This may not be that related to video games, but whatever. I am a computer guy at heart, and for more than just video games. So I would like to talk about something else I frequently use my computer for, instant messaging.Pidgin is a great instant messaging client. Up until recently I had been a devoted user of it, and it is still installed on all of my computers. I remember first starting to use it because I was tired of the official AIM programs lameness and ads. Its a great open source program that supports practically every protocol, and even does some stuff with email and social networking. In my opinion, it is like the "Firefox" or instant messaging. Its is a very functional and flexible program. The downside is that, like most open source programs, it lacks in aesthetics and there are occasional errors.

Digsby is not only a great instant messaging client, it is also an email and social networking client of sorts. I recently decided to download it and give it a try with I saw it on someones computer while we were working on a project. Unlike Pidgin, Digsby has those features as primary features instead of add-ons or something like that. I can't think of anything in particular that it does and Pidgin does not do, it just does most of what Pidgin does in a much better way. The more I use Digsby and get used to it, the more I like it.

These two clients may have all the same freatures, but they do not accomplish this in the same manner. Also, for you who still you an official client, you may not even know what these crazy new fangled "features" are. I will try to clear things up a bit, incase you were curious (but mostly because I have nothing better to do).

Multiple Protocols are supported by both clients, and quite nicely I might add. What that means is like AIM, you can use you AOL screen names with it, but unlike AIM you can you nearly any other screen name with it. MSN, Yahoo, and ICQ to name a few are all supported by both just to name a few. Why I really like this is that you can be logged in to all you screennames at once, and all your contacts appear in one list. You can organize this list a ton, you can even group all of a peroson's screenames as one person and just have their name show up in the list. These advantages are the reason why I will never use AIM again.

The differences between the two here are minimal. Pidgin is the only one to support IRC (but who uses that crap anymore anyways?). The organizing of the names in the lsit is identical, but Digsby allows much more customization of how the list look (like pictures and stuff).

Social Networking features are also a part of both applications, although I feel Digsby does much better with them. As you would assume, the main part of this is simply support for the isntant messaging now integrated into both MySpace and Facebook. But there is also support for things like alerts and updating your status or whatever.

I used to have a MySpace but I had not been on it in about 2 years and I recently just decided to delete it, so I do not know much about those features. However, I assume they will not be much different than the Facebook ones. The instant messaging for Pidgin is there, but it is extremely buggy (more so than using the shitty actual Facebook thing). The redeeming part is that you can tie you status to your away message, which can be kinda nifty. Digsby actually has separate feature for Facebook with their own taskbar icon. You can see you feed and all sorts of fun stuff (it has a similar thing for email which support several services but I find rather boring).

Themes control how the program looks. Both program come with an assortment of themes to choose from. Even better, all the themes can be customized. Customization is very big (which is good because I can go crazy making things just the way I want them).

In my opinion, Digsby definitely wins as far as themes are concerned. Not only does it have more of them, but they are also much better than the Pidgin ones. Most of the themes have variants, which do more than just change a couple colors around. I especially like that in Digsby there is a theme for the application itself, and a separate one for the conversations. When you combine all the factors, Digsby has countless different combinations. The main difference between Pidgin and Digsby is the "feel" of their looks. Pidgin has a predominantly Linux feel to it, if that makes any sense. Digsby on the other hand has a much more Windows look, and ever some very Vista looking themes. I know I have gone on about customizing stuff, but it still has to fit the appearance and feel of the operating system(and I of course run Vista).

Again, these two programs are both very good and do basically the same things. I think which one you like will come down to what kinda of computer person you are. You may even hate both of them (but you shouldn't). I do not hate Pidgin or anything now, but it is probably obvious from this post that I am now a big fan of Digsby. I have not yet uninstalled Pidgin but I think I will be using Digsby for some time to come.