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Finally Adium for Windows…

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UPDATE: I revisited this article in my new post over here.

I run all the big three operating systems. I’ve had experience with most of the respective instant messaging clients, AIM, Trillian, Kopete, Pidgen, iChat and Adium, etc. Adium was by far the best because it offers so much customization. Unfortunately I can’t be on OS X all the time. After a few days of searching I finally found a program that is just as highly customizable with very low overhead. Meet Miranda IM.

Upon installation it resembles classic AIM but there are hundreds of plug ins and add ons that can be installed to let Miranda IM resemble almost anything you’d want it to.

There is also a large community forums with a lot of help for new comers. I’d say if you’re looking for the best Adiumish program for Windows XP, 2000 or Vista you’ll find what you need in Miranda IM.

P.S. After writing this I’ve noticed that their server has had a hard drive failure so some of the plugins may not be available. Just check the forums for the download links.

UPDATE: I revisited this article in my new post over here.

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Posted at : September 8th, 2007 - 12:17 pm
Filed under : Advice
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  • grawity

    I used Miranda before I switched to Pidgin. So I’ll try to compare them:

    —– BEGIN VERY BIASED COMPARATION —–

    [ Logging ]
    Miranda: IM – internal database (with search, timestamps, etc), chat – plain text files.
    Pidgin: plain text files (with search and grouping by time/date).
    Miranda: 0, Pidgin: 1

    [ Protocol plugins ]
    Miranda: different config for each plugin.
    Pidgin: a list of protocols + username/password/[server] + few extra protocol-specific options in a separate tab.
    Miranda: 0, Pidgin: 2

    Miranda: one DLL – one account, you can’t rename DLLs without losing settings
    Pidgin: you can have 100 IRC accounts with a single plugin.
    Miranda: 0, Pidgin: 3

    [ Plugin testing ]
    Miranda: install plugin, restart Miranda, test, if it doesn’t work – { close Miranda, delete plugin, run Miranda again }
    Pidgin: install plugin, enable it, test, if it doesn’t work – delete plugin.
    Miranda: 0, Pidgin: 4

    [ AIM ]
    Miranda: AIM plugin that confirms anything with a popup.
    Pidgin: AIM plugin that acts the same as MSN, ICQ and Jabber plugins.
    Miranda: 0, Pidgin: 5

    [ IRC ]
    Miranda: auto-perform (by network)
    Pidgin: pounces (+ you have to add required contact to your buddy list & close the message window everytime you IDENTIFY).
    Miranda: 1, Pidgin: 5

    Miranda: “join channel” and “open chat window” are separate actions
    Pidgin: join channel = open window; close window = part channel
    Miranda: 2, Pidgin: 5

    Miranda: aliases
    Pidgin: what’s “alias”?
    Miranda: 3, Pidgin: 5

    Miranda: system charset
    Pidgin: whatever you want (including UTF-8)
    Miranda: 3, Pidgin: 6

    [ Jabber ]
    Miranda: browse and add/register services (transports, etc)
    Pidgin: use another client (Miranda, Psi…)
    Miranda: 4, Pidgin: 6

    [ Contact list ]
    Miranda: toggle menu, status, colors, show/hide groups, online count, etc.
    Pidgin: contact details (status/avatar), idle time.
    Miranda: 4, Pidgin: 6

    [ Add contacts ]
    Miranda: search for ID/email/whatever; add to contacts if found
    Pidgin: enter exact ID (nick/email/UIN)
    Miranda: 4, Pidgin: 6 (because Miranda search doesn’t work every time)

    [ Find contacts ]
    Miranda: search for ID/email/whatever; add to contacts if found
    Pidgin: Google
    Miranda: 5, Pidgin: 6

    [ Grouped contacts ]
    Miranda: no (plugin?)
    Pidgin: yes.
    Miranda: 5, Pidgin: 7

    [ SSL/TLS ]
    Miranda: google for required DLLs, copy them to Miranda folder, restart Miranda, try
    Pidgin: compiled in
    Miranda: 5, Pidgin: 8

    [ Appearance ]
    Miranda: contactlist plugins, some of them with skins (screenshots are in this blogpost)
    Pidgin: GTK+ themes
    Miranda: 5, Pidgin: 8

    Miranda: IM and chat have separate color config
    Pidgin: GTKrc + Notepad (or maybe via plugin)
    Miranda: 5, Pidgin: 8

    Miranda: AIM icon: contact list – AIM guy, menu – blue circle (WTF?)
    Pidgin: AIM icon: contact list – AIM guy, menu – AIM guy, accounts – AIM guy
    Miranda: 5, Pidgin: 9

    [ System ]
    Miranda: null
    Pidgin: needs GTK+
    Miranda: 5, Pidgin: 9

    [ Status messages ]
    Miranda: M -> Options -> Status -> change status -> OK
    Pidgin: select status -> enter status message
    Miranda: 5, Pidgin: 10

    [ New mail ]
    Miranda: plugins (ie. Gtalk + Popups)
    Pidgin: native support + all accounts in one box
    Miranda: 5, Pidgin: 11

    [ Results ]
    Miranda: 5
    Pidgin: 11

  • ShadowDrakken

    wow man, you only just discovered Miranda? You should have posted you were looking for a Windows IM earlier, you’d have had hundreds of shouts for Miranda and Trillian :)

  • http://rag.nu Dave

    @Grawity Wow, nice list. I just can’t get into Pidgin. Plus I’m looking for a more customized client like Adium. Unless I missed something on how to customize Pidgin, I think I’ll be sticking with Miranda.

    @ Shadowdrakken I wanted to find one myself. I’ve used Trillian before and it was never what I wanted it to be.

  • http://liquidembers.ipbfree.com/ Robert Mennell

    To be honest, I never liked Miranda, it felt limited and worhtless. Same with pidgin. Sure i use the big three (virtualization and AMDs virtual layer FTW and all), but they always felt clunky, sometimes taking 40% of my CPU. Xfire was a PoS that sucked, and therefore should really only be used if youre an idiot who can’t figure out Ventrillo or teamspeak. And don’t even get me started on qspeak…. Heck it was so bad they had a petition to remove it from the internet… So many signatures (I myself was number 300,000 some-odd.). And pretty speak… heck im not even sure it entered ALPHA.

  • http://www.brimzero.net/ genderbunny

    I tried Miranda once, when Pidgin was GAIM and the 2.0 beta was made of satanism. It had a funny way of failing to notify me of incoming messages, so I’d finally notice the tray icon was altered or some such and find someone asking me why I wasn’t responding for about 20 minutes.

    Pidgin transcends uncustomizable, but it just works, right out of the box. And features a purple bird, a big win for those of us who’re easily distracted!

  • http://www.furbism.com/ Adam

    Miranda is sort of like a kit car. Do all the pieces exist to make a real IM client? Yeap. Does it work out of the box? Nope. “Some assembly required” should be their project motto.

    It’s basically tabula rasa at install time. If you’re the tweaker-type that enjoys the time investment of mucking with making multi-network IM work intelligently, then this is your product. There are more dials and switches here than you can shake a stick at, and it will be necessary to turn and flip quite a few of them in order to get it working. Miranda is NOT an Adium-quality product in this regard.

    If you want something that works after you install it with no significant effort beyond inputing your IM login details, Miranda is NOT your product. Trillian, Meebo (web based), Pidgin, or a good Jabber client/server with public IM transports are much better bets. Adium falls into this category . It “just works”. You can tweak a lot of stuff in Adium, but you don’t HAVE to tweak ANYTHING. It takes a bare minimum of fuss.

    I have no doubt that Miranda CAN be good, I’m just not interested in sinking the amount of time into realizing this vision when a bunch of alternatives exist that do everything I want/need right from the start.

  • http://www.mindwaredesigns.de Jade

    i dunno, i tried Miranda before… it just sucks balls (sorry).
    I had a hard time configuring it just to access all my IM Accounts.
    Trillian 3 is outdated at the time at it will take Cerulean at least half a year more of devel time ’till Astra is ready for release.
    For the Moment i’m stuck with running MSN and ICQ with their respective Programs as i want to be able to send files to Friends and also be able to receive files from Friends.
    Trillian 3 is currently not able to do that due to outdated protocols, and i never tried it with Miranda because i got sick of it before getting it to work right…

  • http://texpundit.com Texpundit

    I tried Miranda when it first came out and hated it from the get-go. Used Trillian (and Pro) for years, on and off. In off times, I used GAIM. Trillian was bloated and slow and GAIM just wasn’t stable enough (or customizable) at the time.

    I recently tried the new Pidgin and love it. It’s less bloated than Trillian and can connect to G-Talk (yes, Jabber…you’re wrong on that one, GRAWITY. It uses XMPP as a transport, but it works just fine) without having to *buy* a plugin for it.

    The only thing that annoys me about Pidgin is that there’s no option to not see your buddy window in your Taskbar. I like the way Trillian allows you to set it to display only in your system tray.

    I think I’ll be sticking with Pidgin for a good while…unless Adium decides to get with it and go cross-platform…or until I switch back to a Mac.

  • http://www.omegarpg.dyndns.org Krank

    Miranda: Extremely customizable, while at the same time having a simplistic interface, and draws next to nothing in system resources.

    GAIM/Pidgin: Still bloated, and still isn’t customizable enough.

    “What works well” doesn’t mean the same to all of us. “Some assembly required” goes for Pidgin as well, only there I can’t do said assembly, and I’m stuck with their crappy ideas on how an interface should or shouldn’t work.

    Plus, Miranda doesn’t demand GTK+, and therefore a portable-app version takes less space. MUCH less space. This is like comparing Foobar2000 with Windows Media Player.

  • http://www.xmpchat.com SoulForge

    Gaim used to have the option for not having the icon appear down at the bottom. Used to be the default. I for one hated the default because I would close the buddy list and end up closing the program :*

  • http://insomnic.wordpress.com Insomnic

    I’m going to have to throw my vote up for Pidgin as well. Pidgin and AdiumX are both based on the same system for communication between the IM services (libpurple – used to be libgaim). If you see a communication feature in one you’ll see it in the other – MyspaceIM protocol coming to both in their next version for example .

    I do like Miranda’s small footprint and customization options – but for a casual user… Pidgin “just works”.

  • Hyperair

    Last I checked, Adium and Pidgin are pretty much the same thing, just on different platforms. Or perhaps they just use the same backend (libpurple)?

  • http://rag.nu Dave

    @Hyperair They’re hardly the same things other then libpurple, they are very different. Pidgin is pretty much just what you see is what you get. You can throw a gtk theme on it but that’s about it. Adium has crazy customizations , that’s why it’s probably the best IM client, end of story. Its just a shame that its only on OS X.

  • http://hiwitori.deviantart.com Sandy J

    Hey, if you like Miranda, you should check out this skin.

    http://adrenn.deviantart.com/art/Rino-Skin-for-Miranda-IM-65629677

    I’m not a big fan of the default style, but this certainly adds the web 2.0 look to it.

    Take it easy.

  • http://wintendo-gaming.com/ Kevin

    Hmm, I have to agree Miranda is nice, but it’s not really powerful enough. I mean, you need to add a lot of plugins and spend a lot of time working on a theme before it becomes useful, and after all that sometimes it’s not even worth it. Pidgin, on the other hand, is even worse…it’s nice for when you’re on the go or in a hurry, but other than that, keep that purple bird off my computer.

    I like Trillian Astra myself, but it is quite resources-intensive…at least it keeps everything I need in one nice client, though. (There are plugins for nearly every single IM protocol in existance).

  • Fredd

    I tried using Miranda a few months back, and hated it. Right now I’m using Trillian, but I have to use gtalk too (Even though trillian supports jabber!) because it won’t let me use gtalk features. And trillian is slow.

    After reading this post, I think I’ll switch to pidgin. Go open source!

  • http://www.isynack.com agon
  • http://phalacee.com/ phalacee

    I’ve been using this for years, about 5 years, to be exact. Way back when it was still called Miranda ICQ …

    And the default GUI is classic ICQ, not AIM

  • Kittie

    I tried Miranda just a couple days ago on Vista and with this one person I tried to talk to it took the very first post I’d made and copied it, then put it randomly in the window…then every subsequent post had both what it was supposed to say and that first post again…then some of the subsequent ones got duplicated randomly on it as well. I tried shutting the window, the program even rebooting my computer but for some reason it kept happening.

  • zmttoxics

    If you like Adium, you should be using Pidgin. As far as I know, they are the same base of technology.

    Ive used gaim / pidgin for a solid 5 years, atleast, as long as i can remember chatting on linux. I just got my first mac, and I went to pidigin for a mac version, they said Adium, I said works the same. I am a happy camper.

    Pidgin on 3 windows machines and 1 linux machine. Adium on my first mac. I don’t notice a difference.

  • WDot

    I used to use Trillian, but I went on a system-resource-optimization rampage, and I found Miranda IM. Does it work well out of the box? No. But honestly, I don’t use that many plugins, and considering each plugin is miniscule in file size and memory usage, I can get by doing what I need to–talking with friends.

    Also, I agree with Dave–Xfire is garbage. I use it against my better judgement because it’s an easy way to organize all my gamer friends into one place and inertia’s keeping us from dumping the trash that it is.

  • agent

    Uh, what’s with the xfire bashing? It’s kinda comparing apples to oranges. Xfire is a tool designed specifically with gamers in mind and isn’t meant to be a general use chat client. The strengths of xfire are the directx overlay that allows you to chat while ingame, and its ability to let your buddies to join the same server you’re in. Any other clients do that?

  • fireball87

    Even after ages of configing miranda, you lack one thing that makes pidgin still win out for me. Spell checking is one of the end all required features for IM’s, and as of the last time i tried miranda a few months ago, there wasn’t a good spell checking plugin (from what I’ve heard it won’t be likely tell the next revision, I think they’re changing their edit box deally to rich text in the core, making a spell checking plugin much easier to write). (that and the lack of support for more then one account per protocol annoys me, seeing as i have 4 msn accounts from various segments of time, copying the plugin works, but just annoys me)

    Adium is of course the best messenger on the face of the planet, but saying Miranda is even close to Adium is crazy talk, Adium not only offers the best customizations around, It also has the best default setup around. The chances of me suggesting Miranda to a non techy friend is zero to none… Unlike other aspects of my compy life though, messengers is something I don’t really feel the need customize so much anyway though, so I’m obviously biased. I’m kindof wishing for a proper lib-purple messenger for windows that doesn’t rely on gtk, but Its not important enough to me to write my own.

  • http://sindhu-s.com sindhu

    you said “Pidgen” ? it’s Pidgin i think. i use pidgin, its neat. but i loved yahoo 8′s maverick blue skin, there even was a windows style .. the author removed it sometime later.

  • zahadum

    ahem.

    first: as the author of this blogger said at the begining: anyone in their right mind would be using adium on osx …

    second: what planet of gui design did these miranda crackheads come from?!

    i was trying to wean off someone from msn … he saw how rich yet simple adium was to use on my mac.

    then i watched him install miranda (which was touted on the google serach page as ‘adium comes to windows’!) —

    and the first thing he did was look for the File -> New Chat menu command …

    Which Does Not Exist!

    Yep: the most basic user experience (open/close) does not exist in miranda!

    Then we spent 30 minutes bouncing around until we realized we could get some limited input/interaction *IF* we decided to declare the state of a service/protocol (eg MSN::awake).

    But that was the extent of any possible chance to generate a new chat or add a new user ID to buddy list (this is different than the special case of initiating a session with an _existing_ member of a buddy list: this case is irreleveant if an MSN user is trying to start a conversation for a yahoo user – which is not 100% possible/reliable using the microsoft client on windows).

    Unbeleiveablly stupid & mornic.

    Since people use this crazy piece of shiite, there must be some way to start a new chat o add a new buddy … but whatever that special incantation is, it is opaque and obtuse.

    There is no possible justification to deny 35 years of GUI design best practice: first and formost any application MUST have an obvious open/close command (which is why the FILE menu is so useful!).

    it is crazy stuff like this that produces ‘switchers’: the mac/windows side-by-side comparison seems to always come down to a contest between the sublimely rational & the wilfully irrational.

    anyways — if anyone would be so kind as to illuminate what occult command is required to start a new chat session, i know that a several refugees from msn would appreciate the tip :-)

  • smartalco

    although yes, adium is awesome, i still use ichat, for one feature and one feature alone, allowing me to keep the little menu bar icon when ichat isn’t open, and therefore staying logged on without ichat open, it saves a little bit of resources and reduces desktop clutter a bit, if adium ever allows me to do the same thing i would switch in a heartbeat

  • http://armsinfragilehands.blogspot.com Thomas
  • http://N/A ZAQ

    Well I use Digsby.
    Also like pigin
    Both can be customized how ever you like you just have to know where to look . Digsby is a lil better i do say though
    its adium for windows…
    try it