Pidgin

"Universal instant messenger client for AIM, ICQ, MSN, IRC, Yahoo, and Jabber"
By SoftCns Editor: Pidgin is a multi-protocol instant messaging client compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), Yahoo, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Jabber and Zephyr networks.

Pidgin users can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on AOL Instant Messenger, talking to a friend on Yahoo Messenger, and sitting in an IRC channel all at the same time.

Pidgin supports many features of the various networks, such as file transfer (coming soon), away messages, typing notification, and MSN window closing notification.

Pidgin also goes beyond that and provides many unique features.

A few popular features are Buddy Pounces, which give the ability to notify you, send a message, play a sound, or run a program when a specific buddy goes away, signs online, or returns from idle; and plugins, consisting of text replacement, a buddy ticker, extended message notification, iconify on away, and more.

Requirements:

. GTK

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

. In the Join/Part plugin, add the ability to apply the rules to buddies. By default, joins and parts for buddies are still shown.
. Support SOCKS proxies specified in GNOME or Windows proxy settings.
. Fix some possible crashes in MSNP15.
. Enable a default SSL trust relationship for MSN servers.
. Avoid disconnecting from XMPP servers on parse errors that are non-fatal.
. Include some perl files that were mistakenly omitted in 2.5.0.
. Prevent use of custom smilies without "shortcuts."
. Fix a crash that could appear with AIM buddy tooltips.
. General refresh of many icons in the interface.
. Many cleanups to artwork source are now included in the distribution.
. A new "throbber" animation has been added to indicate when accounts are connecting.