I mentioned the Chinese IM service QQ before, and how there’s, like, a ba-zillion people using it here in China.

Now I reluctantly stopped using QQ a while back for two reasons: 1) It’s a little resource heavy, and 2) My computer has about as much processing power as the sitting American President.

Pidgin combines all your IM contacts into one IM applicationBut I just found this interesting IM client called Pidgin, which you can use to consolidate all your Instant Messaging platforms such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AOL, ICQ, and oddly enough, QQ.

I’ve installed the program, and it works pretty smoothly. It’s pretty light, and I find runs way better than QQ. You can a preview of Pidgin in the picture here. Notice that my QQ contacts are sorted on the top, while my MSN contacts are listed just below. Sweet, huh?

I’m having some trouble trying to get it to run a Chinese IME, but I’ll keep working on that and keep you updated.


UPDATE: Go to Tools> Preferences> Conversations, then uncheck Buddy Icons.
And then go to Tools> Preferences> Smiley Themes, then select None. Turns out program was transforming Chinese text for emoticon shortcuts, and displaying them as ;) :) :P

But in the meantime, I have a ton of old friends who I’ve lost touch with sending me messages via QQ/Pidgin here today. It’s nice to see them all again. :)

To give Pidgin a try, click here.

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