More or less everyone who uses the web regularly uses chat in some way, but it recently struck me how it was becoming a problem for me. I’ve got Gmail chat, or GTalk, which is conveniently next to my Gmail e-mail, it even offers some VOIP. Then there’s Skype, which runs on all operating systems really well, but it really is a VOIP program with a decent chat included; sometimes I just don’t want a phone call. Then there’s “good old” MSN, I hate it mostly for ideological reasons. My last, and most perplexing, is Facebook chat. Facebook chat is rubbish, not that I like Facebook much either, but one has to admit the chat is really quite rubbish but everybody I know is on Facebook. Finally the ragged ends of my grieves came together in one cohesion moment, there must be a better way than this.
Carrier pigeon? Perhaps. Back in the day I used a piece of software called Gaim for my MSN chat, it’s since improved a lot and is now known as Pidgin. It’s also available on Mac as Adium. I knew it could do a good job of Gmail & MSN but in reality there aren’t that many people on my lists. A little googling uncovered a hidden gem, Facebook plugin for Pidgin. I’m no fan of Facebook, but this plugin means that almost instantly I have a chat client that covers practically everyone I know online. So now I’ve settled on Skype and Pidgin.