MSN, skype & pidgin

If you have not heard, Microsoft are merging MSN & Skype and dropping the MSN IM tool in favour of skype.

After sometime in March you will have to stop using MSN and go to skype.

Part of this is merging your contacts from both apps. As a point of note you have to be logged in to to skype with your MSN account & then merge in the skype contacts & NOT the other way around.

Anyway that aside and back to the point of this post.
I have always hated the Microsoft front end to Messenger with all its adverts.
The skype GUI is OK but is not what I call clean. In the past I have used trillian or latterly pidgin. These great apps allow you to connect to all your different IM suppliers including MSN, Google Talk, Yahoo, AIM through one app. However until recently pidgin could not connect to skype.

Now it can. You do need skype installed & running as well as pidgin & you will always need skype running - a slight pain I know. You then need to install a skype plugin for pidgin .

I have not tried trillian & I am not sure what will happen after the March deadline but in the meantime I have my skype contacts through pidgin.

One note though there was a few interaction issues after installed the plugin with skype complaining about pidgin trying to connect but after a few stop/starts of pidgin & skype it is all good.