Pidgin

Thanks to ZDNet and Pidgin for screenshots.

Do you use MSN Messenger? Google Talk? ICQ or Yahoo! Messenger? All those logins can be hard to remember, and all the software is taking up lots of room on your computer. [Drum roll] Ta-Da! Introducing Pidgin 2.0. Pidgin 2.0 was previously known as Gaim, and because its a bit like AIM they were sued by AOL, thus the name change. Anyway Pidgin is a small, custoomiseable program that allows you to login to nearly ALL your chat accounts and you can use most of the features the stand-alone versions too. As an added bonus its available cross platform and is totally free.
Pidgin for windows is 10.9mb and lets you log into your AIM, ICQ, Jabber/XMPP (includes Google Talk), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, and Zephyr accounts simultaneously and chat with friends on all the networks.


Considering Windows Live Messenger ranges from 17.2 to 35.2mb and Yahoo Messenger and ICQ are around the 10mb mark 10.9 mb is not bad for cross-compatibility.

I give Pidgin a 7/10. Losing out because of the lack of non-essential features such as no video support but other than that its great.

Smilie packs and themes are also available for download and finch the text based equivilant od Pidgin can be downloaded from the following links.

External Links
Pidgin Home: Here
Pidgin Download Page: Here
Smilies: Here
Finch: Here
Pidgin Plug-Ins: Here
Source Code: Here