Windows Tools, Help & Guides

Trillian Astra, a full featured, multi-IM client developed by Cerulean Studios. Most of its features are simple ones, such as offline messaging, group chats, file transfer with proxying (for those with restrictive firewalls), etc.

The Cerulean Studios community is what makes this piece of software special. Always someone there to help you with a problem, always guiding people to solutions. Releasing Public Alpha/Beta’s to let the users make the product even better. Unlike some other un-mentioned IM Clients.

The skinning support is what has stunned me the most, so in-depth. Here is a good side by side comparison of the Default Skin (left) and Avion Pro (right).

As you can see, the default is just that. Default, gets the job done but isn’t meant to be pretty. Avion Pro doesn’t effect the resource impact of Trillian either.

Trillian also lets your add multiple accounts for one protocol, such as Windows Live accounts, Yahoo, AIM, etc. Full Buzz/Emotion support. Yep, you get to annoy your friends still. Trillian also lets you know when you receive an email by displaying a message near the clock on your taskbar.

If you want to, try out Trillian Astra. It is ‘free’ to use as long as you like, although your Astra account (required to use Trillian) does determine what features get enabled during login. If you have a premium account ($25 for the entire 4.x version line, $10 to upgrade when 5.x comes out) you get all the features. Otherwise, you’ll be a little more limited. Although do not fret, it is still usable, it is mainly eye-candy that costs you the money.

Here is a small helpful list of what is supported on Trillian.

Supported Protocols

• Astra
• AOL Instant Messenger
• Bonjour
• Facebook
• Google Talk
• ICQ
• Mail (IMAP/POP3)
• Jabber/XMPP
• MySpace IM
• Windows Live
• Skype
• Yahoo!
• Twitter

Download Trillian Astra

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