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February 16, 2004

Retraction

I'd like to issue a retraction. Last month, I wrote of Trillian, the instant messaging client:

"... the full version of Trillian is a crashy, mean-spirited app that periodically continues to tell the world you're still logged on and available but quietly discards any incoming messages."

That was true, at that point. After about a day of being really irritated that I was out the registration money for the product, I went back and did what I should have done in the first place: I deleted the configuration files from the old, shareware version I had before registration, nuked all the skins, deleted all the plugins, and reinstalled. That did a lot to make the app behave. In fact, it's been ticking along without much trouble since then, allowing me to communicate with my AIM, Jabber, MSN, and Yahoo! contacts pretty much flawlessly. I've added the spellchecking, and mailchecker plugins, and the whole thing is better behaved.

So: If you use a Windows machine for a lot of IM and have contacts on a lot of networks, Trillian's worth a look. There's a good chance the free version will be good enough. If you want a few plugins (like Jabber support, ironically enough), the pay version seems better off than I credited it for the first time around. Just make sure you nuke your old install. No comment on skins under Pro: I don't use them.