![]() What’s even more confusing is that when I read about this on Skype forums, it appears that it is by design. Someone may not be bothered by this, but for me it’s quite annoying to click through this every day. The dialog pops up all over again whenever a computer is restarted and the connection needs to be reestablished. When Pidgin is connected to Skype this dialog pops up twice, which wouldn’t be a problem if the checkbox “Do not ask me again” would actually work, but it doesn’t. That mode however is not a smooth as one might expect - when I initially setup Pidgin and Skype, everything worked well for quite a while until the following dreaded message started happening: As for Pidgin, unfortunately, the author of Skype plugin explains here that, according to terms and conditions, Skype deliberately prohibits using the SkypeKit SDK in an open-source software and although there are certain efforts to improve things in that area, currently Pidgin users can still use Skype only via its “old integration” mode. Since that time Trillian has moved on and started using direct integration via SkypeKit, which still requires skype client although in some sort of invisible and unobtrusive mode. The integration is achieved via Skype “silent mode”, so the idea is that although the Skype client is running all the time, all the communication is relayed to a third-party client like Pidgin or Trillian. This kind of denies the whole “one IM client that rules them all” idea, but that’s how things were at that moment despite many pleas from the community. After uninstalling, I tried to delete the Astra account but there was no possibility to do that, so I ended up changing all my MSN, Skype and Google passwords.Īt the time I switched to Pidgin, Skype required its client to be installed for any integration to be possible. This is truly powerful, but I didn't feel comfortable sharing my credentials (especially Google one, due to much sensitive data on my Gmail) with a third-party storage system. One can even IM just via browser, no client installation is needed. One of its major "advantages" is that it has its own Astra account system, which enables storing the MSN, Skype, Google and other account credentials and easily syncing it across multiple machines. So, I ditched Trillian and encountered another frustrating matter while doing it. For more info on how to unleash the true Pidgin power, check the Ten Must-Have Plug-ins to Power Up Pidgin article. I personally liked its simple interface even better than Trillian's and with Guifications plugin there's really not that much difference (with a little extra effort of setting a nice looking theme). Actually, one of the main points against it all over the internet is that it looks ugly comparing to the other mentioned tools, but I find that a matter of preference and taste. Other Pidgin features that I liked are that it's open source, works with Linux and the whole open concept of various plugins sounds quite powerful. For those that don't find Skype critical for their needs, the other clients may be worth considering, there's a decent comparison here. It doesn't do it directly, but through a Skype plugin, which is just one of its many useful plugins. So, that was it for me, although some of my colleagues were happy with the version they previously purchased for a fixed fee and others tolerated the ads, I decided to look for an alternative.Īmong other options ( Pidgin, Digsby, Miranda), only Pidgin stood out as an alternative, since it was the only IM client aside from Trillian which supports Skype. It became subscription based, so a fee is required every year and, although it’s currently a rather symbolic 12$ / year, that's not an appealing concept for me even for some of the other, more advanced and needed tools, especially if there was a free alternative considered equally decent. I wouldn't mind paying the measly 15$ that some of my colleagues did, but Trillian changed their pricing policy at that time as well. As if the annoying popups in the right bottom corner of the screen were not enough, I was furious when the ads started appearing in the middle of my conversation IM window. Apparently not long ago since I started using it, Trillian decided to boost their financial situation with ads for the free version. It looked nice and did exactly what I wanted until I started noticing something extremely irritating. After an hour of getting familiar with the tool and grouping contacts, I was quite satisfied. Last year my frustration with organizing all these contacts, grouping them and having the IM history in various tools finally made me yield to my coworkers' persuasions to install Trillian. Most of my business contacts use either MSN Messenger or Skype, but some like Google Talk as well as some other IM tools. ![]()
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