AIM or MSN?

The title says it all, whats the better option AIM or MSN in your eyes?

Jason.

Neither. I use Skype. If I really need to talk to someone on another network, I use Miranda IM.

If I had to chose one (like say at gunpoint) it'd be AIM, the MSN clients have significant performance and stability issues on my system.

MSN!

Skype all the way for IM/Phone

I don't get the popularity of Skype. The voice quality is horrible, even with just two people. MSN may not be ( ok, isn't ) particularly stable or gentle on performance, but I'd rather have to reconnect once an hour than hear all the sharp tones, feedback and breaking up that Skype has.

I use GAIM. AIM is bloated and laggy

Trillian here, I just like it's interface/default skin better.
(that and the benefit of having all them damned IMs under one app)

It's worked well enough here on the few limited occasions I've had to use it. I mostly use it for instant messaging. My reasons are it gets good performance, it's non-intrusive, and it doesn't have embedded advertising.

yeah... the ads in AIM really blow.. and the new version has a lot of really bothersome features.. I've been meaning to switch to something else that will use my AIM contacts..

But when I used other clients a few years ago it lost half my contacts and then when I went back to AIM ... I didn't get them back.

MSN is purtier than the rest.

I use Trillian so it doesn't matter so much who's on what at the other end, but if I'm picking a single IM to use within that I always pick ICQ - it's served me well in the past, and the ability to send messages to offline contacts and have them receive when they come online (rather than just having the message disappear into the ether) is a major plus.

Adium X here,

Do-it-all client for OSX. I don't care what network someone is on as I can talk to them all from that one all.

I used to use Trillian on the PC for the same reason.

Skype for voice/video, Trillian for chat (as it has AIM/MSN and something else)

AIM, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo! and IRC.

It's fairly dependend on your internet connection. Personally I've never had any problems with it.

(I use Skype as my main IM program, both for webcam/voice calls, but also just for plain vanilla text chats.)

I'm sure that AIM and MSN are 'capable' too, but MS's habit of integrating their junk too deep with the OS and AOL's history of screwing with OS settings they shouldn't even be close to means I don't even consider either one unless there are no viable alternatives available at all.

Msn has given me less grief in the past. It's my pick.

(Has anyone here successfully used Irc? I installed and
logged on a few days ago to see what it was like - a few
people were logged on but no one saying anything - all
channels were completely dead, what's up with that?)

That sounds like IRC alright, heh. Guess things haven't changed much in the years since I've been on there.

Get trillian for pc (or gaim for linux mabe windows too) then you can connect to all of them with one client.

Skype is horrible.
MSN is flakey
AIM is too ad ridden
ICQ is just to out of date (and bot infested)
Trillian will never be completely stable


For me it's MSN on occasion, but most of all GAIM (for sametime (work), AOL, ICQ, MSN, YIM, etc)..

skype is really good for AV calls (better in my exp. than msn)

One major detail that we're overlooking here is the difference between something like MSN and something like IRC. In Msn,
you chat with only the people you add to your list, with irc, it's more of an open chatroom-type of environment with any
random stranger with similar interests.

What chat program is more like the latter? (And is populated) Anyone know of a good one?

I use Gaim here, and the MSN protocol. I don't really want to use the MSN protocol, but alas it is the most popular.
Gaim 2 with the right plugins is awesome! Just yesterday I moved my contacts from my old account to a new one completely painlessly, which is something the normal MSN client doesn't offer :)

iChat!!!