Egads! Complicated! It was Steve L. who put it on here. I guess I should have asked for more details. Does it work with yahoo? Because that (and gmail, I supposed) are the only IM thingies I've used.

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Yep, it definitely works with Yahoo. Here's the website with list of services if you're interested:
http://www.pidgin.im/

Also, here's the FAQ so you can learn more about how it works:
http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/FAQ

(I kind of suspected Steve might be the culprit here. ::sigh:: I end up explaining his installation decisions to alot of people. ;-) )

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Oy, really? He helped me when my laptop went kablooie. Is this something I shouldn't have on my computer? I don't IM much anymore, except now and then through gmail.

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Steve is great. :) I didn't mean to sound critical (or maybe I did...hmm). It's just that he, like many techies, has a bad habit of doing things to a person's computer "for their own good" without explaining to them why or what to expect or why it's better (or how to go back to their way if they decide they don't like the new thingie). I'm not fond of that approach.

Pidgin is a lovely IM client, and using it is MUCH better than using AIM. But, if your IM usage is mainly confined to Gmail's IMming, I'd say to take Pidgin out of your startup (and I can help with how to do so if needed) and just run it when/if you want to talk to someone on AIM. There's no sense in running it (or anything) all the time if you're not really using it.

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