AIM vs Adium or other chat clients

With my powerbook coming on friday one of the first things I will do is install a chat client thats compatible with my AIM account. However I have come to realize that there are so many different choices for Macs. I have heard that AIM for mac has its crashing problems being that it is a carbon based app (i really dont understand wut that means in all honesty, its just what ive read). However with that asside, how do the PC and mac versions of AIM compare, and if i chose something else like adium or even just stuck with iChat, would i be missing out on any of the features from the PC AIM that ive been so used for almost 10 years now?

Before I got my powerbook I thought the same thing. Ive used adium and its pretty cool, but I could not stand the stupid duck sound it makes when you get or send an IM, you might be able to turn that off but I couldnt figure out. AIM for mac is total crap, nothing more to be said about that. In all honesty, just stick with iChat, it frustrated me at first, but once I got used to it then it was fine. You can customize it to make it look a little more like AIM: making peoples screen names show up instead of their buddy icon, getting rid of the bubbles, etc. The coolest thing about iChat is that you can format the incoming text so you dont have to deal with all those small hard to read fonts.

I would say when you get your powerbook, just stick with iChat for a while and get used to it. Then if you really dont like it, try something else.

I use Adium and am very happy with it. You can change the sounds just go to Preferences>events.

will AIM profiles still come through correctly through different clients, and will mine come in correctly for AIM users as well??

If you just want to use AOL's system, then yeah just use iChat. Adium and Proteus's power comes from the ability to add MSN, AIM, ICQ, Jabber, Yahoo etc accounts and not just AIM and ICQ like iChat does.

Yep your profile should remain.

would it be possible to transfer my saved AIM buddy list from my PC over to my powerbook and open it in iChat, or will I be manually typing in all of my buddies tonight when I get home. (i just got a call from my younger brother, my Powerbook JUST arrived minutes ago!!!!!!)

I have used Adium for months and never thought about changing back. I also have Proteus installed for my other MSN accounts.

Your buddy list is automatically retained so you don't have to do anything

AIM is good I really didn't have a problem with it. But i do have a problem with adium and file transfers! wont even connect and crashes still. But i use it because it is small and blends in with the background easily so i dont even have to look at it till someone talks to me.

i love how adium logs all your conversations automatically. I emailed some to my girlfriend when we first started dating and had alot of laughs. Adium is the way to go IMO.

...and lets not forget AMSN if you want to video chat with your MSN user friends... ;-)

cheers - pistooli

PS. I am using AdiumX most of the time, though...

adiumadiumadiumadiumadiumadiumadiumadiumadiumadiumadiumadiumadiumadium

Ok so i decided to try iChat and then try adium. So far adium is winning.

Because i got home so late last night and had to be at work by 7:30 this morning I hadnt that that much time to poke around, but from wut I saw for wut was maybe 5 seconds...is there no way to edit fonts or add hyperlinks in your profile? Sorry if I missed something thats obvious I just didnt see anything to do it with.

i just switched to adium and i would like to know if it was possible to see my friends who are offline. On msn i can see my offline friends.. is it possible on adium?

look in view...
the hot key is up,apple key,"h"

okay..saw it.. kewl
tnx

I really like adium, my only qualm is that it doesn't do organization very well.