14 DAY TRIAL // Gaim is a popular, multi-platform instant messaging client that supports every popular instant messaging system. It was primarily designed for Linux, but now, Gaim is available for all common platforms. It was released under the GPL license, therefore, it's free. Gaim is able to handle AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, IRC, Jabber, Zephyr, and Gadu-Gadu protocols all at once, but it's not supported or affiliated with any of them.
Gaim has many features commonly found in other instant messaging clients like file transfer, away system or typing notification but has also its unique features like Buddy Pounces, which give the ability to notify you, send a message, play a sound, or run a program when a specific buddy goes away, signs online, or returns from idle; and plugins, consisting of text replacement, a buddy ticker, extended message notification, iconify on away, spell checking, tabbed conversations, and more. Also, Gaim integrates with Gnome, KDE or Windows, allowing sending it to system tray when you're not using it. This way, it won't stand in your way when you're working and you need all the free desktop and taskbar space you can get.
Another important feature Gaim has is the ability to import buddy lists very easily with just a couple of clicks. But since most of - if not all - networks store everyone's buddy lists on their servers, the import is done automatically on the first run. To help you easily differentiate your friends, each buddy has its own icon, depending on the network he's currently using. And to make things even easier, Gaim allows you to assign custom aliases for each buddy you have.
Gaim can be easily configured through a friendly preferences window using check boxes and values. From the preferences window, you can configure a couple of shortcuts, sounds, some privacy options, select the smiley theme you like most and more, but nothing really fancy.
When engaging in a discussion, you find all the typical IM features one would expect to find. Custom fonts can be used, as well as font size and color. Moreover, the emoticons change according to which IM network is being used. And, of course, here are also some small and basic features like spell-checking, setting custom away messages or blocking messages or ignoring buddies. You can also initiate, if you want, a conference with several buddies. Moreover, Gaim has the ability to ignore custom font colors, sizes and fonts. This way, you don't have to deal with the people who change the background color and everything. All your messages will come across however you want them to.
Besides flawless integration with system tray, Gaim introduces another feature for those obsessed with desktop space or for those with millions of buddies: tabbed chatting! This means that you can chat separately with several buddies from the same IM window.
Privacy wasn't left aside either. You can chose who is allowed to contact you: all buddies, only those on a specific list of users or just buddies on your list. The same goes for blocking users. Conversations can also be logged for future reference or just as a souvenir.
To check a buddy's away message, it's enough to hover your mouse pointer over their name and a tool tip will appear containing his name, alias and current status. A cool feature I've noticed for Yahoo! network buddies is the Get Info button. If you right-click a Yahoo! user and select Get Info, a window will pop-up containing basic Yahoo Profile information like name, picture, the last time his profile was updated and a link to his complete profile.
Some basic extensibility is provided through a plug-in system, although I've found very few actual Gaim plugins and the few plugins that are available, provide some extra, not so useful, features like MSN-style graphical notifications, idle options, transparency and so on. Gaim allows Perl and Tcl scripting, so we'll probably see more plugins in the near future.
The Good
Gaim is an easy to setup and use IM application. It combines all messengers in one and uses tabbed chatting so it doesn't take up all the free desktop space and computer resources. And of course, it's free.
The Bad
Gaim has a lot of features but is missing two of the most important: webcam and sound support. So basically, you can use Gaim to chat in plain text; if you want to talk through a microphone and watch the other's webcam, then? you have to use another application. Or wait until Gaim develops such features.
The Truth
Overall, Gaim is a useful application for those with IM accounts on several networks. It comes with a lot of handy features which makes conversations very pleasant, although there's no support for video or sound but this may be added in the future, making Gaim one of the best, multi-protocol, full-featured IM applications.
Check out some screenshots below:
