For those of you who aren't in the know, Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more.
I've always liked Adium, but i was never fully satisfied with the application for the most part because of the instability when sending files. before 1.0 it seemed like 90% of the time i would have to switch to ichat to get a complete transfer. The new version has of coarse fixed this problem as well as added some needed features.
Adium's buddy list and message window are completely customizable and people are constantly creating new extras. For example, I prefer a very small minimal contacts list so the program blends in with the background and doesn't interfere with the other programs i am using. I was able to install the plugin from the Adium site without ever having to open an install window or anything. The contact list is 1/4 the size of my iChat list, and that is with 15 contacts online! Most important of all, Adium supports tabbed conversations like safari's browsing. i know this is not a new concept, but tell that to the iChat developers... Adium still lacks voice and video chat capabilities, which would be the only thing i find missing from this fine piece of app.
-r
