Pidgin Portable 2.6.3 (Windows, Open Source, 14MB) is a versatile instant messaging client packaged as a portable app, so you can take your IM settings and buddy lists with you. It has all the same great features as Pidgin, including support for AOL, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and Jabber networks, but there's nothing to install on the local PC. Changes: Fix a crash when performing DNS queries on Unixes that use the blocking DNS lookups. Fix a crash when some clients send contacts in a format we don't understand. Fix blocking and other privacy lists. IceRocket Tags: pidgin, portable, windows open source

Pidgin Portable 2.5.8 (Windows, Open Source, 14MB) is the versatile Pidgin instant messaging client packaged as a portable app, so you can take your IM settings and buddy lists with you. It has all the same great features as Pidgin, including support for AOL, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and Jabber networks, but there's nothing to install on the local PC. Changes: ICQ Fix misparsing a web message as an SMS message. (Yuriy Kaminskiy) MSN Increase NS command history size to prevent crashes on buddy lists that have a lot of buddies on other networks like Yahoo! MySpace Accounts with empty buddy lists are now properly marked as connected. Fix receiving messages from users of MySpace IM's web client. Yahoo Fixed phantom online buddies. They should now properly disappear when signing out. Fixed the crashes some users were seeing with cn.scs.msg.yahoo.com in 2.5.7. Fixed compiling on systems with glib 2.4.x or older. Fixed an issue with file transfers. This may not resolve all issues, but it should resolve at least some of the most common ones. The pager server will automatically update to scsa.msg.yahoo.com if the user empties the field or if it is scs.msg.yahoo.com. This should ease the pain of transition to the new login method. XMPP Fix an incompatibility betweeen Prosody and libpurple clients. IceRocket Tags: pidgin, im, portable, windows open source

Miranda IM Portable 0.8.1 (Windows, Open Source, 3MB) is a multi protocol instant messenger client for Windows, in portable format, which uses very little memory and supports ICQ, AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, IRC and more. Changes: Improve account renaming inside of the account manager Notification if missing messaging plugin Improved upgrade procedure when using older contact list and messaging plugins Network list in options wasn’t sorted Fixed missing icon/menu issues Fixed crash in options on XP pre SP2 Fixed errors loading dlls on wrong OS Fixed drawing background in options search Fixed account removal handling Fixed hotkey issue with some MS keyboards Fixed possible crash with event data AIM: Fixed issue with multiple connection requests AIM: Fixed issue setting AIM profile ICQ: Fixed AIM away message handling (caused online status to be seen as away in some clients) IRC: Possible crash on specific alias MSN: Fixed renaming nickname from options MSN: Fixed Offline messaging reception from Beejive client Yahoo: Show download progress properly Yahoo: Cancel out in the middle of file receive. Yahoo: Main menu fixes IceRocket Tags: miranda, im, portable, messenger, windows open source

Pidgin 2.5.7 (Windows, Open Source, 13.7MB) [alt DL] is a chat program which lets you log in to accounts on multiple chat networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on MSN, talking to a friend on Google Talk, and sitting in a Yahoo chat room all at the same time. Also available for Linux. Changes: Yahoo Protocol 16 support, including new HTTPS login method; this should fix a number of login problems that have recently cropped up. Only display the AIM "Unable to Retrieve Buddy List" message once per connection. Blocking MSN users not on your buddy list no longer disconnects you. When performing operations on MSN, assume users are on the MSN/Passport network if we don't get network ID's for them. IceRocket Tags: pidgin, im, instant messenger, windows open source

Miranda IM Portable 0.7.19 Revision 2 (Windows, Open Source, 2MB) is the popular Miranda IM packaged as a portable app, so you can take your instant messaging client on the go. Changes: updates Miranda IM to 0.7.19 has an improved installer and adds Windows 7 support. IceRocket Tags: miranda im portable, messenger, windows open source

Miranda IM Portable 0.7.17 (Windows, Open Source, 2.1MB) is the popular Miranda IM packaged as a portable app, so you can take your instant messaging client on the go. Changes: Windows compatibility improvements. IceRocket: miranda im portable, windows open source

Pidgin 2.5.5 (Windows, Open Source, 13.7MB) [alt DL] is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks. Also available for Linux. Changes: Fix a crash when removing an account with an unknown protocol id. Beta support for SSL connections for AIM and ICQ accounts. To enable, check the "Use SSL" option from the Advanced tab when editing your AIM or ICQ account. Fix a memory leak in SILC. Fix some string handling in the SIMPLE prpl, which fixes some buddy name handling and other issues. Implement support for resolving DNS via the SOCKS4 proxy (SOCKS4a). ICQ: Fix retrieval of status messages from users of ICQ 6.x, Miranda, and other libpurple clients. Change client ID to match ICQ Basic 14.34.3096. This fixes publishing of buddy icons and available messages. Properly publish status messages for statuses other than Available. ICQ 6.x users can now see these status messages. Fix receipt of messages from the mobile client Slick. MSN: Fix transfer of buddy icons, custom smileys, and files from the latest Windows Live Messenger 9 official client. Large (multi-part) messages are now correctly re-combined. Federated/Yahoo! buddies should now stop creating sync issues at every signin. You may need to remove duplicates in the Address Book. Messages from Yahoo! buddies are no longer silently dropped. We now save and use the CacheKey for ABCH SOAP requests. Don't try to parse Personal Status Messages or Current Media if they don't exist. Convert from ISO-8859-1 encoding to UTF-8 when no charset is specified on incoming messages. This should fix some issues with messages from older clients. Force sending the font "Segoe UI" if outgoing formatting doesn't specify a font already. Queue callbacks when token updates are in progress to prevent two token update attempts from trampling each other. Fixed a crash on Windows when removing a buddy's alias. Update the Address Book when buddies' friendly names change. This prevents seeing an outdated alias or not seeing an alias at all for buddies who are offline when you sign in. Update tokens for FindMembership and ABFindAll SOAP requests. We no longer try to send empty messages. This could happen when a message contained only formatting and that formatting was not supported on MSN. Buddies on both the Allow and Block list are now automatically removed from the Allow list. Users with this problem will now no longer receive an ADL 241 error. The problematic buddy should now appear on the buddy list and can be removed or unblocked as desired. IceRocket: pidgin im client, windows open source

Miranda IM Portable 0.7.15 (Windows, Open Source, 2.1MB) is the popular Miranda IM packaged as a portable app, so you can take your instant messaging client on the go. Changes: Windows compatibility improvements Registry key no longer written on launch of Miranda IM Improved keyboard support in import dialog Improved hotkey support in delete contact dialog Fixed issue with failed searches has an updated installer IceRocket: miranda im portable, windows open source

Xfire 1.104 (Windows, Freeware, 5.9MB) [alt DL] is the instant messenger for gamers. See when your friends are playing online games; See what game they are playing; See where they are playing; and join their game with just one click. Plus, unlike existing Instant Messengers, this one lets you receive IM's without disrupting your game. Changes: Added tabbed browsing to the web browser in Xfire In-Game. Hit Scroll Lock + W while playing any of dozens of games to use it Added new default sound pack Fixed problem with saving the window location of Xfire on multi-monitor computers Added the ability to capture sound in Vista using the Xfire Video Capture system (while playing a game press Scroll Lock + V) Fixed problem with Call of Duty: World at War server info New games supported IceRocket: xfire instant messenger gamer, windows freeware

Miranda IM Portable 0.7.14 (Windows, Open Source, 2.1MB) is the popular Miranda IM packaged as a portable app, so you can take your instant messaging client on the go. Changes: updates Miranda IM to 0.7.14 has an updated launcher and installer IceRocket: miranda im portable, windows open source

Pidgin 2.5.4 (Windows, Open Source, 12.4MB) [alt DL] is an all-in-one IM client that resembles AIM. Gaim lets you use AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, IRC, Jabber, Zephyr, and Gadu-Gadu all at once. It is not endorsed by or affiliated with AOL, Yahoo, or MSN. Also available for Linux. Changes: Fix the "Hang on Exit" issue that a number of users encountered. Updated GTK+ to 2.14.6 libpurple Fix a connection timeout with empty Gadu-Gady buddy lists. Don't ignore namespace information when parsing XMPP data. Fix a crash that occurred when retrieving certain Offline Messages on MSN. Extended purple-url-handler to handle "gtalk" URI's. Fix the hang on exit in Network Location Awareness for Windows XP and Windows Vista. MSN Change Contact Server to temporarily fix connection problems. XMPP Support for XEP-0191 blocking. Don't put SASL PLAIN or IQ Auth passwords in debug logs. Fix removal of avatars (both PEP and vCard), we weren't removing them correctly before. IceRocket: pidgin im client, windows open source

Pidgin 2.5.3 (Windows, Open Source, 13.1MB) [alt DL] is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks. Also available for Linux. Changes: The Buddy State Notification plugin no longer prints duplicate notifications when the same buddy is in multiple groups. The Buddy State Notification plugin no longer turns JID's, MSN Passport ID's, etc. into links. purple-remote now has a "getstatusmessage" command to retrieve the text of the current status message. Various fixes to the nullprpl. Fix a crash when accessing the roomlist for an account that's not connected. Fix a crash in purple_accounts_delete that happens when this function is called before the buddy list is initialized. Fix use of av_len in perl bindings to fix some off-by-one bugs On ICQ, advertise the ICQ 6 typing capability. This should fix the reports of typing notifications not working with third-party clients. Many QQ fixes and improvements, including the ability to connect using QQ2008 protocol and sending/receiving of long messages. The recommended version to use is still QQ2005. Fix a crash with DNS SRV lookups. Fix a crash caused by authorization requests. And more fixes for Gadu-Gadu, MSN, MySpace, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo IceRocket: pidgin 2.5.3 im client, windows open source

Xfire 1.102 (Windows, Freeware, 5.7MB) [alt DL] is the instant messenger for gamers. See when your friends are playing online games; See what game they are playing; See where they are playing; and join their game with just one click. Plus, unlike existing Instant Messengers, this one lets you receive IM's without disrupting your game. Changes: Long-time users running the Xfire skin will be switched to the Shadow skin, in the old-colors Xfire theme, during this update. You may switch back if you so choose Added the ability to change sounds through sound packs, which are zip files containing .wav files Improved server information for Call of Duty: World at War The Xfire In-Game web browser is now available in beta quality in Guild Wars, Dawn of War: Soulstorm, and Unreal Tournament 2004 Live Video broadcasts now let you chat with the broadcaster directly from the broadcast web page New games supported IceRocket: xfire instant messenger, windows freeware

HydraIRC 0.3.165 (Windows, Freeware, 1MB) [alt DL] is an IRC Client written in C++ using such modern tools as Visual Studio 7 and WTL/ATL for a super fast, streamlined and efficient program. Also available in Zip format. Change: Fixed remote DoS exploit in the parsing code for long irc:// urls when hydrairc's url handler is enabled. IceRocket: hydrairc irc client, windows freeware

HydraIRC 0.3.165 (Windows, Freeware, 1MB) [alt DL] is an IRC Client written in C++ using such modern tools as Visual Studio 7 and WTL/ATL for a super fast, streamlined and efficient program. Also available in Zip format. Change: Fixed remote DoS exploit in the parsing code for long irc:// urls when hydrairc's url handler is enabled. IceRocket: hydrairc irc client, windows freeware

Xfire 1.101 (Windows, Freeware, 5.6MB) [alt DL] is the instant messenger for gamers. See when your friends are playing online games; See what game they are playing; See where they are playing; and join their game with just one click. Plus, unlike existing Instant Messengers, this one lets you receive IM's without disrupting your game. Changes: Added a new theme to the Shadow skin to match the old default skin's colors Added a web search box to the bottom of the main window infoview Added game server info to Call of Duty: World at War Further improvements to the live video system will launch on the web site during the first week of December New games supported IceRocket: xfire instant messenger, windows freeware

Skype 3.8.0.188 (Windows, Freeware, 21.2MB) [alt DL] is software for calling other people on their computers or phones. Download Skype and start calling for free all over the world. Changes: bugfix: Improved search for contacts that have not signed into Skype for a long time. bugfix: Incorrect setting for online status in Options bugfix: Skype occasionally crashed on shutdown IceRocket: skype, messaging, windows, freeware

Pidgin 2.5.2 (Windows, Open Source, 12.5MB) [alt DL] is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks. Also available for Linux. Changes: libpurple Fixed a crash on removing a custom buddy icon on a buddy. Fixed a crash caused by certain self-signed SSL certificates. Enable a number of strong ciphers which were previously disabled when using NSS. Pidgin The status selector now saves your message when changing status. Fix a case where a conversation window could close unexpectedly. A mute sounds option has been added to the preferences window to help with discoverability. CTRL+S is no longer bound to mute. Added ability to change the color of visited links (using the theme control plugin, or setting the color in ~/.gtkrc-2.0) Fix a crash occurring when a custom smiley is deleted and re-added and used in an open conversation after being re-added. Finch A new 'Nested Grouping' option in the 'Grouping' plugin. Group hierarchies are defined by the '/' character in the group names. A bug was fixed where some key-bindings wouldn't work with some TERMs MSN Operations (such as moving to a new group) on contacts that were added in the same session should now complete correctly, and not cause synchronization errors at next login. Minor fixes to login process during a server transfer. Restored the "Has You" feature to the MSN protocol tooltips. ADL 205/214/etc errors should no longer prevent login. XMPP: Sending and receiving custom smileys using the specification in XEP-0231 (bits of binary) and XHTML-IM Yahoo: Only send a Ping once every hour. This prevents the account from being disconnected from the server periodically. IceRocket: pidgin, im, client, instant, messaging, windows, open source