Instant messaging allows instantaneous communication between a number of parties at the same time, by transmitting their information so rapidly that is seems instant, and features instant acknowledgement as well as some other features such as web cam abilities, and speaking directly by voip for no cost.

One of the best of these software’s, and among the more secure, is Pidgin, an open source project. In contrast to e-mail, both parties know when the other user is available. You can talk to your friends using AIM, ICQ, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Most of us are aware of IM’s which we’ve used practically since the onset of their availability and since the BBS went out of fashion.Pidgin is a graphical IM program that lets you sign on to AIM, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo!IM networks including icq at the same time.Most I’m software will allow the user to set an online status or away message so peers are notified when the user is available, busy, or away from the computer. This means that you can be chatting with friends on AIM, talking to a friend on Yahoo Messenger, and sitting in an IRC channel all at the same time. It offers more security than some of the others, is open source and is constantly under development and when an issue is found it’s patched nearly as rapidly as the for pay larger companies in use today.
Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, QQ, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, MySpaceIM, and Zephyr. What many of us don’t know is that some companies save the contents of their instant messaging for up to two years and I don’t find myself impressed by that. Pidgin can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks simultaneously. Pidgin is for Windows, Linux, BSD, and other Unixes. It uses GTK+ and was formerly known as Gaim software. If you are interested in a truly secure IM, take a look at Pidgin.