Gaim. please help...

[dposse]

Ok, im kinda divided on the issue of getting the IM program Gaim. My friend says that its the best program ever.

My other friend said the following on the subject:

"I am saying it takes a f*cked up system to not get f*cked up by it"

Soo, who's right? Is Gaim a good IM program or not?

[Lockeownzj00]

GAIM is good, but better alternatives would be Trillian (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com) or the even better Mirandap (http://www.miranda-im.org).

That being said, there's nothing inherently wrong with GAIM itself, and anything other than AIM is a good start if you're going for reliability, honesty, stability, and function.

It takes a fucked up system not to get fucked up by AIM--and it's a shame I, myself, an advanced user as I'd call myself, still use AIM for one petty feature, and put up with all the bullshit. Maybe today I will change...

[JinDaYi]

I use AIM and msn messenger because everyone else uses it.

I don't care for the features, just if they want to talk to me they can, otherwise I just idle on it and do whatever I intend to do on the computer.

Features on a messenger haven't been an interest I've had...though Aol has lost it's popularity due to AIM being free and having the ability to message people on Aol and go into chat rooms...

Though, as far as GAIM goes, I never heard of it. I just never realized people...as in...people...use such features. I like to "chat" with people without having all these smileys that are just random. I will use things lik....ah doesn't matter. I just express emotion where it's due, realistically as if I were there.

All that "nudge" and random sounds that aim and msn have are just unnecessary, and fairly stupid.

But I did enjoy playing chess on msn with a friend till I lost my free term of service.

[dposse]

Ok.

You guys probably know the friend of mine who told me not to get Gaim. Spokavriel, he used to be a regular here on Nuke forums. Anyway, he was telling me how hackers love Gaim because its full of holes. And now all i hear from other people is that Gaim's a good program.

*sigh* You can see why i'm confused, right?

If anyone else could give me their opinion on Gaim, that would be soo helpful. :)

[Lockeownzj00]

Hackers love AIM. GAIM is widely used and accepted and customisable with plugins. I myself used to hack aim for fun and use many script-kiddie programs to just crash peoples' AIM because of the gaping security holes.

[Red Fighter 1073]

just as a minor question: how could you hack the AIM system?? what i mean is what would it give you??

Main part: well, i dont really care for the extra feature Jin is talking about. just being able to chat is fine enough. i use AIM because lots of my friends use it..

[dposse]

just as a minor question: how could you hack the AIM system?? what i mean is what would it give you??

Main part: well, i dont really care for the extra feature Jin is talking about. just being able to chat is fine enough. i use AIM because lots of my friends use it..

Hackers hack things for fun. They do it just because they can.


So Lockeownzj00, are you saying that AIM is worse than Gaim?

[Zweihander]

People "hack" the AIM client and network to spam people with links, much like email but immediately annoying and dangerous. And thanks to shit like ActiveX, you can get compromised nice and easy. Gaim (it's not GAIM, it's gaim, says so on the site) might be "full of holes," but I'd venture that it has fewer holes than the official AIM client, and probably those holes get fixed faster once they're discovered. And it's not tied to Windows, so it lacks the bugginess therein.

Advantages of gaim over AIM:
- Multiple protocols; instead of having several clients open for your AIM, Yahoo!, and MSN messengers, you just need gaim.
- Ad free; none of that "AOL Today" and weather ticker and all that other shit AIM and others come with.
- Spyware free; AIM installs some random spyware thing on your computer, which is needed to play the games. Viewpoint something or other, I think.

These advantages are also in some clients like Trillian and Miranda.

[pochercoaster]

I've never used AIM, so I can't really compare. I chose to use Gaim because I thought it'd be easier to download one program as opposed to two (I was also using a yahoo account and I'm lazy) and I'm fairly satisfied with it. I have yet to be hacked, and as stated before, it's very customizable, though I haven't tried anything like that yet.

[dposse]

Ah! Thank you soo much, Zweihander and madhatter! :D I suppose i will check out Gaim.

[nathan32]

Thank you for this great post about Gaim. I have downloaded and is currently using GAIM to compliment the Akeni Enterprise IM already installed on my network.

[synkr0nized]

For clarification, Gaim is a client that allows you to connect to multiple protocols. AIM is merely a client that allows you to connect to the AOL IM protocol only.

Trillian, Adium, Miranda, etc. (depending on what flavour of OS and program you prefer) also allow connections to multiple protocols.

If hackers are getting into anything, it's likely the protocol first, then perhaps the particular client.

I would use more than one -- switch between them now and again -- to see with which you are more personally comfortable. This is how I decided Trillian better suited my wants and use [examples: smaller interface skin for minimal clutter, wide options set [though Gaim had some, too, especially with plugins], "prettier"]. Trillian has better features with the Professional edition, compared to its free version, but that costs you money (if you go the "right" way about getting it). These are the kinds of things that reading about and using a software package allows you to understand in regards to making a decision.

Perhaps start by reading the FAQs and the like both the Gaim site (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) and Trillian's site (http://www.trillian.cc/).

[Mike McC]

Gaim is pretty good, but it's, like synk sorta pointed out, a 'no-frills' client. Without extensive plug-in application, it's not too entirely customizable. Like the others have stated, shop around with the multi-protocol clients some. Each one has it's particular strengths, and one may suit you better than the other.