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Liu’s Reviews: AIM Clients (Miranda)

Posted on December 31st, 2005 by Chris.
Categories: Chris, Liu's Reviews.

Today on Liu’s Reviews we’ll be looking at instant messenger programs. While it used to be that your best choice was probably AIM with an add-on program, there are a lot of alternatives nowadays, and we’ll be looking at the major clients for Windows.

Miranda
Miranda is an extremely basic program, designed primarily for use with plugins. Plugins are little pieces of code that extend the program and add new functionality. As of today Miranda had 500 plugins, with more on the way. Many of these are extremely minor fixes, like keeping track of updates and toolbar buttons, which begs the question: Why weren’t the obvious features put into Miranda?

While there are plenty of valid answers to that question, the truth is that Miranda simply doesn’t have enough features, with plugins or without, to be that useful of an im program. The user interface is straightforward, but almost too obscure. The IM windows are so simplified as to be almost unusable; there’s not even an indication of who says what.

Even with all this simplicity, the user interface is still hard to use. The options panel, for instance, offers an absurd amount of customization–every single option for every single contact can be altered. This is nice, but it would be much more efficient and elegant to have the regular options obvious while hiding the complex options.

In addition, there are serious problems with the basics. It’s hard to add or adjust contacts, and out of the box the program has trouble signing in.

So, overall, Miranda has a long way to go. The program has a lot of potential, but it gets buried in confusing design. If the program could handle the basics, it would go far, but even with its spartan interface, something as simple as signing on and sending a message becomes horribly confusing.

Score:
Features: 2/5
Ease of use: 1.5/5
Visuals: 1.5/5
Overall: 1.5/5

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