I’ve been using Trillian for years, but let’s face it – the app is starting to look dated. When I’m using my Mac, Adium is my multi-instant messenger client of choice. It’s got a very customizable interface, there are tons of cool plug-ins available to spruce it up with and it’s reliable and fun to use. In a perfect world, they would make Adium available for Windows to. But seeing as that is unlikely to happen, I’ve had to settle with Trillian. Sure, Trillian’s upcoming Astra looks cool as hell, but it’s taking forever for them to produce it. In the meantime I’ve discovered Pidgin, a descendant of Gaim. Pidgin is compatible with AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo!, and Zephyr. Sure, we’ve never heard of half of these, but we’re impressed anyway. But really, what truly impresses us about Pidgin is that it’s both stable and light on system resources. There are also a nice assortment of plug-ins for customizing it. And most importantly – it’s free. So, Trillian – call us when that Astra comes out.