FireTalkNew

With the Internet available in nearly all corners of the world, you can now get in touch with friends, family and business associates easily and through a large variety of methods. Starting with today's industry giants in instant messaging, other applications developed in the hope of bringing new features. FireTalkNew is one of them, with its main advantage being simplicity.

Needless to say that in order to go online you need to create an account. Unfortunately, you can only use this protocol to get in touch with acquaintances. The main window follows the common pattern, with the contacts list taking up most space and your profile details in the upper part.

In terms of customization, options are pretty shallow and you are limited only to adding a personal message as a status. Other than that you cannot share personal details, not even to add a profile picture or avatar. Moreover, the contacts list has only two default categories, for online and offline users, with no possibility to add your own.

Searching for a buddy can pose some problems too, because the account name is case sensitive, not returning any result unless the exact name is provided. The person you add does not receive any notifications unless you send a private message.

Moving to the IM window, you can only chat via text messages. Font and color can be modified to suit your style, and even make use of a modest list of non-animated emoticons. The application supports video and voice conversations, but only if connected to a room.

If you're looking for more chat options, you can take a look at available chat rooms, stored in categories that represent discussion topics. More options become available, such as voice communication and enabling your webcam.

To sum it up, FireTalkNew does not bring anything new to the market and even the ones it comes equipped with feel a little rough around the edges. Tested on Windows XP and 8, the application has the tendency to freeze for several seconds, making it even less practical. Moreover, lack of support for other protocols is a big disappointment.