Can anyone recommend me a good IM client? I've been using Trillian 2.0 Pro for quite a while, but lately it's been screwing up pretty hardcore and I'm getting sick of it.
The main things I'm looking for, in order are:
- Security (one of my friends got a virus through AIM that downloaded automatically and spread to everyone else in her buddy list. I had trillian at the time, so it didn't get me :P)
- Unobtrusive interface
- Ability to read html (for color profiles, links, fonts, etc.)

I used to use both AIM and ICQ, but pretty much all my buddies have AIM now, so it really only needs to be able to connect to an AIM server- I don't need to be able to talk to people on other mediums.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated

GAIM

I use Trillian Pro

Another vote for GAIM. Trillian is alright, but I prefer the simplicity of GAIM.

Trillian was a lot better during the 0.6x days, back when every time a bug was found, an update was usually released the same day or the next day at the latest.

yes use gaim

Miranda IM... ask Blu for the link..

http://www.qnext.com/

This one looks like it could be promising.

I used to use Miranda way back in the day, like in the era of Trillian 0.6

Then i moved to Trillian and then Trillian Pro and have [almost] never looked back.

I have had some annoyances with their tediously slow development cycle, and tendency to pass off bug reports as either "what.. that's not a bug. it's an, err, surprise design feature" or "we have no idea what is causing this, but we've been claiming to work on a solution for the last x months". None of them are really fatal or really intrusive bugs, but still.

I recently tried Gaim under windows and it was just.. yuck. Under linux it runs gorgeously, but in win32 it just seemeed really clunky and braindead.

That Qnext thing does look intriguing, but i'm rather leery of programs done in Java, just for the overhead if nothing else.

Trillian in windows, GAIM in linux.

+1 vote for GAIM

I always hated those all in one thingys...but if I had a choice GAIM. Trillian used to **** up my MSN list.

Thanks for the quick replies! I installed GAIM, and it seems to be just what I needed, however, the text that gets outputted to other people is way bigger than what I see on my screen.
The attached file shows me sending messages to myself, from GAIM on the left, to Trillian on the right. In order to send people messages that don't have gigantic text, I have to make it so small on my screen that I can barely see it. Any ideas?

Yes, that's my major reason for staying with AIM and using AIMutation. I can't stand not being able to change my output font size. It drives me nuts. I have even been thinking about writing some wrapper program that detects <font> tags and changes size="12" to size="8." That's all just ignorant drivel, though.

yay, I fixed the problem using a plugin called "extended preferences" downloaded from the GAIM site.

I have tried GAIM...I do not like it. Trillian now is rather...bleh. It used to be good, now it's just not cutting it out for me. I still have it somewhere but it's not installed.

AIM replacements and plugins are no substitute for good ol' vanilla AIM

Trillian

Uh... last time i checked, you hated GAIM, and refused to use it no matter how much I yelled at you about it.

I used Trillian a few years back. I liked it at the time, then I stopped using it seeing as I was only on MSN 80% of the time. But when I started using IRC last year, I went back to Trillian, as I completely hated mIRC. It ate too much of my screen space. So I have MSN, AIM, and IRC all running under Trillian. I love it. No way would I go back to using the seperate programs. I value my screen space like you wouldn't believe.

Space?

Note--that is transparent. Quite handy for reading massassi.

Yes. Space.

This is what mine looks like when I'm browsing. I haven't even needed an IRC chat window open recently since UR has been on the down side. Basically, I make most of my windows as small as possible, but still big enough to see the contents, and I try to make everything more or less stack.

Note how my Trillian windows are both transparent, and smaller than yours. Small=Good. Big=Icky. I dislike big windows. I dislike maximized windows. It might sound confusing, but if you saw the way I work in action, it might make more sense.

I like Miranda IM because it's got the features I want (with the exception of sending files on the AIM protocol, receiving works, both work on ICQ and MSN), and takes up very little screen space. It's also got a host of plugins and is quite expandible. I can even do voice chat with other Miranda users (I have yet to find anything but the actual AIM/ICQ/MSN clients that can do voice chat to other users of the regular clients).

You can definitely make the window smaller--I just prefer it at that size.

my trill skins don't work for NO reason at all :S

and since I don't have XP, I can't use transparency

<3

I use GAIM right now....I liked Trillian Pro though

Miranda.

Hmmm.... I just use MSN Messenger. I know there are security flaws, but I'm too laze to switch to something else.