GAIM is PIDGIN now.

The name of popular IM service GAIM has changed to pidgin now following the dispute and settlement with AOL. I just feel sad about it, as GAIM is my favourite IM and I would prefer the old name only. you could say "What is in a name..buddy??". It is just unexplainable.

Website is also changes now. It is pidgin.im .
It has confirmed that just the name has changed where as the product will remain the same. Yesterday only they have released pidgin 2.0.0 beta7.

According to the website,
Many years ago when this project was first started, it was called "GTK+ AOL Instant Messenger." AOL naturally complained, and Mark Spencer changed the name to "Gaim." AOL was appeased, and no one really ever heard of it because there were very few users back then.

A few years later AOL trademarked "AIM," and started referring to their IM services using that name. They complained. The issue was brought up on Slashdot, and the Gaim developers at the time got some legal support. That legal support advised that the ongoing discussions with AOL be kept confidential until fully settled, and so it remained. The public thought the issue had gone away then. It sorta did, in that AOL stopped responding to Gaim's legal support for a while.

At long last, I am pleased to announce that we have a signed settlement and can release our new version. There is one catch however: we have had to change the project's name.

After a long, and unfortunately secret debate (as we could not say why we were looking at a name change, we ended up just doing this ourselves), we settled on the name "Pidgin" for gaim itself, "libpurple" for libgaim (which, as of 2.0.0 beta6, exists), and "Finch" for gaim-text. Yes, the spelling of "Pidgin" is intentional, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin.

If you haven't used GAIM before, here are the advantages of using it.

1. You can login to MSN, gTalk, Yahoo..etc at the same time.

2. You can even login to two Yahoo ( or the other) at the same time.
3. In built logging.
4. Wider support for platforms.
5. Tabbed chatting.
6. Plug in support.
7. Finally it is open source..edit the code the way you want it.

I used a bit old version. It has a disadvantage that you cant log-in in invisible mode directly. Hopefully the new version will have this feature.(or does it already have??)

-Ahmed.