Farewell Google. We don't need you anymore, as Ubuntu can offer us a replacement for each web application you pushed us to use in the past years. No, we don't need Google Talk, as Ubuntu offers a great replacement with Pidgin.
Pidgin is simply superior, as it is able to get you easily connected to many different networks at once, giving you the possibility not only to abandon Google Talk, but also the many clients you need to use to keep in touch with your friends.
Pidgin supports popular networks such as AIM, Google Talk, IRC, MSN, ICQ, Yahoo! and many others... you will just have to check the homepage of the developer and check to see if your network of choice is supported.
More good news is that even if Pidgin doesn't natively support your favorite network, there are good chances to find a plugin which would let you get connected anyway. That is, in fact, what makes Pidgin great: modularity and flexibility, improved and enhanced by a vast community of developers. For example you can download plugins to integrate Skype, SIPE, OkCupid and Battle.net directly from the Pidgin website, without the hassle of surfing the web for hours trying to find the right one.
There is a plugin for everything, and after switching to Pidgin we are pretty sure you won't miss Google Talk at all, as you can keep chatting with your friends using the popular platform directly from Pidgin, without using any additional plugin.
Pidgin is multi-platform: you can use it on your Windows box, on your Mac, and, obviously, on your Linux Box.
Pidgin is Free Software (as in speech) and it can be modified and redistributed. Indeed, you are strongly encouraged by the developers and the community supporting this software to hack a plugin, publish it and offer to somebody else the chance to use it.
Pidgin can be installed from the Software Center. Fire it up, search Pidgin, click Install, and start enjoying it.
Psh. What's with this GUI nonsense? My chat consists of bitlbee+irssi living inside a tmux session.
ReplyDeleteCommand line ftw!