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Following on the heels of this question I would like to ask, what is the best alternative to Windows Live Messenger? Preferably open source? What is your favorite one?

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make such 'what is the best' questions community wiki, please. – Molly7244 Dec 8 '09 at 17:31
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closed as not constructive by Gareth, Simon Sheehan, Sathya♦ Oct 28 '11 at 11:38

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6 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

Digsby would be my pick.

Besides MSN, it checks your email (gmail), Google Talk, it works for social networks as well, Facebook, Facebook Chat, Twitter.

Digsby

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I still don't trust them after the whole underhand using your PC for computation stuff. – Phoshi Dec 8 '09 at 16:45
@Phosi: it wasn't truly underhanded in that it was a user configurable option. The big issue was that at the time they didn't promote the feature to the users, and it was defaulted to being on. Like many other changes, they were quick to respond to user feedback. – Agent_9191 Dec 8 '09 at 18:01
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Actually, I WOULD still consider it underhand. It was opt-out, not mentioned anywhere except about halfway through the EULA, and the option was hidden away. – Phoshi Dec 8 '09 at 18:35
I checked out Digsby, it seems pretty slick. – 7wp Dec 8 '09 at 18:52
@Phosi. Somethings were opt-out like the ads. But the "computation stuff" was, and is, opt-in. The guys behind Digsby even made it clearer after all the fuss that Lifehacker created by their article. They need to make money somehow, and they never force the user to do anything. It's completely free. I love it. – elvispt Dec 9 '09 at 12:00
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up vote 14 down vote

You could also look at Pidgin, which keeps everything it needs locally: Pidgin

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up vote 4 down vote

I like Miranda-IM, the entirely modular*, fully customisable, cross-protocol open-source chat client.

*Seriously, the contacts list and chat window themselves are modules you can swap out for whatever, as well as all the protocols.

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FYI Miranda-IM is FLOSS. – Broam Dec 8 '09 at 17:15
I did mention in the answer it was open source :) – Phoshi Dec 8 '09 at 17:17
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up vote 4 down vote

You could try these:

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up vote 3 down vote

I would pick Trillian first and would consider Meebo for a web-based alternative.

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up vote 0 down vote

I like emesene, it's pretty slick and have some extra stuff like LastFM integration and some MSN Plus features. It's open source and works both in linux and windows.

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