... to EzyIM.com, a quick, up-to-date
guide to Internet Messenger programs.
Five programs account for most
of the market, and they are detailed below. For other programs and extras, use
the top menu.
NEW
- Google Talk
Google
Talk has started small and basic - well basic + voice.
The
biggest drawback is that you need a Gmail account, and being a Google Beta, it
is a little buggy. Oh and with most folk already happy with their current IM,
it remains to be seen how many use the Google IM.
The
inteface is clean, and the advertising hasn't appeared yet.
Its
popularity is due to two factors - it works well & everyone has it if they
use Windows.
The biggest drawback is that you need
a Hotmail account, and it needs to be accessed once a month or it is deleted.
I use Hotmail for signing up for newsletters and the like, and use a better service
for personal emails.
The inteface is clean, and the
advertising unobtrusive.
Yahoo
Messenger is better than MSN in every regard, but it has less users, and that's
an important fact to consider.
I use the news headlines
and stock quotes every day. Yahoo's email service (like MSN, you need a free email
address to get started) is bigger and superior, and when it comes to introducing
new features, Yahoo tends to be a few steps ahead of the other IM programs.
Not
nearly as many features as the others. AOL in general has long been despised by
many online folk for many reasons. This service is the least secure. Only use
this if you need to.
Chat Watch 4: Chat Watch is the original
and most complete chat monitoring software available today. With Chat Watch you
can log both sides of chats on:
ICQ ICQ
Lite AOL Instant Messenger AOL Explorer 8.0 MSN Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger 5.6
Chat Watch is simply the
most advanced tool to monitor instant messages on your computer. Chat Watch is
capable of logging all messages sent and received with ICQ, AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Odigo,
and CheetaChat. Chat Watch's main screen will quickly show you new logged messages
and who participated in each chat.
MSN Messenger
webcam, voice chat, send text messages to mobile phones, emoticons, file transfer Yahoo Messenger webcam, voice chat, avatar, audibles, share and discuss
your photos, send text messages to mobile phones, emoticons, conference, file
transfer AOL Messenger webcam, voice chat, file transfer, share
your pictures, ICQ webcam, voice chat, send text messages to mobile
phones, emoticons, file transfer
Google
Talk has started small and basic - well basic + voice.
Its
popularity is due to two factors - it works well & everyone has it if they
use Windows.
Yahoo
Messenger is better than MSN in every regard, but it has less users, and that's
an important fact to consider. 
Not
nearly as many features as the others. AOL in general has long been despised by
many online folk for many reasons. This service is the least secure. Only use
this if you need to. 
Because
it is owned by AOL, ICQ has inter-connectivity with AOL Messenger - which is quite
a plus.