Review - Adium, The Best IM On MacOSX

Adium is one of the things I being a Mac user last time just could not live without. Adium is a free instant messaging application that can connect to multiple networks on multiple accounts at the same time. If you find the Messenger for Mac, that is the Mac version of Windows Live Messenger is outdated and feels clunky, then Adium is the right choice for you.

Adium sports a minimalist and stylish design that is extremely customizable. So customizable that you can customize everything from the dock icon, to the notification sounds and window. For those who are big fans of personalization, and find that the tweaks offered by Messenger for mac isn’t going to cut it, then you would find out what you have been missing for all these years in Adium.

That said, Adium being a multi-network instant messaging application, does have some minor glitches and limitations. I found that offline messages sent using Windows Live Messenger to Adium and vice versa just doesn’t work. If you’re like me who is a finds the offline messaging system to be extremely useful, then you would find this a bit of a let down. Another thing is that your personal display in Windows Live Messenger doesn’t work with Adium. I guess having a multi-network instant messaging applications does have it’s disadvantages. Hopefully when the next version is released they would clear up some of these glitches.

Some of the things I like about Adium is:

• Easy to customize to a great degree
• Has tabbed conversations, which makes it so much more organized
• Supports history of conversations
• Can sign into 2 accounts at the same time, even if they are on the same network
• Free!

My verdict is, if you haven’t tried out Adium, then you should give it a try. I highly recommend this product to anyone using a Mac out there.