[ Thanks to John
Gowin for this link. ]
“Although AOL and ICQ collectively command the lion’s share of
instant messenger users world-wide (AIM in the US, ICQ
internationally), Yahoo! and MSN have actually had more new users
sign up in the last year than their competition (according to Media
Metrix).”
“Yahoo! and MSN take advantage of their huge web portals to add
features to their IM clients. Yahoo!, being web-centric, supports
many platforms with official versions of their IM client, including
Linux/Unix. MSN, which is geared toward Microsoft users accessing
the Internet through their MSN dial-up service, supports only
Windows and Mac for their official clients. There are open source
alternatives, but unlike the other members of the “big 4” IM
services ICQ and AIM, Yahoo! and MSN have fewer clients to choose
from. However, because their protocols remain open, several “all in
one” clients can be used to connect to the MSN and Yahoo! services.
We will cover the “all in one” clients in part 4 of this
series.”
“First, we’ll take a look at the Yahoo! client for Windows and
see how its open source counterparts measure up. We’ll look at the
official Linux client for Yahoo! as well as a few open source
clients. Next, we’ll take a look at MSN and see what is available
in the open source world for MSN-only clients.”
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
LinuxToday is a trusted, contributor-driven news resource supporting all types of Linux users. Our thriving international community engages with us through social media and frequent content contributions aimed at solving problems ranging from personal computing to enterprise-level IT operations. LinuxToday serves as a home for a community that struggles to find comparable information elsewhere on the web.
Property of TechnologyAdvice. © 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site including, for example, the order in which they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies or all types of products available in the marketplace.