Choosing a compact chat client

[Nihad]

Hello to every reader.

I have not used chat (messaging) clients for years, and I hardly remember anything about it.
But recently I have to install one. To cut the story, I need a small, compact, (no bloatware!) and yet functional client which can use both MSN and ICQ networks. Support for other networks is not necessary.

The reason why I insist that the client must be "small" is because I intend to install it on old PC. Specs: Dual Pentium Pro 200MHz (not yet dual, 128MB RAM, Windows NT4 SP6.

I have set up a very neat software configuration, with no bloat-ware, shiny-XP-graphics-ware and other modern, XP-era programs in it. I intend to keep it that way.


So, which one would you recommend me (and which version)?


I have read a lot of positive opinions about Trillian. When I went onto OldVersion's download section, I only could download versions 0.xx (around 2MB each) and version 3.0 which has fatten up to 9 megs.
Where are versions 1.x and 2.x?

Are these 0.7x versions okay? Are they functional or not? Which version (0.x, 1.x or 2.x) would be the best?

[Nihad]

I would like to close this thread by informing all readers what I have found to be useful.

I have read the "sticky" thread named "List of alternative chat clients" (it is in this same forum, look at the top). I have checked many of programs listed there.

I have found two chat clients which showed great performance (fast & small).

1) Easy Message (http://www.easymessage.net). This program is really very small, but it has very inituitive interface (in my opinion), and it looks similar to MSN's interface. It supports multiple protocols (I have tried it only with MSN and it works), and most needed features are there. Memory usage is relatively low. The program does not seem to be developed any more (last news about it was from summer 2004), but I find it to be a rather mature program which needs no futher corrections.


2) Miranda (http://miranda-im.org). It is also small and fast (in terms of hard disk space usage and memory usage). It also supports many protocols and has a lot more options than EasyMessage (I find most of them to be surplus). Its interface is a bit different than "standard" (it is not shiny but classical). I have not used this program very much, so I do not have any experience with it. The memory usage is the only thing which I checked and it seemed to be relatively low.