Cerulean Studios Trillian Basic

Of course, the list of all of your contacts from your different IM accounts may be terribly long. But Trillian color-codes your contacts and makes it easy to find them with a quick scan: Beside each buddy's name, you'll see a yellow, red, blue, or green circle, corresponding to AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, and ICQ, respectively.

Basic text messaging in Trillian was smooth and efficient. Right above the text field are some tools you can use on the fly--text size and color, underlining, and URL formatting--along with a link to an alarmingly large number of emoticons. A unique bonus: Trillian integrates your text messaging with Wikipedia look-ups. Simply hover your cursor over a term that Trillian underlines, and up pops a separate window containing Wikipedia's entry on the item.

Trillian's tabbed window arrangement makes it easy for you to stay on top of different conversations across multiple networks. You'll find prominent buttons for Audio and Send File (among others) at the top of the messaging window. Click the History button to view a log of your text messages with that particular buddy in Microsoft's Notepad app or in your favorite text editor.

When my editor and I tried to use Trillian's voice chat, we couldn't get it to work. Every attempt to talk using our MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, and AIM accounts resulted in either an error message or a "nothing happening" situation.

Conspicuously absent from Trillian Basic's repertoire--compared to other IM programs we've reviewed lately--is video functionality. To get video chat, you have to upgrade to Trillian Pro and cough up $25. The Pro version also gives you advanced history viewing options, Jabber connectivity, plug-ins, RSS support, and animated emoticons.

Upshot: Consider using Trillian Basic as your hub for centralized IM communications--as long as you don't need a video chat capability.

Aoife M. McEvoy