Chat online with Instantbird

There are lots of instant-messaging services around and it's very common to end up with lots of friends spread out over several networks.

Instantbird is a messaging program that can be used with a wide variety of messaging sites. Not only does this keep life simple, but it avoids running lots of different programs on a computer that all basically do the same thing.

Installation is simple and it will automatically offer to add an account. Our first account was AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and we were pleased to see that it only asks for username and password, hiding all of the advanced settings unless you ask for them.

The Accounts window stays open so you can add more accounts and it also tells you how long it has been connected to that account.

There is a good range of supported networks including: AIM, Facebook Chat, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, MSN, MySpaceIM and Twitter. There is an option to get more accounts for the software, though only one more is currently available.

The Contacts list is unobtrusive with a chat icon to talk to friends with a single click.

The chat window will check your spelling and replace text emoticons with graphics but we couldn't find out how to add these through a menu as Pidgin does.