Trillian 4 Astra: We had already decided to include Trillian 3 in our toolbox because it has been a bit of a sleeping giant as far as an instant messaging service is concerned. It is un-invasive, efficient and cross-platform to include msn, yahoo, gmail, and aim.

Two weeks ago we received a message informing us that the testing release version of Trillian 4 code named "Astra" had been announced. We downloaded it and ran some tests. The first thing that we noticed is that the new version has included facebook as part of its lineup. Installing the software was quite simple and easy to understand. It's new functionality is more detailed (including message headers when reporting new emails). It also covers a lot more ground where programs are concerned. It also looks a great deal better than it's previous version did. As a test we created 4 different email accounts and a facebook account for SeeCureIT and imported them into Trillian Astra. We had very little trouble and were able to use the accounts immediately. We are now able to have one group of accounts for work and one group for home in two different sign on's.

Trillian's functionality also extends to pop3, imap, Skype, Twitter, icq, and JibberJabber.

July 2009
Mike Smith