Originally developed by Adam Iser, Adium is a popular instant messaging application for Mac OS X supporting most IM protocols available today. The latest (beta) version of the software delivers general fixes and enhancements, as well as an updated Libpurple.

Adium combines numerous IM protocols, such as the AOL Instant Messenger (including ICQ and .Mac), Jabber (including Google Talk), MSN Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Novell Groupwise and Lotus Sametime. The IM client also gives users the possibility to connect with multiple types of accounts at the same time, combining all their friend groups into one big list. Supported buddy icons comprise AIM, MSN, and Yahoo! The IM Mac client has a customizable appearance as well.

According to the release notes for Adium 1.4 Beta 14, new additions include a hidden preference to disable the "new mail" dialog window, and a %messageClasses% attribute called "focus." The new version now allows styles to know which is the latest unseen copy of a message. It also removes the "show focus lines" preference, since it was removed in favor of this implementation, according to the developers. Updated versions of the Voice, None and Default Client images are incorporated in this release, as is the updated IRC service icon quality. Lastly, Polish and Dutch localizations have been updated as well. A complete list of bug fixes included with Adium 1.4 Beta 14 can be found here.

The latest stable version of Adium is 1.3.8, which updates the Pidgin-Facebook chat, fixing login, corrects the Events preferences not displaying the correct list on Snow Leopard. Adium requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and is a Universal Binary app, good for both PowerPC and Intel architectures.

Download Adium (Free)