Jabber/XMPP as IM

My Main Instant Messaging Service is now Jabber. Since im using Google Mail for like 5 Years now i always ignored the Google Talk thing. The nice thing about Google Talk is that it keeps your message log in the Cloud. So i can search through my entire Message log now in Googlemail. A good thing if you don't have an idetic memory or like to cache your Brain content. Now GoogleTalk is using XMPP, so i can use XMSS Transports. XMPP Transports are services to connect you XMSS account to another IM-Protocol such as ICQ, MSN, IRC and even other XMSS Accounts (i.e. Facebook-, StudiVz and Myspace Chat is also using XMSS as a protocol). Another Advantage of the XMPP Protocol is that you can be logged in from multiple Locations (Mobilephone, Web-Chat, Messenger-Tool, Notebook) Mesages are forwarded to all connected clients.

Transports run on seperate servers. You'll need to find a server that offers you Transports. My university does, but only for their own Jabber-Accounts. But you can find a list of available Transport servers here. I chose draugr.de for Facebook (XMPP) chat, jabber.no for ICQ- and MSN-Transport. It is hard to find a working XMPP-Transport.

I recommend PSI for configuration, allthough there is a Pidgin Plugin which lets you use XMPP-Transports from other servers.

The configuration is pretty easy and it just works (Profile Images are shown, correct usernames, you even get the "Your buddy is typing..."-signal.)

Havent had the chance to test file-transfers yet, but i'm generally against filetransfers via IM.