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Top instant messengers compared

Robert Vamosi CNET

Published: 31 Aug 2004

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Multitasking: these days, it's a necessary part of any job and of daily life. So the ability to have a phone conversation while sending several instant messages simultaneously can sometimes make or break a business deal -- or your date for Friday night. Instant messaging is fast, convenient, and -- dare we say -- entertaining, whether you use it at work, at home, at school, on the go, or even on your mobile phone.

We looked at four leading instant messenger (IM) clients: AOL AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger. All are free, although AOL and MSN offer additional features for a price. All are primarily geared toward casual Internet use (AOL AIM offers several business-related features as add-ons) but work acceptably in an office environment as well. In our reviews, we examined these programs' strengths and weaknesses with regard to setup and interface, feature set and customer service.

Unfortunately, none of these IM clients allows you to talk to friends who are registered with other services. In other words, your AIM account can't talk to you best friend's Yahoo account -- that is, unless you use another piece of software, such as Trillian. Trillian breaks the IM monopolies by supporting all four major clients: AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo, aggregating your accounts on each into one interface.

If you're concerned about security risks with instant messaging, specifically about buffer-overflow attacks (a common means of penetrating PC defences) and spim (IM spam), you could try IMsecure, a security product from Zone Labs (maker of the ZoneAlarm firewall). It's the only product of its kind, and it works with AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo.

Use our handy chart to compare the features and setup requirements of the Big Four IM clients.

IM clients' vital statistics
	AOL AIM 5.5	ICQ 4.1	MSN Messenger 6.2	Yahoo Messenger 6.0
Registration information	Asks somewhat intrusive questions	Asks personal information that is optional	Asks extremely intrusive questions	Asks less-intrusive questions
What you can customise	Backgrounds	Skins, backgrounds, keyboard shortcuts	Backgrounds	Backgrounds, skins
Business features	Lightbridge Web-based conference calling (£); WebEx Web-based video- conferencing (£)	Voice and video	Video, voice and whiteboard (£)	Video and voice
Works with mobile phone	Yes, 2-way	Yes, 2-way	Yes, 2-way	Yes, 2-way
Technical support	Support email (24-hour response), FAQ	Support email (24-hour response), FAQ	Forum, email, FAQ	FAQs only

Note: £ denotes services that require additional fees.

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		Product	Date	Editors' Rating	Readers' Rating
		AOL AIM 5.5	[31 Aug 2004]	7.6	5.0
		ICQ 4.1	[31 Aug 2004]	8.0
		MSN Messenger 6.2	[31 Aug 2004]	7.3	8.0
		Product	Date	Editors' Rating	Readers' Rating