Best messenger on mac

[Lt Major Burns]

no video chat other than the amazing iChat AV. but that doesn't support msn....

i use Adium. it's the best.

[Veljo]

Mercury does MSN webcam, but I've found it to run extremely slow.

Look, the reality for me is that IM on Macs simply sucks. The only decent IM on Mac is iChat, but face it, if you don't live in America you won't have a strong affiliation with AOL, and if people don't have Macs then chances are your buddy list is going to be pretty empty.

In Australia almost everyone uses MSN Messenger. MSN Messenger 7.0 for PC is absolutely fabulous (apart from it crashing occasionally but that's to be expected). It has so many more features than other IM programs, it's just a shame that Mac doesn't have it. Especially with so many expansions, Messenger Plus!, etc.

So I don't know what I use. I use iChat to speak to ONE person, and MSN Messenger 4.0.1 to talk to everyone else (which sucks complete and utter ass). I've tried aMSN but it's ugly and unstable so I guess I'm really at a loss. For me the Internet experience on a Mac is great, but IM is simply something that I hate to do on a Mac.

It especially annoys me that Apple provides full featured apps to Windows such as iTunes and QuickTime Player (aside from H.264) and Microsoft offers 10% completed programs to Mac users. But what can you do?

[RGrphc2]

Originally Posted by Veljo

It especially annoys me that Apple provides full featured apps to Windows such as iTunes and QuickTime Player (aside from H.264) and Microsoft offers 10% completed programs to Mac users. But what can you do?

Try to convince everyone you know to switch to mac??? I've managed alone about to convert about 10 to 15 people on to mac , i've been trying to convince many people to stay away from AOL but no to no avail

[untz]

I used Fire and then switched to Adium... Definitely the *BEST* chat program on OS X.

[Lt Major Burns]

Adium is the way to go. i see it as better than msn 7. i can have my little display picture, and i do file transfers, speedily, but i can also set adium up a hell of a lot better. the chat windows on mine is so much better designed than the msn one, and my contacts list is now along the side on the right, like a dock, just showing the faces of people online untill i click on it.

and the best thing? it doesn't have all the childish crap in msn 7

i don't want to be nudged

or winked

i don't want to see the other person (it kills conversation)

i don't want their gratuitous custom smiley usage plastered all over my conversation. it's irritating, and just gimmicky

best of all - no adverts msn 7 is so stuffed with links to other websites it's painful. adware from the maker :P

[Damrod]

Originally Posted by Lt Major Burns

the chat windows on mine is so much better designed than the msn one, and my contacts list is now along the side on the right, like a dock, just showing the faces of people online untill i click on it.

That sounds really interesting... May I ask how you have configured your contact list style so that it appears that way? I'm looking for an alternative to the Mockie/3-Tone-Coloring style, but have not yet found a suiting one.

[sirstaunch]

Originally Posted by AdmiralAK

is there a messenger out there that does the MSN thing but also offers the video functions of MSN ?

There is some trick through iChat, look on this forum for ichat.

But funny aye, a friend sent me a screen shot of her MSN chat (windogs of course), was taking up about 85% of her screen. I sent her a screen shot of Adium and set as 50% transparent on my screen, she was shocked

[Veljo]

Don't worry, I'm still 100% pro Mac :P

Adium looks and sounds very very interesting. It's downloading as we speak. I will post what I think when it's done.