Jeff Hester
December 17, 2004
Less than one hour ago, Cerulean Studios officially released Trillian 3.0. Trillian is a multi-network instant messaging program that works with AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, ICQ, Jabber, Sametime and even Internet Relay Chat (IRC). This latest version is really packed with functionality, including great support for audio and video chat.
Since we published our
Trillian 3 Beta Sneak Peek over a month ago, Cerulean Studios has been steadily working through the bugs and polished 3.0 into a solid instant messenger. Cerulean Studios co-founder Scott Werndorfer says "The final build of Trillian 3.0 has just been released! Crack open your favorite beverage and celebrate with us! On behalf of the entire Cerulean Studios team, we’d like to thank all of you for helping us through the beta cycle."
Trillian 3.0 is available in two flavors. Trillian Basic is the free version, and is very full-featured. Trillian Pro costs $25 and adds video chat and plug-in capabilities. In my opinion, if you regularly communicate across multiple IM networks, Trillian Pro is well worth the $25.
I tested the video and audio features yesterday with a friend on MSN Messenger, and they worked flawlessly. In fact, Trillian actually provides more capability than MSN. You can change the display mode from side-by-side, picture-in-a-picture, view only the remote cam or even full screen.
But the real reason I like the Pro version is the plug-in support. There are plug-ins that provide even more IM compatibility, allowing you to connect to Jabber and Sametime users. There is a News plug-in that makes it really easy to keep up with the headlines from any website with an RSS or XML feed. There’s more, but I’ll let you
explore the new features for yourself.
Is there a downside? Yes, unfortunately Trillian is only available for Windows operating systems. If you’re using a Mac, you’ll have to look at an alternative like
Fire.
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