The long awaited, even longer in beta 2.0 release of gaim, my personal favorite multi-protocol instant messaging client, is now here. However, it's no longer called "gaim" thanks to some naming concerns raised by AOL. Happily an agreement with AOL has made possible the 2.0 release though required a name change. The new name is "pidgin", which is clever and should send you to a dictionary to appreciate the etymology.

Pidgin 2.0 has a nicer look and feel than gaim though is still very simple, clean, and space efficient. Email alerts are much more seamlessly implemented and file transfer seems to finally work. It's blissfully free of advertising, bloatware, and links to other sites I don't want or use. Pidgin is great for managing connections to multiple IM services across multiple accounts which I do all the time, what with having personal accounts for family and friends as well as work accounts for colleagues all via several servers (including our corporate system based on Sun Java System Instant Messaging).

Pidgin is free and a thriving open community project. Source code is available if you like, and is intended for use on Windows and UNIX. I'm quite happy with the new version. Check out the Pidgin project page if you'd like to know more or take pidgin for a test drive.