Reliable multiprotocol IM?
... with a wild crash, Pidgin fell again.
You ask - why with a wild crash? Well, yes, why fell, everyone understands. Eh ... The crash is a sound that is played by the script that launches pidgin after pidgin is released. Something like: “pidgin; play roar.mp3 ". Well, how else? Without this, while working in one virtual desktop, I don’t even know that pidgin fell again in another.
Interestingly, in nature there is generally a reliable multi-protocol IM for Linux?
As a freelancer, I need to communicate with different customers, and they may have very different IMs. The minimum list of required protocols includes: AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and Jabber. Keep a zoo different IM-clients for different protocols - excluded. There are only two options left: either use a multi-protocol IM client, or use a Jabber client with transports to other protocols.
')
I did not try to use jabber transports, because heard little good about the stability of their work. As a result, the impression was formed that they are suitable only in conditions where the main communication goes to jabber, and other protocols are needed occasionally, and their use is not critical - if they are not working now, then there is an opportunity to do without them for several hours / days.
The list of multi-protocol IM clients for Linux, according to the article “Comparison of instant messengers” , is rather short: CenterICQ , Pidgin , SIM , Kopete .
Statistics recommendations on Habré are quite interesting: despite the fact that they like to scold Windows on Habré, Linux IM clients occupy the 6th (Pidgin), 10th (Kopete) and 11th (SIM) places. Moreover, Pidgin leads relative to Kopete and SIM with, respectively, 3 and 4-fold margin.
I used CenterICQ for a very long time, and I was completely satisfied. Yes, the interface is not delightful, but a convenient console interface for the IM client is not so simple. But stable work and the ability to run in ssh-session completely redeemed the flaws of the interface. Unfortunately, the development of CenterICQ has been discontinued, and the latest version has security issues, so RIP CenterICQ. By the way, CenterICQ has a fork: CenterIM . In Gentoo, while all its versions are labeled as “unstable”, the project is still young, let's see what happens.
When I was looking for an IM client instead of CenterICQ, I looked at SIM and Pidgin (at that time it was called Gaim). The SIM was dropped very quickly: it “fell” several times during the first hour of use. Gaim also sometimes fell, though, usually when trying to manage a list of contacts. So, having once set up a list of contacts, and not touching it in the future without need, I got a fairly stable and convenient IM client.
Unfortunately, Gaim was, apparently, quite strongly changed / rewritten between versions 1.5.x and 2.xx. This interface definitely benefited, and it stopped falling when managing the contact list. But, unfortunately, instead, he began to fall while receiving some packets over the network. Which is much worse! Worse because, firstly, it now falls “by itself”, and secondly, such errors are usually security holes. The correction of these errors is reported in ChangeLog of each new version of Pidgin, but it continues to fall.
A few hours ago I upgraded to Pidgin 2.2.2. So far - normal flight. But I had the stupidity of looking into his bugtracker, and I found two facts that greatly upset me: firstly, there are quite a few open bug reports about 2.2.2, and secondly, the developers of pidgin mark “minor” about bug reports. These facts, together with the incessant falls over several versions, suggest that it will most likely fall for a very long time. :(
In this regard, I have a question: can you advise me another multi-protocol IM client that works reliably, does not fall and does not have a bad history in terms of security problems? Alternatively, perhaps my impression of the unreliability of jabber transports is not true? Then please advise a reliable jabber server supporting all the protocols / transports I need and a reliable jabber client for Linux.
You ask - why with a wild crash? Well, yes, why fell, everyone understands. Eh ... The crash is a sound that is played by the script that launches pidgin after pidgin is released. Something like: “pidgin; play roar.mp3 ". Well, how else? Without this, while working in one virtual desktop, I don’t even know that pidgin fell again in another.
Interestingly, in nature there is generally a reliable multi-protocol IM for Linux?
As a freelancer, I need to communicate with different customers, and they may have very different IMs. The minimum list of required protocols includes: AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and Jabber. Keep a zoo different IM-clients for different protocols - excluded. There are only two options left: either use a multi-protocol IM client, or use a Jabber client with transports to other protocols.
')
I did not try to use jabber transports, because heard little good about the stability of their work. As a result, the impression was formed that they are suitable only in conditions where the main communication goes to jabber, and other protocols are needed occasionally, and their use is not critical - if they are not working now, then there is an opportunity to do without them for several hours / days.
The list of multi-protocol IM clients for Linux, according to the article “Comparison of instant messengers” , is rather short: CenterICQ , Pidgin , SIM , Kopete .
Statistics recommendations on Habré are quite interesting: despite the fact that they like to scold Windows on Habré, Linux IM clients occupy the 6th (Pidgin), 10th (Kopete) and 11th (SIM) places. Moreover, Pidgin leads relative to Kopete and SIM with, respectively, 3 and 4-fold margin.
I used CenterICQ for a very long time, and I was completely satisfied. Yes, the interface is not delightful, but a convenient console interface for the IM client is not so simple. But stable work and the ability to run in ssh-session completely redeemed the flaws of the interface. Unfortunately, the development of CenterICQ has been discontinued, and the latest version has security issues, so RIP CenterICQ. By the way, CenterICQ has a fork: CenterIM . In Gentoo, while all its versions are labeled as “unstable”, the project is still young, let's see what happens.
When I was looking for an IM client instead of CenterICQ, I looked at SIM and Pidgin (at that time it was called Gaim). The SIM was dropped very quickly: it “fell” several times during the first hour of use. Gaim also sometimes fell, though, usually when trying to manage a list of contacts. So, having once set up a list of contacts, and not touching it in the future without need, I got a fairly stable and convenient IM client.
Unfortunately, Gaim was, apparently, quite strongly changed / rewritten between versions 1.5.x and 2.xx. This interface definitely benefited, and it stopped falling when managing the contact list. But, unfortunately, instead, he began to fall while receiving some packets over the network. Which is much worse! Worse because, firstly, it now falls “by itself”, and secondly, such errors are usually security holes. The correction of these errors is reported in ChangeLog of each new version of Pidgin, but it continues to fall.
A few hours ago I upgraded to Pidgin 2.2.2. So far - normal flight. But I had the stupidity of looking into his bugtracker, and I found two facts that greatly upset me: firstly, there are quite a few open bug reports about 2.2.2, and secondly, the developers of pidgin mark “minor” about bug reports. These facts, together with the incessant falls over several versions, suggest that it will most likely fall for a very long time. :(
In this regard, I have a question: can you advise me another multi-protocol IM client that works reliably, does not fall and does not have a bad history in terms of security problems? Alternatively, perhaps my impression of the unreliability of jabber transports is not true? Then please advise a reliable jabber server supporting all the protocols / transports I need and a reliable jabber client for Linux.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/16673/
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