No more multiple messenger mess with Trillian

Posted on July 9, 2008 at 5:19 am

Are you one of those users who have multiple messenger applications on their computer? Do you often use Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, ICQ, mIRC, and/or AIM at the same time? If yes, then Trillian from Cerulean Studios is definitely for you. ( Note: make sure to checkout the article on Meebo too!) Trillian lets you logon to these 5 popular messenger services using a single interface.

What I like about Trillian is it’s simple and minimal interface. Trillian never reinvented the wheel on the user interface – nothing fancy and no unnecessary bells and whistles like ads or online media players that eat a lot of RAM (Yahoo Messenger users are familiar with this performance issue).

To get the software, download it from Download.com. Installation is fast and takes only a few minutes. This software is rated spyware free and got a very nice 5 star editor rating. It’s basic version is free and have no limitations.

Now for the fun part: setting your messenger accounts.

Step 1: Click Trillian in the menu > Connections > Manage My Connections…

Step 2: Input your connection details like type of messenger service (i.e. Yahoo, ICQ, etc), username and password:

Step 3: Repeat step 2 for other accounts you want to login to. You add more than one account on a single network and login to it the same time. [This means people with personality disorders could now chat with their other personalities using a single computer – how cool is that? ]

Step 4: Login to the accounts simultaneously using the Global Connection feature:

Step 5: Enjoy chatting with your friends! Trillian automatically imports your contacts from the messenger providers like Yahoo and IM so you don’t have to enter them again to be able to see them online.

By default, Trillian uses Tabbed windows to show the messages per contact so every tab is one of the contacts that you are currently chatting with. This is a great way to save space on the screen. The interface is intuitive, the software plays a sound when a contact becomes available and the window icon blinks when there is a new message received.

You will notice that Trillian does not support some of the features of the other regular messenger software like Yahoo Messenger’s online Radio player or the real time picture and file sharing – these are the bells and whistles that Trillian didn’t bother to incorporate which is fine for regular chatting needs.

Trillian supports voice chats and you can do this by right clicking a contact and choosing “Invite to Audio Chat”:

Trillian is a great many-in-one messenger software plus it doesn’t hog down your computer’s resources unlike Yahoo which takes 4MB of RAM even when I am logged out! My regular RAM usage for Trillian (3 contacts simultaneousness chatting) is only about 10MB while Yahoo Messenger takes up to 40MB and even higher. I wish Yahoo will someday realize how bad their software is performance wise.

Can’t get enough of Trillian? Check out the Pro version which is only 25$. It has more features like Video Chat, Jabber support and Rendezvous.

I hope you enjoy this little Trillian introduction. Happy chatting!

Ben Carigtan writes about computers and how to get the best out of them. Watch out for more computer tips!

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4 Responses to “No more multiple messenger mess with Trillian”

Sajan Parikh said on : July 10th, 2008 at 11:58 pm

Trillian? Honestly…? Digsby is so much better.

Yusuf Kaydawala said on : July 12th, 2008 at 4:21 am

No support for gtalk ??

Then whats the point of Trillian cos gtalk is the most popular messenger these days.

Ben P said on : July 13th, 2008 at 6:47 pm

Wow… Trillian? Seriously?

Use Pidgin(GAIM) or Digsby… FREE Jabber (XMPP, Google Talk)!

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August 16th, 2008 at 5:29 am