Without shame, I will reveal to you something about myself.
I am a hopeless software addict.
Yes, I realize that most frequent web users do at times indulge in this same vice, but few do it with as much gusto as I. The first thing I do when I sit down at a computer, be it my own or a public terminal, is check out the new releases at File Flash and at BetaNews. If I see nothing of interest there, I might swing over by VersionTracker or Source Forge.
Just yesterday, I had the distinct pleasure of visiting File Flash and seeing a new release of Trillian listed. It seemed at first to be just a minor point release, which I assumed was just meant to patch some security exploit that had been found a week or two ago. When I visited the Trillian site, though, I learned that along with the update to the free version of the chat program, Trillian Pro 1.0 had also been released.
I’ve been using Trillian for quite a while now and find it to be vastly superior to the native chat clients offered by AOL, MSN, and Yahoo! Aside from the obvious benefit of needing only 1 client to simultaneously connect to AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo! (it also has IRC support, but it pales in comparison to a dedicated client like mIRC), there is also the wealth of options, preferences and settings strewn throughout the program. I realize that some people are annoyed when faced with too many options, but I prefer having total control over every aspect of my software. Also, there are no evil advertisements to soil every square inch of the program.
Trillian wasn’t perfect, though. There were a few annoyances, some bugs and the default skin/interface was really not very good. But Trillian Pro solves most of these problems. The default skin/interface looks very nice and is a lot more efficient than the previous one. And most importantly, it now has a plugin system! So far Cerulean Studios has released some plugins which seem to serve as examples of what can be done. I especially like the RSS plugin, despite it being somewhat simple. Maybe with this plugin system Trillian will finally gain Jabber support.
Before I finish, I should mention that Trillian Pro is not freeware. It sells for $25. I think I would have paid for it, but luckily I didn’t need to. The developers are offering it for free to people who donated a few bucks to them in the past.
And no, I am not in any way affiliated with Cerulean Studios. I’m just an enthusiastic user that likes to point out good software to anyone who will listen. d: