Tim Gaden07 July 2006, 12:19 PM
The Adium Team has released a public 1.0 beta of its popular Adium Instant Messaging client for Mac OS X. The third version of the beta was released today.The pre-release versions of Adium have been so good that some people have justified switching to OS X just for Adium.
The Adium Team has released a public 1.0 beta of its popular Adium Instant Messaging client for Mac OS X. The third version of the beta was released today.
Adium is an outstanding free instant messaging program for Mac users, which uses the open-source GAIM messaging project as its core architecture but has a completely different aquified user interface (just as well, because while GAIM is a technical achievement, it's not exactly pretty.)
It doesn't have the high-end video features of iChatAV or the same polished metal look, but many people prefer their own combination of the wide range of theme options available for it. It also offers users much better support for other chat networks than iChat (which only supports AOL's AIM and Jabber) and is highly customisable. Plus, everyone loves the duck. (Well, I know I do).
With support for a large number of chat networks including MSN, Yahoo!, ICQ and more, Adium connects Mac users with the rest of the world in a way that iChat cannot.
Now, if you want to you can go twenty rounds with the most fanatic Microsoft fanboy on his home turf at MSN. Or just chat more easily with friends and relations who don't know any better.
It's also much more tenacious about reconnecting to chat networks than iChat is: you'll rarely find it sitting there disconnected unexpectedly.
A chat log manager stores your past chats and makes easy work of searching them for that elusive link or soundbite.
It can also handle chat encryption and saves screen space through tabbed messaging.
Growl fanatics will be glad to learn that support for its notifications is built-in.
The new beta brings real improvements: working file transfer with AIM, ICQ and .Mac accounts, faster sign on, better integration with iTunes (song names are now updated in your status as soon as the song changes), smarter privacy settings, selective account disabling, and global settings for user profiles and icon settings.
Not least, Adium is endlessly customisable. If you are a tweaker and a fiddler like I am, you will love the ability to customise its interface, including icons, emoticons, themes for the message window and contacts list, and script-support that offers further ways to extend its abilities.
An enormous archive of themes, icons and styles is maintained on the Adium web site. You can switch at will from a clean OS X look to something more colourful:
The beta is a beta. The Adium blog contains ferocious notices about not posting it to digg or thinking that it is stable and reliable. (Our apologies to the developers for posting this; but how can they post a publicly downloadable beta and not expect fans to jump all over it?)
Nonetheless, despite the dire warnings about stability it's actually not too bad. I am a convert. The greater reach and tweakability have won me over.