cocoaforge

What does Adium offer over other clients? Why invest time in it?

There are four main advantages that Adium has among instant messaging clients. First, it's free and open-source (it's licensed under the GPL, for you techies). Open-source means that a variety of developers are free to work on it as they please, though no one is actually paid to do it. There are no commercial aspects to Adium whatsoever. You will never have to pay anything to the makers of Adium (though donations are welcome!). And you will definitely never see a single ad. Another benefit of being open-source is that Adium is frequently updated. Normally, a new release is made every few weeks, though major new versions (like .8) can take longer to come out. But one thing is for certain: Adium is progressing by leaps and bounds. It has been for some time, and will continue to do so.

Second, Adium is very customizable and easy to use. Adium gives you detailed customization of the message window (including a variety of styles, fonts, etc.), sounds, Dock icons, emoticon sets, contact list, and more. And if you somehow get bored with the many styles that Adium comes with, the Adium Xtras site has hundreds more that have been created and submitted by Adium users.

Third, Adium is multi-protocol. This means that you can be online with two AIM accounts, a Yahoo! account, and a few MSN accounts (for instance) all at the same time, all within the same program. This is a huge advantage over having AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and MSN Messenger all open. Adium unifies your instant messaging experience into a simple, easy method of communicating with everyone you know, regardless of what service they use.

Finally, Adium has one of the best communities of any software program. Everyone on the forums (forums.adiumx.com) is very helpful, and many of the developers and other experienced users read the forums daily and are happy to assist in any problems you may have. There is also an IRC channel, #adium, on irc.freenode.net.

Adium combines these four important factors in a solid, stable, user-friendly instant messaging client. And it's getting better by the day. Hop on! You'll be glad you did.

good job , as this is clearly the hardest to answer-adium is fantastic for almost too many reasons.

that big thing can be summed up in one sentence: its groooovy baby

Add to the end of the second paragraph:

Second, Adium is very customizable and easy to use. Adium gives you detailed customization of the message window (including a variety of styles, fonts, etc.), sounds, Dock icons, emoticon sets, contact list, and more. And if you somehow get bored with the many styles that Adium comes with, the Adium Xtras site has hundreds more that have been created and submitted by Adium users. It is also possible to crate your own sound sets, dock icons, emotion sets, and contact list styles, and if you do you are encouraged to share them everyone by posting on the Adium X(tras) site.

Still great job, could not have done better myself.