddy list at the server is great. also aim and y! do this already. i liked icq's spell checker too, it wasnt buggy for me and it had my language. i havent used msn yet, and odigo had bugs all around (v2.0 at least), but it had an interesting feature set. my entries would be

1) icq
2) aim
3) gooey (is it dead?)
4) odigo
5) y!

im currently using an icq + trillian combo, opening aim just when i need to add buddys to the list (trillian wont save new buddies in the server).

new version of trillian released... lots of bug fixes and now lets you know when a newer version is out

Yay, I can use AIM now

1. AIM
2. ICQ
3. MSN
4. Y(!)uck

AIM has more overall features, with a nicer interface IMHO...AIM > MSN for sure because of buddy icons and being able to tell it what order to put your buddys in, not forcing you to be alphabetical. Plus, the banner in AIM is a lot smaller. ICQ > MSN because in both of them you can change your display name, and in ICQ you can change other people's display names on your computer...that's good; Sometimes people use names other than what you know them as. There's other reasons I like AIM, but I can't think of them at the moment, I just like them, heh.

Why all the old topics?