Instant Messenger

Please use the (above) tabs to access the other pages

Instant Messengers

The most well known instant messaging clients are: AIM (AOL), iChat (Apple), GoogleTalk, ICQ, MSN (Microsoft), Skype and Yahoo!.

Comparison of instant messengers (from Answers.com)

Wikipedia entry on instant messaging

For the Apple Mac OS X you may need to use Fink

Adium—free instant messaging application for Mac OS X

http://www.adiumx.com/
Forums
Development

AIM—America On-Line

http://www.aim.com/get_aim/win/latest_win.adp

Apollo—iPhone Instant Messenger Client, in Objective C

http://code.google.com/p/apolloim/

Apple iChat—supplied with OS X

http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/ichat/

CenterIM

also known as "cim"
http://www.centerim.org/index.php/Main_Page

Climm

Climm is a very portable text-mode ICQ clone
http://www.climm.org/

Finch

Text-only instant messenger client from Pidgin
http://pdb.finkproject.org/pdb/package.php/finch, for Max OS X
Using Pidgin

GAIM—multi-protocol client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows (GNU General Public License)

Owing to legal issues with the name the project is now called Pidgin

Google Talk—free

http://www.google.com/talk/

icq—

http://www.icq.com/

Ignite Realtime & Jive Software—Open Source IM Server (Openfire) and Client (Spark)

Openfire http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/openfire/index.jsp
Spark http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/spark/
http://www.jivesoftware.com/

IM2—

http://www.im2.com/

Miranda IM—

http://www.miranda-im.org/

MSDN's MSN Messenger for developers—

http://msdn.microsoft.com/msn/msnmessenger/

Pidgin

http://pidgin.im/
is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.
The project was originally named Gaim, but had to be changed for legal reasons.
License is GPL. It is written in C and uses GLib and GTK+.
For Mac OS X, via Fink

Proteus—Instant Messaging, multi-protocol

http://www.defaultware.com/proteus/

Psi—Cross-platform, free, Jabber/XMPP

http://psi-im.org/

Sim-IM

http://sim-im.org/wiki/Main_Page

Trillian Pro

https://www.ceruleanstudios.com/buy/buy.php

Yahoo IM

http://messenger.yahoo.com/mac.php

IM Protocols

Google Talk and Open Communications

http://www.google.com/talk/developer.html

Jabber—protocols are free, open, public

http://www.jabber.org/

Open AIM

http://dev.aol.com/aim

Smack

http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/smack/index.jsp
Smack is an Open Source XMPP (Jabber) client library for instant messaging and presence. A pure Java library.
Instant Messaging in Java Made Easy: The Smack API

Java

Making your Java app shine on OS X

VisualVM visual tool integrating several commandline JDK tools and lightweight profiling capabilities.

School, Computer Science; CRICOS Provider Code: 00126G