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Trying Pidgin
Feb. 24th, 2016 11:10 pmYears and years ago, way back in the mists of time, J. and I signed up for Yahoo Messenger as a great way to communicate that didn't involve logging onto our MUD first. Yahoo IM was a nice, clean, straightforward program. Then they added weird stuff like "IMvironments" where you could make doodles for each other. Then they added stuff like voice chat and who knows what else, and it got more and more convoluted. They took away more and more handy features, like "away" messages and searchable conversation logs on your own computer. But we stuck with it.
Now Yahoo Messenger isn't even working for J. any more, and apparently you can no longer download the upgraded versions. It's like... it's gone! They seem to have switched over to mobile apps, which I don't even understand, since people who are already carrying phones around can use texting. What about their core audience of PC users?
Facebook messaging is kind of okay, although I distrust their use of my data even more than I distrust a place like Yahoo. Being able to access an ongoing conversation from any device can be useful, but there's a tradeoff with being able to search for things, when you say dozens of things every day. I suppose a person could figure out how to send photos and other files with it, possibly, but I haven't tried yet.
So today we downloaded Pidgin. It seems fine. And it has "away" messages and searchable conversation logs on your own computer. There seems to be a small maximum message size, making it harder to paste stuff to the person you're chatting with, but that's the only downside so far.
My Yahoo buddy list, which was imported over to Pidgin, has so many people who used to be part of my regular online chatting life, but who are doing other things with their time now. Ah well.
Now Yahoo Messenger isn't even working for J. any more, and apparently you can no longer download the upgraded versions. It's like... it's gone! They seem to have switched over to mobile apps, which I don't even understand, since people who are already carrying phones around can use texting. What about their core audience of PC users?
Facebook messaging is kind of okay, although I distrust their use of my data even more than I distrust a place like Yahoo. Being able to access an ongoing conversation from any device can be useful, but there's a tradeoff with being able to search for things, when you say dozens of things every day. I suppose a person could figure out how to send photos and other files with it, possibly, but I haven't tried yet.
So today we downloaded Pidgin. It seems fine. And it has "away" messages and searchable conversation logs on your own computer. There seems to be a small maximum message size, making it harder to paste stuff to the person you're chatting with, but that's the only downside so far.
My Yahoo buddy list, which was imported over to Pidgin, has so many people who used to be part of my regular online chatting life, but who are doing other things with their time now. Ah well.