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1. Alex 10.29.07 / 11pm

   The only time I use iChat is when I want to do a video chat. Adium seems to beat iChat at everything, including customization, keeping multiple accounts in one buddy list (rather than 3… seriously Apple, what the hell?) and basic preferences such as overwriting everyone’s buddy icon with their Address Book pictures. I wish Apple had opened up a video chat API so Adium could have integrated it and used it. Then I would have the perfect IM client…
2. Jeff Harrell 10.30.07 / 12am

   Just to point-counterpoint things here, I wouldn’t switch from iChat to Adium if you paid me. I used Adium for a while last year, when there was a mysterious and ultimately transient problem that prevented iChat from talking to Google’s server through my office firewall. I would no sooner go back than I’d just wipe all my hard drives and give up on computers forever.

   Adium’s ugly as sin, overwhelmingly complex and, in my experience last year, depressingly unstable. The depressingly-unstable part is hopefully untrue now, but as far as I can tell, the ugly and complicated remain.

   Does Adium still crash when an iChat user drags a picture into the chat? That used to drive a friend of mine nuts; I was crashing his Adium ten or twelve times a day.

   Yes, I can see the virtue of having one list of contacts, but it’s just not an issue to me. I have no particular opinion one way or the other.

   Admittedly, Adium does have one feature I liked quite a lot: When a new chat window popped up, the last few lines from the previous conversation with that person appeared in the window. That was sometimes handy. I wouldn’t complain if iChat did that.

   But that one little nicety did not, for me, outweigh the sheer malaise I felt from having to stare at that ass-ugly program all day long.

   Reasonable people may, of course, differ on that point.
3. Manton Reece 10.30.07 / 12am

   I’ve used Adium for years and love it (the Adium developers have done a great job with the relatively-closed AIM platform), but iChat 3 has resolved my bigger gripes with the UI. The more reliable file transfer, audio/video support, and screen sharing stuff make it an easy choice for me to just finally use iChat.
4. kemuri 10.30.07 / 3am

   Adium. It’s beautiful, never crashes, keeps nice logs, supports growl, supports msn/gtalk (i don’t use aim), it’s simple to use, and you can customize to your needs. Beats iChat imho.
5. Albert 10.30.07 / 11am

   Sadly, there are just enough people I want to keep in contact with who only use YIM that iChat only is not really an option for me. If iChat enabled YIM too, it would be a serious contender.
6. John Gruber 10.30.07 / 5pm

   iChat 3 FTW. I don’t use any networks other than AIM, and Adium still can’t do file transfers reliably. Not even a close call for me.
7. Chris Adams 11.4.07 / 6pm

   Adium: while there are geeky features like OTR, the main iChat deal-breaker is the incredibly wasteful UI: I need to keep three windows open to see all of my contacts, the Menu icon only lists one of three services at a time, they persist in displaying emptry groups in the lists, etc. Adium’s auto-resize and screen-edge anchoring do the job better using about 20% of the screen real-estate.
8. Travis Jeffery 11.13.07 / 3am

   I use Adium simply because it supports MSN’s protocol which everyone I IM with uses.
9. Alan 12.19.07 / 10pm

   I agree that some protocol-specific clients manage video chats or drag-n-drop file xfers better than Adium, but I prefer Adium because
   (a) it speaks _all_ the IM protocols and I have friends & family using all of them;
   (b) create meta-contacts for friends that have multiple IM handles (like me);
   (c) keep track of IM logs easily by date and/or contact;
   (d) I can tailor the notifications easily (text-to-voice on/off);
   (e) it is very stable — having never crashed in the last year.

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