After being an internet nerd for several years now I've used multiple IM (instant messaging) clients over the years. Over the past few years I have used Trillian due to being able to load multiple clients and chat with people without having to micro manage each individual client. Recently, a friend at work and I were having a conversation about this topic since my Trillian stopped working correctly at work for some reason. He brought up that he has used an application called Miranda for several years and loves it... so I figured I would give it a try.

"Miranda IM is a multi-protocol instant messaging client for Windows. Very light on system resources and extremely fast, Miranda IM requires no installation and can be made to fit on a single floppy disk or USB drive. Featuring a powerful plugin-based framework and boasting over 350 plugins, Miranda IM is one of the most flexible and customisable messaging clients on the planet." - Miranda-im.org

I've been watching the footprint in Windows XP SP-2 for a while now and the app hasn't jumped over 7Mb yet. It seems to constantly recycle memory to keep the footprint as low as it can. I've seen it drop as low as 300k... and I'm currently running 4 of the offered clients with a few conversations running.

Here are some (not all) of the pre-installed service:

  • AIM (AOL Instant Messenger)
  • Gadu-Gadu
  • IAX (Inter-Asterisk Exchange)
  • ICQ
  • IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
  • Jabber
  • MSN
  • Netsend
  • Tlen
  • Yahoo

Get your copy here: http://www.miranda-im.org/download/

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