Rating and comments for Pidgin

io used it for linux its all the same works smoothly you shouldn"t have any
problems

Version 2.0 is very close to coming out of beta and has been very good so far. Tons of improvements over 1.5. No bloat or ads, just a great way to use different IM accounts from one program. Adium for the Mac uses the same library for its back end functionality, but has a better user interface, in my opinion.

Buggy. Very featureless.

Extremely buggy.

other comments are full of shit

Just keeps getting better and better.

Very good. What's needed still: msn p2p file transfer, msn personal status support, and of course audio/video transfer.

Great program, suits most needs, only lacks a few features, of which some exists as plugins

The software is decent, but the people working on it are not.

I love this program... it has all i need and looks great! It is secure, too!

Супер! Всем советую, аська и МСН мессенжер идут лесом!
Pidgin рулит ;-)

To anyone experiencing "bugs" with this program, perhaps you should make sure you have the latest GTK libraries installed. It's a bit unfair to blame a well written program on your own ignorance of software requirements (even though Pidgin makes it abundantly clear about GTK libs).

This program isn't just an alternative to AIM, it's a superior program that is very lightweight and doesn't contain a bunch of ads and other junk that weigh the program down.

Holy shit. Its a total improvement over old GAIM.
Seriously, its nothing more easier than configuring Pidgin.
This will be a good alternative replacing my Trillian3

the toolkit GTK+ that it's using however is far from lightweight. Just check the size of the gtk folder. It's weighing in at over 25megs for me.

I echo the fact that it is far from lightweight, overall. That GTK folder is huge! ...at least it is on my machine. The program IS buggy. I reorganized my folders in Pidgin by moving contacts around. The next morning, after shutting down the PC and rebooting, everything was back in the old folders - ss if Pidgin just couldn't remember the changes. Another bug, when I restart the program, it forgets who I have marked as "appears permanently offline". The MSN-Yahoo interface: I came to Pidgin from using Yahoo messenger. One of the features that I liked in YM was that I could message people on MSN and hotmail without needing a hotmail ID. You can't do this in Pidgin! And when you try to add a new hotmail ID to the Yahoo inferface, it says that it is unrecognizable; BUT...(and this is the kicker)if a fire YM back up, add the hotmail ID there, then fire up Pidgin, it recognizes it. I'm not a programmer but it sounds like Pidgin is not talking properly with the Yahoo database server. Also, I have some Yahoo contacts that Pidgin says 'not listed on the server', but again, if I go back to YM, they are there just fine.

Bottom line, Pidgin has a ways to go before I can trust it to replace other chat/IM programs. My suggestion...look elsewhere and let the developers at Pidgin put in some long hours to get this program working properly.

Multiple MSN accounts? No problem. Hell, it will handle as many accounts as you can throw at it.

Love this program and will continue to use it on every machine I own.

The program attempts to merge several programs with proprietary features which constantly change with each version of the original. The alternative is to have 5 or so full installs of complete crap for example MSN Live. To all the haters that say it is buggy well so is Live which has no excuse considering Microtrash produces the OS it runs on. If you only need the basic im feature and want a single interface then Pidgin has it.

AVOID THIS PROGRAM.

First, no support what so ever! (And no, don't use the excuse that this is a free program. If you are going to author something and put it out there for people to use, you best expect they will want some kind of support with it) I've emailed several programmers at Pidgin for help - no reply. I even went to the IRC chatroom for live support. I was told to try and figure it out for myself. HUH?!? I reported a problem over 6 months ago with then version 2.4.1. Just recently they contacted me and said to download the newest version and see if we addressed your problems. SIX MONTHS AGO?!?!? Are you serious??!! Furthermore, I'm not on the Pidgin staff and I am not getting paid to try every new version they churn out, so do your own testing and debugging. My time and effort is just as valuable. This program has some SERIOUS problems! Just look at their ticket reporting page for errors. There are over 1700 tickets/error reports that are outstanding. 1700!!! Who wants to deal with a program that has so many problems wrong with it.

My simple, yet strong suggestion, stick with something more reliable. Trillian does a great job for multiple chat platforms...and it is free! If you are more adventurous, try Miranda. They have over 50% more total downloads from CNET than Pidgin does. That should give you some idea what other people are saying about Pidgin.