Submitted by “Pidgin 2.0, the latest version of the popular open-source instant messaging client formerly known as Gaim, is now available for download. After months of development and numerous beta releases, Pidgin 2.0 is finally ready. A significant improvement over the current 1.5.x series, Pidgin 2.0 includes several compelling features and usability enhancements. Last year, we looked at the second beta release and concluded that much work still needed to be done. Many of the problems we discovered in the early Gaim 2.0 betas have since been resolved. The official Pidgin 2.0 release, available for download from the Pidgin web site, provides an impressive level of quality and reliability.”
heres to a new awesome release!!!
looks good, but a memory hog compared to Miranda (which is win32 only tho).
6,5MB vs 18MB.
Didn’t seem any better than Miranda.
i wouldn’t call it a “memory hog”, specially since it’s using the gtk toolkit…
also, if i’m not mistaken the 2.0 beta5 version of gaim was using a bit over 20MB so at least it’s a step forward.
Love the new interface, much better than the (purple?!?) website, imho.
Miranda is a arse, it’s rather complicated to not that easy to setup to your liking. Memory wise maybe because it’s not native win32 UI, that would be shared memory under gnome so.
It’s ugly. There is no way it will compete with Adium.
Adium is only OS X, at least Pidgin is cross platform.
Adium is based on libpurple. (the Pidgin library that provides support for all the protocols) Without Pidgin there would be no Adium!
See for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adium
“Adium is a popular instant messaging client for Mac OS X that supports multiple protocols through the libpurple lbrary.”
Edit: And it is not intended to compete with Adium either! it has no OS X version. Infact they recommend Adium on their own webpage: http://www.pidgin.im/pidgin/about/
“Pidgin runs on a number of platforms, including Windows Linux, and other UNIX operating systems. Looking for Pidgin for OS X? Try Adium!”
Edited 2007-05-05 03:35
It doesn’t have to compare itself to Adium… thats offtopic when we’re talking about pidgin!
Many talked about Trillian and Miranda, and you don’t give a damn? How discriminative. The point is, both projects are OSS, but why Pidgin is so ugly?
It is not ugly. You just have a weird taste. Adium is but ugly seem from my point of view. That’s the beauty of personal preferences – get used to it!
yes except that pudgin DOES NOT compete with Adium. Not to mention that Adium would never run on anything but Mac OS …
As it uses GTK instead of MFC, many memory is eaten up by this “redundant” toolkit. So pidgin itself isn’t a real memory hog, if you run it under gnome, or even just besides Firefox under Linux…
hum dude just to let you know that the memory usage greatly depends in what the program is doing. I can show you a screen capture with a little bit over 3 mb RAM used and yes I do have a conversation window open.
Overall the final release is not a huge step forward compared to the beta releases but it is a very polished one. I can’t say I like the new logo but the interface is great and the use of tango icons is awesome. I must say that this is just as professionally done as any software that I have seen and the nice thing is that there is no fat … oh and the windows integration is great but this isn’t really new.
New logo, colours and layout make my eyes bleed. Gah!
Pidgin looks like a great update, sadly I have to wait until plugin enabling polish Tlen protocol (XMPP-based) is ported to the new version. Are there any fellow polish OSnews readers using this plugin? Did you succeed at compiling it against Pidgin?
Oh come it it’s not that bad at all, it’s not a site you visit for daily must haves and news. If you think it’s a bad design then you have had no life on the internet.
Quoi?
Layout is fine. The logo is a little goofy, but the two quotes in the name are actaully rather inventive.
Color choice could’ve been…less original? Hehe.
The design isn’t bad at all IMO, just a few color and mascot changes and we’re good. They’re branding their “technology” though which is good too. The program’s interface is quite an improvement as well. I’m all for simple and I think they’ve done and excellent job.
Pidgin 2.0 is really nice, even on Windows. I didn’t upgrade until it was out of beta, even though the beta builds were pretty much stable.
I would have linked to Pidgin’s website instead of Ars when I submitted this story this morning, but it had apparently gotten Slashdotted.
I’ve seen a few reviews of this where they’ve referred to how good the name Pidgin is, and I really don’t get it.
Is it ‘pigeon’ spelled wrong, as in ‘messenger pigeon’?
I’d have thought ‘PidgIM’ would be better.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pidgin
like stustill said, a pidgin is a new language created from a combination of other languages. So in a way this brings together different im networks, creating something new, like how hebrew and german created yiddish, hehe
Edited 2007-05-05 06:10
I installed it and it seems okay, but why would I use this over the native IM clients?
What “native IM clients” are you talking about?
Personally I think gaim/pigin is the best IM client for gnome and xfce. If you run it on KDE it looks a bit out of place but I still like it better than kopete.
Edited 2007-05-04 22:42
I like the support for video in Kopete
Because it lets you connect to more than one IM network in one program while using less resources than either of the native clients?
Because the UI is not littered with ads?
Because the UI looks a lot better than the flashy skins featured by the native clients?
Because it is expandable through tons of plugins?
Because it is available on more than one platform?
Sure, it doesn’t have some of the features of the native clients (voice and video come to mind). Yet. However, Pidgin 2.0.0 is a great basis to expand on featurewise. And a much better alternative to the native clients in my opinion.
The Windows version crashes here when I drag n drop a contact to my General category. Also, the Y! contacts don’t show avatars.
More over, the placement of windows I don’t like at all: they don’t remember their positions.
And the one thing really important for me: you can’t make the contacts list visible but without showing it in the windows taskbar. Other IM apps do that by default.
Lastly, the SIMPLE/SIP plugin does not seem to work with the FWD service. If anyone has the exact steps to make it work, I am all ears.
Edited 2007-05-04 22:39
There’s a plugin that lets you hide contacts list from the taskbar – http://sourceforge.net/projects/gaim-extprefs
Edited 2007-05-04 22:53 UTC
This should have been a feature in the main preference dialog, not inside a plugin.
I’m not trying to defend weaker sides of Pidgin, just being informative
One more: When I get a new mail on hotmail and Y! and then I VIEW it on my Outlook Express or via a web browser, the notice of “you have 1 new email” does NOT go away. This means that I have to do an extra 2 clicks to get rid of the message. Very annoying.
Trillians also becoming full of Bloat, i do use Astra , why the Preference List wasn’t Cleaned up to look good or as good as the GUI of Astra i don’t know . but you have to remember Pidgin is really for the Linux OS, so Pidgin will lack its Windows Features
This is not true, Win32 of Pidgin version has Windows features and the latest GTK version has added some more Windows features like menu shadows for win32.
I like the UI revamping from 1.5, especially the Tango-ish icons and smileys and simpler configuration dialogs.
Thanks and Keep up the good work, Pidgin hackers!
I love the new look and feel – it’s so much better than 1.5
Unfortunately the file transfer does not work for YM. Just tried to transfer from/to YM 8.1 with little luck. Also, there is no buzz and the new option “Start doodling” doesn’t work.
I have little use for voice/video/audibles so I don’t mind them not working.
I don’t know about the rest of the protocols, but the Yahoo part still needs some serious love.
/buzz ?
looks excellent.
I love GAIM/Pidgin… best IM client for Windows. But one thing bugs me — the fact that I’ve never been able to figure out how to just show contacts in alphabetical (or sorted by status) order. I hate the fact that Pidgin shows them ordered in groups!! I sorted them into groups years ago and now I can’t find any way to un-sort them.
(Logically, you should be able to just drag them out of the groups and put them back into a single group, but I’ve found that if you do that, the next time you start GAIM, it comes up with a bunch of errors about how they’re in one group on the local PC and another group in the server…)
Wow, they really outdid themselves. I used Gaim for about six months, and honestly, I think it is pretty ugly. Pidgin is much, much better. I actually think it competes now! Works great in Ubuntu, too!
Website is very cool too! Well layed-out!
I’m currently running OSX and Adium but only because it’s the better option in OSX. I don’t like it at all, Pidgin or Kopete are just better.
The significant improvement is imo Finch and the nice logo
http://www.pidgin.im/pidgin/about/
that’s amazing!
So we have finally a great IM Client for Linux (and through adium) for OS X!
amzing work,
congrats!
Seriously, this is crazy. Aftr two years of development there’s no webcam support – something that messenger has been doing since forever, and it’s a major feature for any IM. And no VOIP. That’s why I keep using kopete, even if it’s a memory pig: At least I do have MSN webcam support.
It’s sad that OSS IM’s are in a so poor state. Pidgin however makes me feel like I’m going back to the 90’s
I’ve used Gaim daily for a couple of years, and it’s good. The enhancements to 2.0 over 1.5 are nice. I understand that the devs can only do so much, but I wish that the dev team would have focused on adding voice-chat to Gaim instead of many of the other features. A lack of voice chat means using other clients for voice, and if you have to use another client for voice then you might as well use it for text too rather than have a separate client for that, and then Gaim becomes irrelevant. I’m hoping that now that they have the new design and the plug-in API solid that voice (and video) will soon follow. Otherwise, I don’t think Gaim will remain that relevant in the long term.
I downloaded the official FC6 RPM from the pidgin site.
2.0 is hot. Even better than Trillian in some ways. The GTK+ theme plugin allows changing the theme also.
Edited 2007-05-05 16:08
There is a .deb of it at http://www.getdeb.net
It’s definitely snappier than GAIM on Windows, and seems to work. The only trouble I’ve had is that it won’t get Aspell.