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Skype Skype is the most popular VoIP (Voice over IP) application that ever existed. Its name is instantly associated with comprehensive communication possibilities by users from all around the world.
Skype is more than just a tool to make phone calls over the Internet, it’s a complete solution for almost any kind of communication needs.
What made Skype so popular is a combination of advantages, such as the fact that it provides free Skype-to-Skype calls, its interface is easy-to-use, intuitive and accessible even to novices, and the calls have very high quality especially when compared to other similar applications. The high quality of the voice calls provided by Skype is famous, explaining why Skype is also being widely used by gamers despite the fact that Skype is not created specifically for them while a lot of other voice communications tools are. This small paradox is very relevant in illustrating how powerful and highly-appreciated Skype is.
Skype is a powerful and feature-rich application. It also includes support for video calls and instant text messaging, file sharing, group calls and a lot more. It’s also pretty easy-to-use: it lets you easily create your account and edit your profile, add contacts and phone numbers, organize your contacts in easily manageable groups, and enjoy video calls, voice calls or simple text messaging (both instant messaging and SMS messages). Even the options that Skype doesn’t offer for free, such as calling mobiles and landlines worldwide, are very cheap and therefore appealing to anyone. Another great feature of Skype is its compatibility and integration with other popular services (Facebook, Hotmail) and applications (such as MS Office).
There’s no need for a simple reviewer to tell you that Skype is truly worth trying. The fact that Microsoft intends to replace its Windows Live Messenger with the Skype service perfectly shows just how popular, appreciated and useful Skype got to be.
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Viber Viber for Windows lets you send free messages and make free calls to other Viber users, on any device and network, in any country. It syncs your contacts, messages and call history with your mobile device, so you can start the conversation on the Viber mobile application and continue from the comfort of your PC.
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ICQ ICQ is the pioneer of current Internet instant messenger clients. Launched in 1996 - three years earlier than Windows Messenger - it lost popularity against Microsoft’s product, partly because Windows Messenger was included as part of Windows XP, partly because everyone with a Hotmail account was already registered as a Windows Messenger user.
ICQ (a fake acronym for "I Seek You"), now owned by America On Line, revamped its program in order to compete with the other services. You can chat with your contacts and change the font, color and size of the text in the process, or add emoticons and Tzers to your messages (the equivalent of a Wink in WLM). You may also make phone calls using your microphone and your set of speakers, and if you have a webcam installed, you can make it a video call instead, inviting anyone in your contact list. The program also allows you to send free SMS to phones in the Czech Republic, Israel, USA, Russia, Germany or Ukraine.
ICQ also adds a toolbar in your browser, which you can use to search for a term in Google or to access some of your most-often-used sites. It will also add a new starting page in your browser, which you can always choose not to use.
ICQ offers integration with social networks like Facebook, YouTube or Tweeter - you can share your updates with your friends using the ICQ client.
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iSendSMS iSendSMS is intended for sending SMS and MMS from PC to the mobile phones in Russia and CIS. The list of mobile operators supported is on www.isendsms.ru.
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Download iSendSMS Portable
QIP 2012 QIP 2012 is a multiprotocol instant messaging client. It is a closed source freeware program originally developed by Ilgam Zyulkorneev.
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Pidgin If you hate ads, you will find this chat program very useful. I ´m not happy with Messenger and all those annoying and blinking advertising messages and every conversation in a separated window.
Pidgin contains no ads, all the conversations are grouped in tabs in a single window, so no annoying blinking background windows any more. Pidgin lets you log in to accounts on multiple chat networks at the same time. You can be chatting on MSN, Google Talk, or Yahoo simultaneously, now you can have all your friends of MSN and Gtalk grouped together. It can run on every Windows version.
Pidgin is compatible with almost all chat networks and It can support many more with plugins. Every standard feature today in chat networks is supported, such as file transfers, away messages, buddy icons, custom smilies, and typing notifications. Adding messenger emoticons is easy too.
One little advantage worth to mention in Messenger, is that if you are in a LAN network and you want to use MSN to transfer files, Messenger detects the LAN and transfer speed is drastically increased, Pidgin doesn't support this feature, but it's not a problem if you have a FTP server. Also you can't send print screen images directly like in messenger.
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Download Pidgin Portable
ooVoo ooVoo is an audio and video instant messaging client for Windows. It allows you to create a list of friends who use the same system and call them from a Friend list, just like you would with any other messenger.
Both audio and video chats are supported. You can record calls in real time, without exiting them or having to use another application. The video and audio quality is remarkable, and ooVoo provides tips about performance and usage at all times. It constantly scans your CPU usage, so, if it goes over a limit, it will warn you about how that can affect your video quality. There is also a connection speed display, which shows your latency with your friends via green, yellow or red bars. The red bars mean that your connection is slow, and green is good.
But conversations with friends who already have ooVoo are not what interests me the most. ooVoo allows you to give anyone a web link that they can open in Firefox or Safari, and they can place a call to your ooVoo account without even installing the application. Video and audio are supported as well, and the quality is magnificent. You can also send audio and video messages to people's e-mails. If you pay for a subscription, you can chat with up to 6 people simultaneously, and screen sharing is also activated.
In short, ooVoo is full-featured video conferencing tool, and Skype has nothing on it. If this was a little more popular, I can see many users switching to it. The fact that it is supported both in Mac OS X and Windows only makes it better.
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Google Talk Google Talk is an instant messaging and chatting application.
Chatting through the Internet has become popular in the latest years, especially due to the old miRC program that was a state-of-the-art program at that time. Nowadays, there are a lot of competitors out there on the market when it comes to instant messaging.
Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk are just some of the most popular names. Google Talk is also known as Gtalk, Google Talk or Gchat. This is a perfect tool for you to stay in contact with all your friends. Clearly, as its name states, you need a Google account in order to use this product.
You know how hard it is to keep in touch with your family during the holiday season, and is even harder for a military out on the battlefield to communicate with their families. Thanks to the video chat feature you can keep in contact with your family and friends regardless of how far they are. Gtalk is really rich in features. For example, you can chat with a friend, but at the same time, if another friends wants to talk to you as well, you can simply invite them to the chatting room by clicking the "Group Chat" button.
You can use emoticons, set status messages, send files or create voice mails. In case you are not online on Google Talk, and a friend is trying to reach you, the message they wrote to you will be displayed to you as soon as you log in, due to the “history” feature.
Enjoy chatting in a feature-rich, entertaining and effective environment due to this great program called Google Talk.
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Miranda IM Miranda IM is a multi-network instant messenger for Windows. It is a very simple and plain messenger which allows you to add your accounts from the most popular IM services and use them all from within a single application.
Graphically, I would say it resembles ICQ. It even has a couple of ICQ icons here and there. The user interface consists of a main window, which holds your contacts. When you add an account (let's say MSN), the main window will be loaded with your MSN contacts, and when you add more, the same will happen. Unlike the official version of MSN, Miranda does not show any contact pictures by default. All you get is their contact name if they are online or e-mail address if they are offline. This is not entirely bad though. In keeping things simple, Miranda appeals to those who only want to grab a contact and chat. No pictures, no winks, no nothing.
Performance-wise, I noticed that Miranda struggled to load my contacts for the first time, taking up to a full minute to display my online contacts. And I don't even have that many. After I added and deleted accounts a couple of times, traces of my contacts were left on the main screen. Miranda supports MSN, AIM, ICQ, and a few more services. There is still no official support for Facebook or Twitter.
Version 0.8.8 has seen a lot of progress since version 0.7.6.2. The application has gotten several bug fixes and enhancements. New update notification options have been added. The server list options when MSN is not logged-in are now disabled. The contact search in MSN has also been improved. And there have also been upgrades in authentication processes for most IM services.
Download Miranda IM 32-bit
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Download Miranda IM Portable
Digsby Digsby is utility for Instant Messaging exchange, working with e-mails and convenient socializing in social networks. Digsby allows managing multiple conversations with tabbed conversation windows. You can drag tabs out into their own windows for important or urgent conversations.
Digsby client allows whole synchronization of different installations on different computers – you can easily transfer all setups – from interface to default status message. You can place a widget on your blog, website, or social network profile so you can chat with visitors right from digsby.
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Trillian Trillian is today´s most innovative single multi-protocol IM client for communication via the Internet.
Trillian is capable of joining users of ICQ, MSN, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo Messenger, IRC and Google Talk into a single chat space.
Just imagine what this program can do: join users of the most important communication programs and connect you to IRC at the same time.
Besides, Trillian doesn´t try to imitate the interfaces of the above mentioned programs, it has its own one wich has been enhanced version after version. The application adds some more improvements, which the best IRC scripts don´t have, and even in/out logs that ICQ doesn´t have. It also changes the symbols (or smileys) into nice faces automatically.
Trillian automatically imports ICQ contacts by simply specifying the installation folder. Manual import is also possible.
This new Trillian also offers a Google Talk plug-in, that separates it from the Jabber plug-in for having an improved Google Talk support; connectivity with MySpace IM (by popular request); enhanced file transfers, now including multi-file transfers; "Portable" contact list. Now you can have your contacts downloaded from the server, which means that you can run Trillian from any computer and your contact list will always be complete and up-to-date.
These are only a few of the most important trillian features, for further information visit the developer site.
Download Trillian
Nimbuzz Nimbuzz is a multi-chat protocol client that works on most devices available today. It is compatible with all the popular protocols such as Yahoo!, MSN, Facebook and so on. It even supports protocols that are hardly used such as Hyves.
And if this wasn't enough for you, the developers are constantly adding support for other protocols with each new version.
Nimbuzz is useful for people who need to use a lot of chat protocols. Instead of opening multiple applications, just open Nimbuzz, create an account, add the chat protocols you want and you are done. And what's more, Nimbuzz also supports voice calls from Yahoo, MSN, etc.
If you are comfortable with Nimbuzz and do not want to stop using it then you are in luck because Nimbuzz also supports other platforms. You can now chat from your mobile phone, smartphone, etc. You do not even have to create another account while using Nimbuzz on other devices since you can use the same account anywhere.
Add the fact that Nimbuzz is very lightweight and user-friendly and you get a chat client that you will never want to live without again.
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