@bachya this update greatly improves memory usage and response.

Gumz

@LifesSweetDrug a lot of MSN fixes were done during the test builds that have been going on for the last couple of weeks. MSN over HTTP was also added. So it should be more reliable overall.

Gumz

Could someone tell me when it's worthwhile to switch back from Pidgin to Digsby? I dropped out because of the super high memory usage.

bachya

I prefer Miranda-IM, essentially Miranda is like the Firefox of Instant Messengers (countless plugins and settings!)

-=Ben=-

@portezbie: Exactly! I've been using Digsby since Lifehacker's last article on it, but this past week I switched back to Pidgin after it hogged too much RAM and my Facebook chats kept being dropped.

Downloading now, and cannot wait to try this update.

samgtaylor

I think this is the big update that we've all been waiting on to decide whether or not digsby is worth a permanent switch, and from the list of changes and fixes, it sounds like they've very well may have done the job.

portezbie

When I last used Digsby some of my messages weren't sending to my contacts on msn that I sent. Anyone know if this bug has been fixed or anyone else had this problem?

Other than that I love it.

LifesSweetDrug

Still been using it since you first mentioned it on here. Couldn't imagine going back to another client.

sweatymongoose

Been testing the beta-build and they don't lie, far less memory consumption. But I guarantee I will switch when Trillian Astra is released. If it ever is which I have my doubts.

ChrisMichael

Still waiting on advanced skinning options. I am happy enough with an autohotkey based transparency, but variability through skinning would be cooler.

aidan.cage

If you dropped this program simply because of high memory usage, download it now. When they say it uses 75% less memory, they mean it. I have been using Digsby since private beta and it has just gotten better and better. These developers actually act like they care - one thing I have found many open source developers do not do well. This is the best program ever featured on LH.

marksman7328

@Gumz: Thanks, I'll check it out.

bachya

@Nuclear Moose:

Skype is what u are looking for

ChrisMichael

@Nuclear Moose: And then my comments magically appear, making me look like a complete doofus... [spins propeller on beanie]

Nuclear Moose

I need an IM client that will do PC to PC voice calls and webcam. Yahoo! on Vista sucks.

Any suggestions?

Also this new commenting system seems rife with bugs. I have posted comments on about four threads today and none of them showed up, even using IE6 and then Chrome as browsers to post. Sigh. No love for the Moose today.

Nuclear Moose

I need an IM client that does PC to PC voice calls along with webcam. I have family overseas and they are locked into using Yahoo! Messenger at their internet cafes. I have a brand-new install of Vista SP1 Home Premium and as soon as voice chat starts YM crashes. I would pull out all of my hair if I had any to pull out.

I'd love to know of a third-part application that will work on Vista and still allow me to PC call and see my family.

Thanks for any suggestions you may have, LifeHackerers! :D

Nuclear Moose

I have been waiting to see if the "high memory usage" problem would be fixed before trying this...

Looking at all of the comments here, it may be time to try it out and add it to my messenger collection. ^__^

Asian Angel

This is a significant improvement. I've worked on beta testing for a while and troubleshooting some of these issues directly with the developers. I'm very impressed.

This is now my IM of choice (over my pidgin portable). Great job Digsby team and keep up the great work.

fishlips20

@meshele: Actually, the snappier interface was in reference to GUI responsiveness. According to Digsby, that means the "User interface elements draw twice as fast for better performance."
So snappy like that. :)

Adam Pash

@ChrisMichael: Thanks -- I don't know if my family has access to Skype on the computers that they use in the internet cafes, but I'll check that out.

Nuclear Moose

"snappier interface"?

I restarted it twice before I realized my copy was updated. The only way I could tell was went I tried adding a new social network account and saw the LinkedIn option.

Is anyone seeing any visual changes at all? Or have all the improvements been "under the hood", so to speak?

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Digsby, but I would really like to see some prettier options (or at least a simple way to skin. The skin how-to website had me all confused, since I don't know much about that stuff.) I'm just not seeing ANY visual changes (not even menu tweaks, aside from LI).

I have noticed my RAM went from 55k down to about 30, which is awesome.

meshele

@bachya: The RAM usage has dropped a LOT (right now it's only using 30MB) and it's a lot smoother.

The email and Facebook integration is a lot better with Digsby, and while Guifications is okay (and Snarl for Pidgin is better), Digsby's really hit the spot with the notifications for me.

Another minor thing which was actually a big deal for me was the dockable auto-hiding buddy list. It saves a lot of desktop real estate.

samgtaylor

@LifesSweetDrug:

I know that over we helped beta test the newest build for a month and half amounting to over 3000 bug fixes, many including the MSN protocol. Go ahead and try it for yourself again. I am sure you will be impressed.

bbbco

I like Digsby. Its nice, but the memory and slow interface was very annoying. I hope Trillian Astra never comes out of beta. I don't have to pay for it.

QuiterieMullimbimby

My experience has been mixed. I've been using it for a couple months at work, but at home I was getting constant AIM disconnections (and I wasn't alone, just check the support forums). So it's a good program if it works for you, but YMMV.

SultanaEteocles

I. Want. Linux. Support. Plz Digsby, can I has?

sceo

Digsby FTW!!!

80k mem usuage now at a much more stable 30k!

...now if i could only shrink down firefox to something more manageable

Bluestump86

I will be sticking with pidgin, as I cannot live without many of its plug-ins that simply aren't supported by Digsby at the moment.

jkremer3

@marksman7328: "This is the best program ever featured on LH"

Seconded. If Digsby wasn't already so good, users' expectations wouldn't be so high, but since it's already a killer app the wishlist keeps growing and growing as the users feel Digsby can do pretty much anything. If they release an API to allow 3rd party plugins, it's over

burnblue

people forget to mention one of Digsby Coolest features

you can add all your diffrent email acounts to it and down in the task back it show a icon for each email and when you get a email it changes color and you can click on the icon and it will show you the email from there you can decided to either delete it , report it as spam or open it. no more having to login in to every email acount many times a day to check to see if you got a email. this is perhaps the best app of the year go get it.

Kilak

@-=Ben=-: I think you are confusing that with Pidgin. I think Pidgin has much cooler, and useful plug-ins than Miranda. Am I missing some?

jkremer3

Is there an equivalent of the OTR plugin like Pidgin offers? That's the only killer feature I lack, although I do miss the autocopy from Trillian before they asked for money for additional connectivity.

caveatrob

this long since replaced Aim, Trillian, and Pidgin ...couldn't imagine going back to any of those crappy programs now. If you use Gmail/Facebook/Twitter/Hotmail/Yahoo Mail/etc you'll love this application, plain and simple.

xxdesmus

I've been beta-testing this big update for them for most of the summer, and the memory usage has been this low since early August. They've been steadily releasing small updates to those who were testing for them until the big update today.

By FAR the best app featured on Lifehacker. I immediately switched from Pidgin and Miranda this spring and haven't looked back. And now that it uses so little memory (less than 30 MB for me), it's a no-brainer.

wakeboarderal05

I love Digsby when I'm running Windows XP, so many options and ways to customize it, I have gmail, aim, msn, and facebook all running through Digsby simultaneously. I just wish I could use this program in Linux :(

But I definitely would recommend Digsby to those who haven't given it a try yet.

khoehns

i refuse to use it until i can put it on my flashdrive (portable ftw)

Dan Cardin

This new update broke my Delirium skin. =(

SiPhuYoda

I want a mac version...badly

andrew_t29

just support yahoo chatroom and i'm in. i often use that feature to participate in my university's study groups
and last time i checked, file sharing on yahoo is still buggy, is it better now?

blackeyes1989

@jkremer3: actually miranda is much more dynamite than pidgin. its the only im i know that let you see weather forecast from as many countries as you want. and dont even get me started on his customizable GUI, just crazy

blackeyes1989

I've been using it with no problems. It's so good I can't even see why it "needs" an update.

emnem

55k memory to 11k. FTW. Now all it needs is Skype support and I'll use it full-time.

Casey

@meshele:
That's down to 30k when you first start it up.

Try minimising it and it goes down to a 8k, and when you bring it back up it hovers around 15-20k.

This is a great update to get the performance of the software up to scratch. Now they can hopefully go back to adding more exciting features.

Hayden54

Digsby ftw!!!

And it gets better every day. I couldn't live without it. The most useful feature is the fact that I can manage my multiple email accounts without ever even opening a browser.

gpzbc

@bachya: ummm... that is the whole point of this ... to let us know that Digsby has decreased the RAM usage by nearly 75%

gpzbc

I was getting 110MB usage from it before & it's at 37MB now. The only problem I've ever really had is that when I check my Yahoo! mail, the yahoo messenger client would disconnect. Other than that, I love Digsby. I used to be impatient about it not having myspace IM so I switched to Pidgin for a few days and apparently none of my friends use it so it doesn't even matter.

StlHakusho

@Nuclear Moose: [en.wikipedia.org] would be a good start, if you are keen to get down and dirty with comparison charts ;)

aidan.cage

I'm still waiting for an officially supported version. Today, an IM has to be portable imho...

VillageHero

@Casey: Skype support and a Mac version. Yes please.

dix-huit

Started using Digsby just a week ago, after frequently been using other messengers like Pidgin, Trillian and MSN. I've got to say that with its out-of-the-box support for Facebook, Google Mail, Google Talk etc., Digsby beats everything I've tried in terms of messaging clients. Everything I need is there without any plugins. Now I only hope for Skype text-chat support :)

Kim Lindberg

I find myself wanting to use Digsby but I have two key issues with it. First, there's no Skype support - admittedly not their fault but a problem for me nonetheless as that's my primary IM platform. Second, I use the Facebook for Firefox extension on my browser and hence get the updates from FB that Digsby would otherwise provide.

portobello_man

And...Digsby finally managed to connect to MSN through our corporate firewall (using the HTTP connection); I was finally able to move from Meebo to a stand-alone client!! Great program and also the Mem usage has dropped: right now I am connected to Gtalk, MSN, Facebook chat & ICQ, and get Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace updates: 37MB
The only bummer is that Yahoo Messenger is still blocked by the firewall :-(

jvleminc

@ChrisMichael: Just be aware (unless that has changed) that Skype can eat away your bandwidth as it can start acting as "supernode".

This is the reason why I stopped using it long ago but it could have changed meantime.

Personally I use Live Messenger from Microsoft to both video calls and IM and it works perfectly - it has never once crashed on me.
Only downside I can find when it comes to Live Messenger is that file transfers often go very slowly.

Varming

@Nuclear Moose: As I have some Asian friends who also uses Yahoo I also need this - also with video. I'm running Vista SP1 Ultimate and the video is working most of the time here - but video is often freezing and sometimes crashing YM totally. I think this has been a problem for as long as YM supported video - also under XP.

Is it only in the voice chat your YM is crashing?

Varming

Not yet for me, I'm afraid.

- No universal hotkeys.
- No unified plaintext log.
- No containers.
- Is it still incapable of Exchange 5/6 chat rooms?

Trillian keeps my heart for now.

Kaelri

Last time I tried, I accidentally left the "Use Digsby as Home page": I was unable to get rid of their horrible, useless homepage in Firefox until after uninstalling all my addons (and after a lot of research online). I promise to never come back to it.

AixiA

@AixiA: did you actually post on the digsby forums? The devs are actually pretty friendly and helpful...

pennstatephil

@portobello_man: How the 2nd one an issue? You dont have to use digsby's facebook support, just don't add the account and keep using the firefox extension if thats what you like.

pennstatephil

I was lucky enough to get in on the private beta before it even hit lifehacker, and the way the developers listen to the community of users is the most pleasant experience I've had with a software company. Way to go digsby!

pennstatephil

When I tried it on a couple different machines, the memory usage actually went up significantly (from about 50mb to 75mb in one case). I know they have been hammering away at memory leaks for some time, but I expected, at minimum, the amount of memory to not go UP.

abyzmal

@QuiterieMullimbimby:
That's what this post is saying... the memory usage has gone down 70% and the interface is, as they say, "snappier"! Give it another shot.

bbbco

@pennstatephil: Hahah - ok I'll give you that one... but it was more that I meant that I use Skype for IM and have the FB bar in Firefox and hence this doesn't add much. Ditto Ubiquity in Firefox for Twitter updates too btw.

portobello_man

I think I'm in the minority here, it was running at 35-40k with 2 conversation tabs open, I closed it, installed the new version, and it's running at 36k. Wonder why.

stephennmcdonald

My memory usage hasn't shrunk by anything like the amount they suggest. It's still running at about 60MB for me, barely better than before. (And I suspect all the people who keep typing 'K' above really mean to type 'M')

Kylotan

@portobello_man: I'm right there with you on the skype, I love it and really hope they can come up with _something_ to integrate it soon, even if it means running skype in the background for video support.
As far as redundancy, I guess it's just a matter of what you prefer... I use both twitterfox and digsby's twitter integration and just don't use the notifications. I like having it at my disposal no matter what programs I have up, so the more integration the better. The cool part about digsby is that it can be as big or as small as you want it to be.

pennstatephil

Hurrah! They've fixed the Hotmail preview issue. But doubtless it will break again in a few weeks when Microsoft changes Hotmail so as to deliberately defeat these HTML-scraping clients.

jarmod

The interface's kool ... I love that popup ... But wish they bring out atleast a wine compatible version ...

gapo

Digsby is doing well in my eyes.
All they need now is time-tracking (like what happened when, who came online or went offline, etc), and Skype (IM).

I wonder how much longer. With Skype support, Digsby would shoot to number one position since no one else has it.

Devil

The most important feature with Digsby is the email/social network integration next to the messengers. It's made my life much, much more efficient w/ both, b/c I don't have to log in to my account each time for my five or so accounts I use. It provides Facebook Chat along with the usual AIM, Yahoo, and MSN, which is really convenient, since more of my friends use that to IM each other nowadays. The main thing is, Digsby keeps everything I'd ever need together and does it very cleanly, very quickly. It's what made me not try Pidgin or Miranda; it works. This is my most useful (and used) app I've found in LH, hands down.

MadonnaJibber

For what it's worth, I'm following Digsby on twitter and I messaged them and asked if/when they were planning their Linux/OSX versions. Their reply was that they'd start work on it after this major release. Here's to hoping! They do in fact seem to give a crap about feedback, which is a huge plus.

cryogenic666