IM, that is. Huzzah for another bad pun! Monday the Alpha version of Kool IM launched, but how “kool” is it? As far as aggregating other chat clients, it does a decent job, even including Google Talk. If you register, Kool will remember your various accounts, but you still have to log them in each individually, which is disappointing. The main complaint is that it only takes the barebones chat part. No file sharing, no pix, no voice or video. Why would I want to leave these features behind? Is that really worth not having a couple chat programs running?
The current version also has some more minor bugs that need to be addressed such as chat windows that won’t scroll with longer messages and missing the first message someone sends you if using Firefox. Luckily, after browsing through the forum, it seems like the developers are very interested in taking user suggestions to heart and fixing the troublesome bits.
It’s definitely not quite time to leave your other chat programs behind. Trillian does a better job of bringing together more of the features and the programs (but not Google Talk as of yet); however, this requires a download, while Kool IM is just in your browser. The Alpha version is only the first step, so hopefully, with a lot of hard work, Kool IM will end up evolving into something a little more polished.