[Techtalk] Simple replacement for AIM with Pidgin

Christine Puk christinemp217 at gmail.com
Fri Mar 3 21:19:48 UTC 2017


I just realized my reply maybe straying from the original
question--apologies for that. The advantage of Hangouts from your original
question would be: easy to use (UI-wise), can have it default on top and
notification sounds (message box comes up when someone sends you a
message), can call or use webcam for remote support (even screen sharing
but i have not done that personally), can be used in pidgin client for
hangouts only (not SMS). Con would be: integrates with chrome
via gmail (alternatively you can create an additional gmail account for
this purpose), moderate set-up, more features than AIM (however if you use
hangouts via pidgin, I believe many of the unfamiliar features to her would
be disabled and it would more closely resemble AIM)

I hope this helps.

CMP

On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 4:09 PM, Christine Puk <christinemp217 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ​​
> I use google hangouts (google talk is a bit different but intergrated with
> hangouts) for most things since I do not like using a phone and find it a
> suitable replacement to when everyone used to be on AIM.  I have a google
> talk number (which is usually the one I share publicly) and it allows me to
> text my friends back via the hangouts client (which is just a browser
> extension, so you can use it easily on Linux if you are using
> chrome/chromium). I also use hangouts itself which is similar to facebook
> messenger or AIM in which you can have an away message, display your
> status, etc.  I have linux 14.04 and use chromium, and for work I have
> windows 10 and chrome, and when I sign into both browsers with my
> gmail account it installs the extensions I have linked to my google
> account, thus giving me the same hangouts client. Additionally, you can
> integrate this with Pidgin if that is the desktop messenger client they are
> used to, however if you use pidgin and not the chrome/chromium extension
> you can not utilize the SMS feature of hangouts, which may not be relevant
> to your intial question anyway (but I can provide you ref/instructions on
> how to get started with that for your own interest). :) It may be a bit
> tricky getting set up and I can provide more instructions but I will wait
> for your reply because this is the first time I am posting to this email
> and I don't to seem like I am endorsing a certain tool :O lol
>
> CMP
>
> On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 1:41 PM, David Sumbler <david at aeolia.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 2017-03-03 at 17:43 +0000, Poppy Lochridge wrote:
>> > My experience has been...
>>
>> And on Fri, 2017-03-03 at 13:00 -0500, Little Girl wrote:
>> > I agree with Poppy...
>>
>> Thanks, both of you, for your reassurance!  I'll stick with Google
>> Talk, then, since it seems to meet my requirements.
>>
>> As far as Google is concerned, although I use some of their services
>> and apps (notably Keep and, of course, Maps) I find that most of their
>> software is extraordinarily user-unfriendly.  My brother finds exactly
>> the same.
>>
>> On 2 or 3 occasions I have tried to figure out how to send an SMS
>> message using Hangouts, which is the "default messaging app" on at
>> least some versions of Android.  I every case I have failed to work out
>> how it is done, and end up downloading something less impenetrable!
>>
>> But I'll be happy to use their IM service via Pidgin.
>>
>> David
>>
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>


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