Do you depend on instant messaging to stay in touch with friends, family or business associates?  Do you end up with Yahoo, AOL, MSN and ICQ all running (or wish you could)?  Well here are two different (and yes free) choices to put all your IM’s and IM identities in one place.

The first one I will talk about is Trillian.  I use it, and have done so for several years.  I run this one sleek program and am able to talk to my clients, friends and prospects no matter what platform they are using.  I am currently using Trillain in place of Yahoo, AIM, MSN Live Chat, Skype and Astra.  It keeps a history of all chats, you can send and receive files and it takes very little memory to run.  There is a version for all computer platforms and most smart phones too.  You can get it here: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/downloads/

The other software is GAIM.  I have not had a chance to try it yet but from what I have seen and read it looks every bit as good as Trillian maybe more so.  It’s a multiprotocol instant-­messaging client that works with Google Talk, AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus Sametime, and Zephyr networks.  Get it here: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/