Trillian adds Facebook, IRC support to Astra

My favorite IM application, Trillian, has just put out a brand new build of its upcoming Astra product for alpha testers. New are Facebook notifications and quick shortcuts to jump straight to things like photo galleries and user profiles. Sorely missing from that, however, is Facebook's chat, which is what I think many Trillian users have been pining for (myself included). Free competitor Digsby has had Facebook chat integration since the beginning of May, shortly after the service was launched.

Scott Werndorfer, co-founder and head developer of Trillian, tells me his team is waiting on proper XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) integration with Facebook chat to be finished, something that might be announced at next week's F8 event after originally being promised in mid-May. Until then developers have had to cobble together their own solutions that require the use of your browser--something nobody wants to deal with with their desktop chat application.

The good news is that the new build brings with it support for IRC--the chat medium that has proven to be invaluable for things like live blogging and customer care chat in enterprise businesses. Trillian has full support for administrative controls and server surfing. You can also encrypt the contents of your chat room in case you're sharing personal or business information--something AIM and many others don't provide.

Trillian Astra is currently in private alpha, meaning you'll have to sign up to be a tester to give it a spin. You can find the sign-up page here.

Facebook chat and IRC join Trillian as supported chat protocols.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

[monomilkman]

any idea on a possible release date yet??? it seems like astra has been in alpha phase forever and im dying to get my hands on it, i really cant wait

[monomilkman]

any idea on a possible release date yet??? it seems like astra has been in alpha phase forever and im dying to get my hands on it, i really cant wait

[monomilkman]

any idea when we can expect astra to be released??? it seems like it has been in alpha phase forever and i cant wait to try it out

[monomilkman]

whoopps sorry for the double post

[jtaylorhoopla]

I have trillian astra, i love this update, it has something called "quick reply" where you can reply to a im from the notification, not having to open the im window, it also tells you when someone is preparing to send you a message, prior to opening a im window, its a great update.

[firefoxluva95]

As much as I like the added features, I can't help commenting that they basically looked at Digsby and copied off of them. Quick reply was in Digsby when it launched, so was basic Facebook support. Digsby now has Facebook Chat integrated. Only downside is Digsby right now leaks memory but they are working quickly to fix that. Digsby sorta stopped my enthusiasm to test Trillian Astra. Let's just see who comes out of pre-release status first. haha.

[jtaylorhoopla]

ive tried digsby, its way too unreliable for me.

[firefoxluva95]

Really? Strange of you to say that. It's been really reliable on a Vista Home Premium machine. I guess since Vista already has high system requirements, Digsby probably has enough RAM to eat. I'm sure Digsby in its final form will be great.

Astra, I will warn you, will become unstable at times with a simple task such as adding a contact although that may have been fixed. Either way, neither client is ready for prime time as they are both pre-release. Astra is just a bit too overskinned and the skins look better in Vista than XP but overall a fine piece of software so far.

Now let me throw in a third app in here. Meebone. Meebone is an Adobe AIR application (meaning AIR is required). It puts the web based meebo app right on your desktop. You may want to check that out too. Happy chatting .

[xxdesmusxx]

at this rate they may even catch up with Digsby! :P

[WeCanDoBIZ]

Yes, Digsby is not reliable on XP Pro - it eats a stack of RAM which brings everything to a snails pace. I have been using Trillian for probably 6 years and love it, but I have always wished those guys kept up with developments in the native IM clients.

Ian Hendry
WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz