Now, if you didn’t know before, I’m a bit of a fan of Digsby. It’s a lovely multiprotocol IM client with social network and email integration. However, it can be a bit… Bloated at times. Before that, I was never really a fan on the Trillian interface. I tried to make the move from Windows Live to Trillian, but it was a no go. Then Digsby came along. It was nice, it seemed fast, and it integrated everything I wanted. I even made my own skin for chat windows, which I’ve been using since I made it over a year ago. However, there are some glaring issues with Digsby. It comes from a younger software developer. It also includes advertising (Although you can opt out. The initial ads were annoying gifs or flash based), and a distributed computing option. I never enabled those, although on new installs, most of those things come enabled by default. Another issue was that Digsby could at times be a bit resource intensive. For someone who used a netbook for a very long while, resources were always very very important to me. I managed though. We also have the issue of dropping messages on less-than-average connections, and finally, it caused a bit of video lag when throwing one of it’s popups. This is even on my machine, which is really no slouch at all.
So, after using Digsby for a while, I was perusing my RSS feeds, and an article on the new and improved Trillian 5 was found of Lifehacker. I started reading into it a bit. It was a lot like digsby now. Awesome. It was built off Windows APIs and coded in C+. That means extremely low memory usage and it looks like a native Windows app. EVEN BETTER. And wait, most of the pro features are now free? Holy crap, let’s just jump on this now. Of course, I decided to purchase both the 1 year pro subscription (now 12 dollars instead of 25), and I also purchased the android application for my phone. Wait, but aren’t most of the pro features free? Why don’t you just stick with that? I know that’s what you’re asking. Yeah, sure, all the plugins are available for free, but because most of the pro features are free, Trillian went ad supported. These aren’t annoying flashy ads though, they’re more soft ads. They scroll seamlessly through your conversation, and you barely notice them. However, the one feature I really wanted for that 12 dollars was the cloud based history backup. It also removed those ads, which really, wouldn’t have been a huge deal breaker. So, with cloud backup, my history is the same on my 3 devices.
Alright, so how is this any different than digsby, beside the cloud backup? A lot. The biggest feature, besides the lower memory usage and looking like a native windows app would be the continuous chat. How does it work? Well, I can be logged into all 3 of my devices at once. My chats follow me seamlessly across my devices, depending on which one I’m using. I can start a chat on my desktop, go out the door, and continue it on my phone, the entire conversation is automatically there. There isn’t any noticeable transition for the person on the other side, and I can see the chat that was previously started on the desktop. It also only notifies the device that’s in use. I’m currently logged in on all 3 of my devices, and it’s only notifying my laptop, which is the device I’m currently on. If I was to pick up my phone and step away from my laptop, I’d only get notifications on that, however, my laptop still maintains the conversation, so if I go back, I can keep talking like I never switched. Cool, right?
I really enjoy the social network implementation that Trillian uses too. It looks a lot nicer than Digsby’s, and it has a lot more features available to them. There’s a lot more under the hood in general too. Tons of automation options are available as well. The only thing that might take me a bit to get used to is the status system. Also, the fact that all of your preferences aren’t backed up online is a bit annoying, and something I’ll really miss from Digsby. I can get over these few little issues when it comes to the speed, memory usage, customizability, and features behind Trillian 5. Goodbye Digsby, it’s been nice knowing you, however, Trillian is my new instant messaging client.
Oh, did I mention Trillian has a web based messenger too? Sweet.
[Trillian for Windows]
So, after using Digsby for a while, I was perusing my RSS feeds, and an article on the new and improved Trillian 5 was found of Lifehacker. I started reading into it a bit. It was a lot like digsby now. Awesome. It was built off Windows APIs and coded in C+. That means extremely low memory usage and it looks like a native Windows app. EVEN BETTER. And wait, most of the pro features are now free? Holy crap, let’s just jump on this now. Of course, I decided to purchase both the 1 year pro subscription (now 12 dollars instead of 25), and I also purchased the android application for my phone. Wait, but aren’t most of the pro features free? Why don’t you just stick with that? I know that’s what you’re asking. Yeah, sure, all the plugins are available for free, but because most of the pro features are free, Trillian went ad supported. These aren’t annoying flashy ads though, they’re more soft ads. They scroll seamlessly through your conversation, and you barely notice them. However, the one feature I really wanted for that 12 dollars was the cloud based history backup. It also removed those ads, which really, wouldn’t have been a huge deal breaker. So, with cloud backup, my history is the same on my 3 devices.
Alright, so how is this any different than digsby, beside the cloud backup? A lot. The biggest feature, besides the lower memory usage and looking like a native windows app would be the continuous chat. How does it work? Well, I can be logged into all 3 of my devices at once. My chats follow me seamlessly across my devices, depending on which one I’m using. I can start a chat on my desktop, go out the door, and continue it on my phone, the entire conversation is automatically there. There isn’t any noticeable transition for the person on the other side, and I can see the chat that was previously started on the desktop. It also only notifies the device that’s in use. I’m currently logged in on all 3 of my devices, and it’s only notifying my laptop, which is the device I’m currently on. If I was to pick up my phone and step away from my laptop, I’d only get notifications on that, however, my laptop still maintains the conversation, so if I go back, I can keep talking like I never switched. Cool, right?
I really enjoy the social network implementation that Trillian uses too. It looks a lot nicer than Digsby’s, and it has a lot more features available to them. There’s a lot more under the hood in general too. Tons of automation options are available as well. The only thing that might take me a bit to get used to is the status system. Also, the fact that all of your preferences aren’t backed up online is a bit annoying, and something I’ll really miss from Digsby. I can get over these few little issues when it comes to the speed, memory usage, customizability, and features behind Trillian 5. Goodbye Digsby, it’s been nice knowing you, however, Trillian is my new instant messaging client.
Oh, did I mention Trillian has a web based messenger too? Sweet.
[Trillian for Windows]