Triton, You Must Be Joking.

I absolutely despise Triton. Why? Bundled ads, unstable operation, and an annoying user interface. I had one friend try to convince me that the interface wasn't really that bad, but after trying a few different clients I have no doubt in my mind that Triton is a pain to use and not worth your time, plain and simple.

Try Googling "Triton sucks" and see what comes up. First of all, the menus are confusing as heck to configure. Why did they change the layout? Using the old AIM was easy! Suddenly everything is relabled and in different locations. Second of all, I, along with a bunch of other folks, possibly including yourself, could not add an IM buddy icon without the program freezing up and quitting on me! What's up with that?! The ads of course are just unacceptable. AOL's program is now synonymous with spyware, adware, malware, etc.

So what's a person to do? Well, you could use something called AIM Ad-Hack. This is certainly an option if you would like to stick with the traditional AIM interface. One thing to note is that you'll have to download an older version if you want the traditional interface, namely version 4.14. If you must insist on using the Triton interface, they have hacked a version of that (to get rid of the ads, hence Ad-Hack, get it?) in version 5.0 Beta 24. I had the same problems trying to get a buddy icon using that version as well as the official Triton, so my advice is stay away. I used 4.14 for quite some time and had relatively few problems with it. However, I did run into some trouble trying to send files through the transfer option. And besides, there's something better out there...

Trillian is the best IM client I have ever used, period. Easy to use interface, support for multiple account profiles and connections, a huge library of emoticons with sound (but you'll only hear them if you and your friend are using Trillian), a very simple and user friendly interface, and a stable track record to boot.




Setting up Trillian is easy. If you already have an account on AIM or ICQ or whatever, all you have to do is put your information into the proper boxes. Once you've done that, you'll have an identities and connections screen to manage all your IM connections on any service. You can also change the look and feel of the client to suit your tastes.



Another cool feature of Trillian is the built in Wikipedia feature. You don't even have to do anything to activate this. Let's say you're having a conversation with a really brainy friend who likes to use big words, like anthropomorphism. See how that's a link that you can click? I had to set that up manually as I was writing todays article. In Trillian, the word would be automatically looked up and linked, without anyone doing anything. Then, just hover your mouse over the word to see what it means. No more Mr. Smarty Pants telling you how you live a sheltered life or need to read more books!

Anyway there's a quick overview of the best IM client available to date. Give it a try and tell me what you think.