Meebo!
Do you IM alot? Do you have instant messenger accounts on AOL, Yahoo, ICQ, and MSN, and you have to constantly keep switching between the two? Do having all of these programs up bog your computer down because it takes up too much system resources? Do you want to free resources up and handle all of your accounts under one common interface?
Then Meebo.
I recently came upon this link in a programming forum that I frequently visit and gave it a try. Meebo allows you to sign in to AOL, Yahoo, ICQ, and MSN messengers all within a single browser window! Yes. One lil webpage. Nothing to install! No more bogging your system down with buggy messenger progs that take up all of your system resources. You can even sign into multiple accounts on the same messenger. So you can have 3 usernames logged into Yahoo, 2 usernames logged into MSN, etc etc, and all of your buddies will reside in the same list. It was written in a variety of languages, one being AJAX, which allows it to actually look more similar to a regular windows proggy. Best of all?? Its FREE. I have been playing around with it for the past couple of days and I am really liking it. You dont have many of the advanced features like message archiving, file transfer, webcams, etc, but for basic messaging to your buddies, it all works.. beautifully. I believe you can even sign into it at work even if your company may have those messengers blocked, since it is all web based ;)
Its time to Meebo