To Hell With Pidgin

Pidgin, a open source multi protocol IM client, usable with Google, AOL IM, Yahoo, and MSN Messenger amongst others, has bothered me long enough. It’s time for an alternative.

I’m sick and tired of of pidgin’s inability to resize it’s text input window. Sometimes, I’d like to be able to proof a long paragraph I’ve just written. Sometimes, it’s monospaced ascii art that needs to line up. Tons of users have been complaining about it on pidgin’s bugtracker but they dont’ give a shit. The programmers feel they know what’s best for the customer. It’s seriously Microsoft-style coding practices.

I’ve found an alternative in the Carrier Project by the Fun Pidgin group. They specifically say on their site, “What makes us different from the official client, is that we work for you. Unlike the Pidgin developers, we believe the user should have the final say in what goes into the program.” I’m totally down with that mentality. I can finally use a program how I’d like to and not be hindered by the fact that I’m not a programmer. If someone is going to make a program to share with the community, why would they not want to cater to the same community’s needs?