Apple's built in iChat is a great way to stay in touch with your friends or colleagues, but sometimes feels as if it's missing something. The freeware (and open source) Adium client gives users another excellent option which adds oft requested features including tabbed chats, encryption, and much more customizable chat appearances. Although iChat allows encrypted chats between .Mac users, Adium allows point to point encryption between any two Adium users regardless of network. This is a great benefit since most chatting protocols send every message in plaintext across the network making them easy to intercept (especially on public wireless access points).
One of the few features Adium is missing is easy to use voice and video chatting, although the latest versions do include SIP support which should enable this (unclear how to setup). But aside from this, Adium works well and is a good option to try out. Adium supports AIM, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, .Mac, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, LiveJournal, Lotus Sametime, Novell GroupWise, QQ, SIP, and Zephyr. Also, with such a cute little duck icon, who can resist giving it a try?
- By Adium.
- download (freeware)
- screenshot
