Multiprotocol instant messaging application

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A multiprotocol instant messaging application is client software comprised of an IM application which may connect to multiple IM networks. The networks supported include: AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ, Jabber (including Google Talk, Gizmo, and other Jabber-based networks), MSN Messenger, QQ, Yahoo! Messenger, as well as specialized networks such as Novell GroupWise and Zephyr. Some provide an IM interface to IRC.

The major ad-supported IM networks have at times moved to block multi-protocol clients through rapid small changes to their protocols. At one stage, the Trillian developers made new releases every few days to restore access, as AOL attempted to discourage use of the third-party clients. As of June 2006, there have been no publicized attempts to block multi-protocol clients for over two years.

Jabber itself provides an alternative to directly managing each IM account through the multi-protocol client: IM gateways, or transports. Using transports, connections to the closed IM networks are handled by a gateway on the users Jabber server, while Jabber users talk to each other directly. This seems to function well for users running a private Jabber server, but large public Jabber servers sometimes become the subject of IP blocks from the large networks, or are not able to handle the high load. On the other hand, using a Jabber transport brings several advantages, both for the end user and the programmer of the client: less complexity on the client level, possibility to log in with multiple clients (e.g. mobile phone and computer) to the same account, lower chance for security and privacy risks for the end user thanks to the use of only one connection that can be secured to the Internet and thanks to the fact that people will not know your IP, possibility to archive messages on the Jabber server (as easy as normal Jabber messages) to comply with regulations such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, amongst others.

Contents

[edit] Examples

[edit] Protocol support

[edit] Single protocol clients

Many IRC-only clients are listed at Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients

[edit] Jabber Clients without any multi-protocol transports

[edit] Jabber Clients using server-side multi-protocol transports

[edit] Multiprotocol clients

Information on the instant messaging protocols that each client supports.

Supported Protocols WLM
(formerly MSN)		 Y!M AIM ICQ XMPP
(Google Talk, Jabber, etc.)		 IRC IBM Lotus Sametime Novell GroupWise Messenger Bonjour
(formerly Rendezvous)		 Gadu-Gadu QQ OTR LAN Xfire Skype MySpaceIM Facebook LiveJournal Others
Adium 17 Partial16 Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial11 Yes Yes Partial10 Yes Yes Yes No With plugin With plugin4 Yes Yes Yes MobileMe, Yahoo! Japan, Zephyr, NateOn, Tlen
AIM 02 No No Yes Yes No No No No No No No With proxy No No No No No No No
Ayttm 03 Yes Yes Partial6 Partial6 Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Beejive 07 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No Yes No No No
bhsIM 07 Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No NateOn
BitlBee 05 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Indirect25 No No No No No With plugin20 No No With plugin28 No No No No
Carrier (formerly Funpidgin) 11 Partial16 Yes Yes Yes Partial15 Yes Yes Yes Partial10 Yes Yes With plugin1 No Yes No No No No SILC, Zephyr, Blizzard Battle-Net Chat (with plugins)
Centericq 06 Yes Yes Partial6 Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
climm 02 No No Partial12 Yes Partial13 No No No No No No Yes No No No No No No No
Digsby 07 Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial26 No No No No No No No No No No Yes Yes No No
eBuddy 07 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No Yes Yes No No
Eyeball Chat 05 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Fire 06 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Partial10 No No No No No No No No No No
IBM Lotus Sametime 05 No Yes18 Yes18 No Yes18 No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No SIP
iChat 04 No No Yes No Yes No No No Yes No No No No No No No No No MobileMe
ICQ 02 No No Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
imeem 04 Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No No No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
IMVU 06 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No IMVU
Instan-t 06 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No instan-t
Instantbird 08 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No Yes Yes No No No No No No No No
Jabberwocky 04 Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
JClaim 08 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No SMS, Nate, Yahoo! Japan
Kopete 012 Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial15 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No With plugin4 (deprecated) No No No WinPopup
Licq 03 Yes No Yes Yes No No No No No No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
MECA Messenger 05 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
meebo 05 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No Yes Yes Partial (via Jabber) No
Meetro 04 Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Miranda IM 15 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes Yes With plugin21 Yes Yes5 Yes With plugin4 Yes No No Tlen, Chat5
mundu messenger 07 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Naim 03 No No Yes Partial No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No Lily
Nimbuzz 12 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No Yes No No No No Partial27 Yes Yes No StudiVZ, SchülerVZ, Hyves
ooVoo 01 No No No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
OpenWengo 06 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No SIP
Palringo 06 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No Yes No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Paltalk 03 No Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Pidgin (formerly Gaim) 012 Partial16 Partial23 Yes Partial24 Partial15 Yes Yes Yes Partial10 Yes Yes With plugin1 No Yes With plugin4,19 Yes With plugin22 No Blizzard Battle-Net Chat, NateOn, SILC, Tlen, Zephyr (with plugins)
Pivot 02 No Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
PlayXpert 07 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No Yes No No No No Sony Station Friends
pork 02 No No Yes No No Yes No No No No No No ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Proteus 08 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Partial9 Yes No With proxy No No No No No No Yahoo! Japan
QIP 02 No No Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
QIP Infium 06 No No Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No Yes Mail.ru Agent, Euroset, Phoning
Qnext 06 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No Qnext
Sim-IM 06 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No Yes No
talk 02 No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No ntalk, ytalk
Trillian Basic 05 Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Trillian Pro 06 Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial14, 15 Yes With plugin1 Yes Partial10 With plugin1 With plugin1 With plugin1 No With plugin Partial4 No No No No
Trillian Astra 011 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes14, 15 Yes Yes Yes Yes With plugin1 With plugin1 No No Yes Partial4 Yes Yes No ASTRA
VoxOx 07 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No Yes Yes No
Windows Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger) 02 Yes Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No
Windows Messenger 03 Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No No SIP, EIM
Yahoo! Messenger 03 Yes17 Yes No No No No Yes No No No No No No No No No No No No
Supported Protocols WLM
(formerly MSN)		 Y!M AIM ICQ XMPP
(Google Talk, Jabber, etc.)		 IRC IBM Lotus Sametime Novell GroupWise Messenger Bonjour
(formerly Rendezvous)		 Gadu-Gadu QQ OTR LAN Xfire Skype MySpaceIM Facebook LiveJournal Others

Note 1: Plugin available [1]

Note 2: Plugin available

Note 3: Interoperability with proprietary protocols can be achieved using server-side gateways (so-called transports) in Jabber.

Note 4: Plugin available, but requires installed and running Skype.

Note 5: LAN and chat protocols supported for Miranda include NetSend, WinPopup, Novell Netware NCP, BattleNet, Vypress Chat, Quick Chat, and Walla Chat.

Note 6: Uses the AIM TOC2 protocol, which has fewer features than the Oscar protocol the official client uses. An Oscar plugin is available, but is still in early development.

Note 7: Plugin available [2]

Note 8: Can only enter one ICQ/AOL IM account, so users who have both an ICQ number and an AOL IM account name, can't use both.

Note 9: Text-based messaging only; does not support Bonjour/iChat's audio IM functionality.

Note 10: Probably text-based messaging only, without support for Bonjour/iChat's audio IM functionality.

Note 11: Only trunk builds of Adium have IRC support, which is very limited.

Note 12: AIM interoperability: can send/receive to AIM from an ICQ account.

Note 13: The support is optional. It currently isn't feature-complete, but basic operations should be fine.

Note 14: Claims to be supported, though frequently fails to receive or deliver messages, and tends to crash when receiving multiuser chat invites or file transfer requests.

Note 15: Feature incomplete. Lacks service discovery and transport support, making user search, multiuser chat, connections to other IM networks via XMPP difficult or impossible.

Note 16: Yahoo! Messenger interoperability (some bugs): can send/receive to Yahoo! Messenger from a Windows Live Messenger on-line account. No audio or video support as of yet.

Note 17: Windows Live Messenger interoperability: can always send/receive to Windows Live Messenger from a Yahoo! Messenger account.

Note 18: Using IBM Sametime Gateway you can establish a server to server communication to other IM communities. [3]

Note 19: With plug-in, requires Skype to be running. [4]

Note 20: See post 2008-02-19 02:39 at http://bugs.bitlbee.org/bitlbee/ticket/115#comment:25

Note 21: With using third-party plug-in "MirandaQQ" developed by Stark Wong from Hong Kong. [5]

Note 22: Facebook Chat plugin for Pidgin

Note 23: No audio or video, and generally poor support for anything beyond the very basic in the protocol. So there is chat and smileys, but no Photo Album Sharing, SMS and the rest. Also, although the oficial client does have the ability to embed the communication through HTTP there is no such option for Gaim.

Note 24: among others, the privacy settings are not working Note 24: Access is denied in the Yahoo network as it uses a deprecated protocol.

Note 25: Bitlbee does not provide access to IRC. Instead users connect to it as if it were an IRC server so Bitlbee and IRC will both be used from the same IRC client.

Note 26: Digsby does not support XMPP conferences.

Note 27: Nimbuzz does not support skype on the PC clients. Source: http://forum.nimbuzz.com/index.php?action=vthread&forum=11&topic=406

Note 28: Plugin available [6]

[edit] See also

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