These days more than ever, instant messaging has been a staple of my online presence. I've figured that I should be in touch with my friends no matter where I am. So, over the summer, I set AOL Instant Messenger to load when Windows starts -- there would be no more of this "How come I never see you online" stuff. Besides, I had already configured Skype to load automatically, so it was only logical to do the same thing for AIM.

I also spent a lot of time talking to Luke over the summer. He wanted our conversations to be encrypted, and the most convenient way to make that happen would be for me to get an instant messaging client called Gaim and download an encryption plugin for it. Luke uses Gaim-Encryption with Gaim on Linux, which is really what Gaim is written for. I downloaded the latest Windows release (1.5.0), but I couldn't install it. The latest beta version (2.0.0beta3), however, installed fine, and I was using Gaim in minutes.

At first I thought that Gaim wasn't much of an improvement over AIM's own client, but it does have quite a few nifty features that make it worth using. Most notable among these is its support for multiple clients. You may have accounts for AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and Google Talk, but with Gaim, you can be signed into all of them at the same time and have a single buddy list. This wasn't immediately useful because I only really use AIM for instant messaging. However, I remembered that I have a Yahoo! account that I can use with Yahoo! Messenger, so I added that as well. Now people can IM me using either of these screen names, and it will all be cohesive in Gaim.

Some of my friends have accounts on both protocols, and sometimes (if they don't use Gaim) they may only be using one screen name and not the other. With Gaim it's possible to group screen names under a single contact with only a few clicks. A similar and tremendously useful feature that I believe is lacking in AIM is the ability to assign aliases to yourself and your buddies. With aliases, you never have to see your or your friends' screen names; you can see their own names (or whatever you want) in their place. Now that I'm using Gaim, I'll never suffer that embarrassing problem of forgetting who certain people on my buddy list are. I'll just assign them an alias whenever I add them.

The buddy list itself has a better interface than AIM's client. (I can only make comparisons to AIM because I've never really used any of the other protocols that Gaim supports.) The default view shows each buddy with a large icon indicating their protocol and status, along with their buddy icon if they have one. By default, they are sorted in alphabetical order by screen name or alias, and offline buddies are not shown, but these options can be changed. Furthermore, if a buddy is away and/or idle, their away message, the amount of time they've been idle, or both are shown beneath the buddy's name. You can hover over the buddy's name to see their full away message and other details. If you have a lot of buddies online, this view may take up a lot of space, so you can uncheck "Show buddy details" for a more minimalistic look at your buddy list. With this option unchecked, you will only see names, small icons, and, if any buddies are idle, their idle times.

Of course, Gaim supports various statuses such as "away," "idle," and "invisible." Another handy feature that I couldn't seem to find in AIM's own client is the ability to change your status to "away" after you've been idle a certain amount of time. I'll never start doing something and then run back to the computer saying, "I forgot to put up an away message!" (That got to be annoying after a while.) The interface for creating an away message is a bit clunky, but that's not really a problem for me because I only ever use the same two or three away messages. But if you're called away from your computer in a pinch and you want people to know where you'll be, you can set your status to "away" and type a short message in the text box that appears at the bottom of the window.

Users of any recent browser (i.e., not IE 6) may be familiar with the concept of tabbed browsing, with which you can view multiple web pages in a single window by switching between their "tabs." With a nod to the popularity and convenience of this feature, Gaim supports tabbed chatting. If you're chatting with a bunch of people, you can keep all of the conversations in tabs in a single window so that your desktop doesn't get cluttered. Each tab has the screen name (or alias) of the person you're talking to and an icon indicating that person's protocol and status. The user's name may change color depending on certain conditions: green if they are typing, yellow if they were typing but have stopped, and red if they have sent you an IM while a different tab was open. That way it's possible to keep track of your conversations with several people at once.

For those used to receiving an alert whenever certain users sign on, "buddy pounces" are a powerful feature. They're like alerts, but they're much more customizable. They generally follow this format: If a certain user does something (signs on, goes away, comes back from idle, etc.), then do something (send a message, play a sound, show a notification, etc.). There are other options, too; for example, you can set them to recur, or they will only happen once. Buddy pounces work on a per-user basis, so I've set some up to display alerts whenever the people I talk to the most sign on. I also have a one-time pounce set up to open a chat window with a certain user when she comes back from away. Pretty handy stuff.

My friend Luke has apparently been using Gaim for a long time. I remember him mentioning that he archived all of his chats. It seemed pretty creepy to me. Occasionally he would even produce snippets of conversations from his "creepy archives," which proved that they existed. However, he later explained that logging conversations is a feature of Gaim, not some vast effort that he slaves away at by himself. You can turn off logging if you want, but it's handy to see what you've talked about with people in the past, especially if you forget. That can be embarrassing as well.

When you install Gaim, you can install a dictionary to be used for its spell-checking feature. I went ahead and did so because you can always uninstall it. I found the spell-checking more annoying than useful, so I disabled the option without uninstalling the dictionary in case I change my mind about it.

Gaim's features can be enhanced with downloadable plugins. The Gaim-Encryption plugin was the reason I got Gaim in the first place, and it works just fine. I tried downloading another plugin, but it wouldn't work. Luckily for those who have trouble installing things, there are plenty of plugins (16 to be exact) that come by default with the Windows version of Gaim 2.0.0beta3. One such plugin turns on "psychic mode," which notifies you when someone is going to start a conversation with you before they actually send their first message. It doesn't work when Luke IMs me (maybe because of the encryption), but it does in other cases. Another plugin includes Windows-specific options, such as loading Gaim when Windows starts and making chat windows blink when there new messages.

There's one more thing I didn't notice right away: unlike AIM, Gaim has no ads.

There are some disadvantages, though. Gaim is really a Linux program, and when you download the Windows build, you'll probably need to get the version that includes extra software called GTK that powers the Linux-like GUI. I guess that's not really an inconvenience, because then you can use some other Linux-type programs on Windows also. And even though the interface may look a bit unfamiliar, Windows users should get used to it quickly. Probably the biggest thing to get used to is that there are no "OK" or "Cancel" buttons on the windows, only a "Close" button. That means that any changes you make to the options take effect immediately, so don't screw up.

I was a bit worried about downloading beta software, because you never know what it might do. Fortunately, because it's open-source, there aren't that many bugs, and the ones that do come up can get fixed relatively quickly. I've only encountered one bug so far: whenever I try to open the font dialog window, the program crashes. Consequently, I've stuck to using the default font.

Overall, Gaim has a number of useful features that make it stand out from whatever official clients you may be using. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, creating a better instant messaging experience. I'd recommend it to frequent instant messenger users who want more convenience and extra functionality. To download Gaim 2.0.0beta3, see this page for a list of files. Windows users should download gaim-2.0.0beta3.exe (if you already have GTK installed, download gaim-2.0.0beta3-no-gtk.exe). If you're not big on betas, you can find the latest stable version here, but remember that it may be very different from the program I've just described.

Find out How to Do Nothing at Work and Get Away with It. I'll attest that finding a hiding place is handy.

One year ago: "What if I could buy the world a Coke?"
Three years ago: "On the first day of school, none of the teachers had any idea why the students would need floppy disks, and no one even knew who put them on the list."