The most used instant message network in Portugal is MSNP (MSN Messenger). That fact doesn’t bother me that much. What bothers me is the lack of compatibility between the linux msn messenger clients and the windows one (the __original__ one).

Pidgin is a universal chat client. It supports many instant messaging protocols like for example IRC and jabber and it also supports MSNP (the MSN Messenger protocol). Although it supports MSNP I have the sensation that the pidgin team despises MSNP. I say this because pidgin hasn’t evolved as much as it should or as much as I think it should have.

There are two features that I use with my friends, the file transfer and the webcam/video. The webcam/video I don’t use much but I like to think that I can use it when I want to. The file transfer I use allot, almost every day, and recently when almost every one on my contact list started to use Windows Live Messenger 2009 I started to have trouble sending/receiving files.. which sucked.

The solution for my main problem was to install msn-pecan. It’s a plug-in for pidgin that implements some MSNP features that pidgin doesn’t support.

While reading the msn-pecan FAQ I confirmed what I was thinking about the pidgin developer team, they have some problems/issues.
The lack of support for MSNP (pidgin or others) is also bad for the linux community. I have seen people going back to windows because they can’t do the things they are used to do with there MSN Messenger contacts.

Good alternatives for pidgin (MSNP) are empathy and emesene.

For know I’m sticking with pidgin but I hope that empathy evolves quickly, it looks like a really good project.
A comparsion of instant messaging protocols, enjoy.