Even though it's not technically a messenger, IRC beats them all for me at present. Otherwise I'm unhappy with about all of them. Each major one has started about the same, free of bloats, and increasing became untrustworthy.
Gaim, Trillian, Deadaim, etc, are okay products, but each of them has it's own hassles though. If you want the full functionality of the original, they require a lot more maintenance, tweaking and/or updates than I prefer to deal with.
I recently swore off of using my MSN account entirely. I still find Yahoo instant messenger okay for chat, voice and cam, but hit and miss for even minor file sends.
I reluctantly still use AIM after having removed it's insidious "Viewpoint Manager" crap, though I would prefer if my friends were available elsewhere, as on principle alone I wish that AOL could lose share as it deserves to. If all I needed was basic text chatting, Gaim would be fine for my AIM and ICQ accounts, and I like the logging.
Gaim, Trillian, Deadaim, etc, are okay products, but each of them has it's own hassles though. If you want the full functionality of the original, they require a lot more maintenance, tweaking and/or updates than I prefer to deal with.
I recently swore off of using my MSN account entirely. I still find Yahoo instant messenger okay for chat, voice and cam, but hit and miss for even minor file sends.
I reluctantly still use AIM after having removed it's insidious "Viewpoint Manager" crap, though I would prefer if my friends were available elsewhere, as on principle alone I wish that AOL could lose share as it deserves to. If all I needed was basic text chatting, Gaim would be fine for my AIM and ICQ accounts, and I like the logging.