Comparison of instant messengers

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of instant messenging clients. Please see the individual products articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date. External links lead to extensions that add a feature to a client.

=General information=

Basic general information about the instant messengers: creator/company, license/price etc.

=Operating system support=

The operating systems the clients can run on without emulation.

The Mac OS X version must be self compiled, and will only run with an X server and GTK+ installed.

Requires ANSI terminal.

account.

Numerous talk/ytalk clients exist for Win32; others are available under the Cygwin environment.

Coming soon...

=Protocol support=

Information on the Comparison of instant messaging protocolss that each client supports.

Plugin available [http://meanwhile.sourceforge.net/]

Plugin available

.

Plugin available, but requires Skype to be installed.

LAN and chat protocols supported for Miranda include NetSend, WinPopup, Novell Netware NCP, BattleNet, Vypress Chat, Quick Chat, and Walla Chat.

Uses the AIM TOC protocol, which has fewer features than the Oscar protocol the official client uses.

Plugin available [http://openq.linuxsir.org/main/index.php/]

=Features=

Information on what features each of the clients support.

Proprietary; compatible only to itself.

.

Blowfish-encrypted direct connection; compatible only to itself.

Available as a plugin at http://gaim-encryption.sf.net. Compatible only to other gaim clients with the same plugin.

Compatible with all Jabber clients implementing JEP-0027 (standard Jabber encryption).

[http://www.miranda-im.org/download/details.phpaction=viewfile&id=411 SecureIM] plugin provides 192 bits AES Encryption, compatible only to itself.

(OTR) encryption, which is currently supported primarily as a system of plugins.

-encypted on a per-message basis. Requires GPG to be installed.

Because BitlBee depends on an IRC client, features such as skinning and smileys are independant of BitlBee itself.

Does not permit transfer of executables (filenames ending in .EXE); implicit security feature.

=Advanced conferencing=

Information on what advanced conferencing features each of the clients support.

[http://www.miranda-im.org/download/details.phpaction=viewfile&id=673 MirandaComm] plugin allows voice communcation between two Miranda users who have the plugin installed. Only tested with users of ICQ protocol.

There is a project called gaim-vv aimed at adding voice and video functionality. [http://gaim-vv.sourceforge.net/]

Only over AIM for United States phone numbers (+1 country code)

only) through the beta Festoon plug-in. [http://www.festooninc.com/]

MSN and Yahoo webcam support will be present in the upcoming release of Kopete, which will be part of KDE 3.5.

paid for [http://gaim.sourceforge.net/summerofcode/andrewd/ gaim whiteboard sharing]

=References=

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=See also=

*List of instant messengers *List of instant messaging protocols *Comparison of instant messaging protocols