Trillian Astra Leaves Beta, Rolls Out Bug-Fixes And Features Galore

9 responses to “Trillian Astra Leaves Beta, Rolls Out Bug-Fixes And Features Galore”

1. 

   Wobble

   August 15, 2009

   Trillian rocks. I use the Simple Layout and Cobalt Skin.

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2. 

   Kade Matthews

   August 15, 2009

   With the Digsby article appearing yesterday even though the issues have been around in Digsby for months and this article appearing today even with a note pointing people towards Trillian, it almost reeks of a paid advertisement.

   Tragic timing for digsby or tragic journalism and ethics by lifehacker? Either way, it leaves a sour taste in my mouth after ebing a reader for so long.

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   1. 

      Angus Kidman

      August 15, 2009

      The issues have been around in Digsby for months, but it was only this week that the How-To Geek noticed them and got around to writing about them — hence that bit of coverage. We like to be timely at Lifehacker, but if we decide information is worth sharing, we’re not going to say “Oh, someone else reported that earlier, therefore it doesn’t matter”.

      The fact that Trillian has exited beta is purely a coincidence, and down to its own development cycle and nothing else. We’ve been covering it for some time throghout the beta process, so it’s not like coverage got held off just to wait until a competitor tripped up. You’re reading way too much into it, Kade — and anything that’s an advertisement on the site is always clearly tagged as such.

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3. 

   Citizen Charles

   August 15, 2009

   I feel discomfort as well, possibly exacerbated by Angus’s rather defensive tone and his disingenuous claim regarding tagging advertising.

   Truth is that Digsby is as good a piece of software today as it was yesterday – and that means it’s excellent and highly regarded by Lifehacker readers (see recent Hive-Fives). To keep going they are trying to make some money. All of those techniques WERE flagged but also were probably excessive and not well explained. Digsby have made an explanation, even an apology and all of us can easily opt out of all their money raising. Reading the responses to their explanation it would seem many users are perfectly happy with the distributed computing “functionality” realizing that it is unobtrusive and “necessary”.

   At best your “Contributing-Editor’s” article was rather a rant and given Lifehacker’s influence even unbalanced.

   Lifehacker’s value was always that it made interesting recommendations and suggestions not that it indulged in software “politics”. It is a slippery slope you stand on. Besides the commenters can hold unbalanced views quite legitimately.

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   1. 

      Angus Kidman

      August 15, 2009

      Two quick points Charles:

      (1) What’s your basis for saying my comments regarding advertising were disingenous?

      (2) As a regular reader, I’m sure you’re aware Lifehacker welcomes dissenting posts (and indeed invited them explicitly on the Digsby critique). But if someone makes an entirely unjustified and frankly irrational criticism — which is what has happened here, given the complete lack of connection between the Digsby post and Trillian’s ready-to-release state — I’m going to respond, as any sensible editor would.

      Also, I’m all for free software makers finding funding sources, but I can’t agree that the option to switch off the options that HTG found objectionable were easy to opt out of as you claim based on his description.

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4. 

   mentallyimpaired

   August 17, 2009

   Not a huge fan of Trillian Astra, but I am wholly appreciative of IM clients that integrate all popular services into one – going to give it another crack, otherwise I’m waiting for Digsby to be cleaned up.

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5. 

   Mic Cullen

   August 18, 2009

   If you want to see conspiracy theories around every corner, I guess you will, as these posts demonstrated. Deadset.

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   1. 

      Kade Matthews

      August 18, 2009

      It doesn’t help that Cerulean Studios released a story suggestion to a PR list which was pretty much repeated verbatim.

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      1. 

         Mic Cullen

         August 19, 2009

         As I said, if you want to see stuff, it’s entirely possible to do so.

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