Cerulean Studios Previews Trillian Astra

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1. Geoff McQueen
   

   November 21st, 2006 at 5:28 pm

   I’ve been a huge fan and pro user of trillian for some time; can’t wait to see this one come out of the labs. if nothing else, avoiding the advertising that comes with many of the IM platforms makes this product a killer in its category IMHO

2. Brian
   

   November 21st, 2006 at 5:37 pm

   You mean cross-network IM tool. Trillian doesn’t run on MacOSX or Linux…it’s Windowz only.

3. Marshall Kirkpatrick
   

   November 21st, 2006 at 5:39 pm

   Thanks Brian, wrong choice of words. Fixed.

4. Frank Cefalu
   

   November 21st, 2006 at 6:06 pm

   Not exactly web 2.0 news, but I love Trillian! So kudos!

5. Ed Fonseca
   

   November 21st, 2006 at 6:16 pm

   My first post at Techcrunch, and i can’t help it I just love Trillian. I sure hope those new features all come standard, and not with the Pro version, would hate to have to pay even more.

6. Sean
   

   November 21st, 2006 at 6:16 pm

   Love Trillian Pro, been using it since ver 0.74i. I know they have it in them to pull-off the new version. Let’s keep supporting them.

   It would be cool if they release a MAC version though … but that’s alright, I’m not switching completely to a MAC just yet

7. David Mackey
   

   November 21st, 2006 at 6:18 pm

   I’ve been a little confused about whether one can legally use Trillian? It seems that the ToS of services like AIM would prohibit it? Yet the company continues to grow and I haven’t heard of any lawsuits?

8. Florian Cervenka
   

   November 21st, 2006 at 6:46 pm

   Trillian does deserve all the love it can get.
   A great tool I’ve been using on Win forever.

   Too bad that Cerulean isn’t offering a linux-client. But gaim does a great job too.

9. James
   

   November 21st, 2006 at 7:43 pm

   I can’t tell from their website and promo video if the free version of Astra will support Google Talk. One thing that’s annoying about Trillian right now is that you have to spend $30 on the Pro version in order to use the Jabber plug-in.

10. Frank Cefalu
    

    November 21st, 2006 at 7:53 pm

    It is legal otherwise sites such as meebo would not be in business. It still profits towards their company. What would hurt them is if Trillian disguised AIM as their own service.

11. Christopher Sisk
    

    November 21st, 2006 at 8:04 pm

    I’ve never understood why people choose to use Trillian. Every time I’ve ever tried it, it just felt “bloated” and very “commercial” , like MSN (Live) and AOL (AIM) … I understand non tech-savvy people falling for it but most of those people are just going to stick with their MySpace IM anyway. And for people in the know… open source products like GAIM offer much of this and more.

    Auto-zipping of files? … I don’t see the need for this … Windows XP and up internally supports creating and extracting zip files. How difficult is it to select, right click on some files and choose Send To Compressed Zipped folder? This seems like a pointless feature directed at non tech-savvy users, which, it seems to me, aren’t exactly part of trillian’s market.

    It seems to me, that Cerulean need to focus a bit more on simplifying their product and marketing it to the right crowd and less on features that their main user-base can do already.

12. brett
    

    November 21st, 2006 at 9:22 pm

    I thought they hinted fairly strongly at a cross platform version in the section on IMCore.

13. Dave
    

    November 21st, 2006 at 11:17 pm

    they are to late, trillian should have moved to teh web, mobile devices, etc a LOOOOONG time ago, those such as meebo, koolim, oz, etc have taken away thier fire.

14. Jason
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 6:43 am

    @ Christopher Sisk

    Regarding your comment, “Auto-zipping of files? … I don’t see the need for this … Windows XP and up internally supports creating and extracting zip files. How difficult is it to select, right click on some files and choose Send To Compressed Zipped folder?”, I think you answered your own question.

    Why would I want to right click on some files and choose Send To Compresed Zipped folder and then drag them into my IM window when I can just drag those same files into the window and let Trillian handle all that for me? It seems to me that’s a feature directed at users who want to save steps (time) when it comes to collaboration/sharing with co-workers/friends.

15. peter
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 7:31 am

    Trillian is probably the best multi-IM app for Windows but it doesn’t come close to Adium for the Mac. Adium has Jabber support built in and it’s free!

16. Frank Cefalu
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 7:38 am

    @Dave

    Thats the dumbest remark ever. You CANNOT compare trillian, a pc based software to a website like Meebo. You go to be kidding me. Should I start comparing features?

    @Chris

    Are you smoking crack? You seriously going to compare Myspace chat with trillian? And on the basis of Zipping files? Are you really stupid, or is this a facade?

    Oh Yes Gaim, the beautiful looking Gaim, the wonderfully designed gui.

    http://gaim.sourceforge.net/im.....ersons.png

    Look at its wonder!

17. Chris Brainard
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 8:58 am

    I am a registered user of Trillian 3.1 pro and I feel like they just dropped all support and gave up on adding features in to the current product. Instead they went out of their way to produce a new version that they could charge again for. They promised many of the features that are in 4 to be add into 3.

    Anyway I am pretty disappointed with Trillian and have since dropped and switched to Gaim 2. Gaim may not look as slick as Trillian but I can run it on any system and it offers all the functionality that Trillian does.

    Version 4 of Trillian also doesn’t really offer that much in new features. It just markets it like there are a ton of new features. What most people are taken by is the eye-candy of the new look. Notice the transparency which means they are focused on Vista with this version. So what new features are really in Trillian?

    myspace and google IM - nice but barely anyone uses google IM
    web based communication like meebo
    barely noticeable speed improvements - Trillian 3 is already fast
    eyecandy

    That is all you are getting. If they really wanted to get new users they should have ported it to linux and mac. There is nothing revolutionary, it is just a minor upgrade and it will cost you $30.

    What a slap in the face to all the users of Trillian.

18. Rock
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 11:11 am

    1st time poster at this website. I used to use trillian all the time (3.1 and earlier), and then I just stopped. It had bugs, and it was a big resource hog, but it does have its own innovations.

    I prefer GAIM 2.0 if i have to do some file transfers, but I am constantly on the move with different comptuers these days, so I just go to http://www.meebo.com all the time. If I need to do a file transfer, then I’ll yousendit.com or email, but thats what I do now. Meebo is the way to go.

19. SH
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 11:14 am

    Previous poster hits the nail on the head. There still are serious issues in Trillian 3.x that they chose not to deal with. My attempt at posting for help on their forum made me nothing more than flaimbait. Sorry I ever paid for it.

20. Steve
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 1:07 pm

    Some of the previous posters actually need to go READ the Astra pages. Especially the IMCore pages… Especially the paragraph about the core code compiling natively on Linux and OSX… and ESPECIALLY the at the end of that paragraph.

21. Josh
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 1:37 pm

    I have to say I agree with Chris Brainard…

    I purchased Trillian 3.. only to have it updated maybe once a year. Instead they start working on another major version and want to make you pony up all over again.

    If I use Trillian 4, it’ll be a cracked version. I’m not paying for it again.

22. graphicartist2k5
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 1:37 pm

    HELLS YEAH! it’s about damn time trillian got a major update. i’ve been using version 3.1 for the LONGEST time now, and while i like it alot, it’s getting abit dated. this new version looks completely awesome.

23. hapbt
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 2:12 pm

    Trillian never updated 3.1? They released updates for all the protocol plugins, which is really the only part that ever needed updating. I registered 1.0 and they gave me a free copy of 2.0 pro. 3.x, really, I have never needed to register it, Basic does absolutely everything I need.
    By far the best multiprotocol messenger!!
    Can’t wait for 4.

24. Dave
    

    November 22nd, 2006 at 11:35 pm

    lets be realistic, trillian is VERY cool, but why shall i use it, MSN and Yahoo now interoperate, i have meebo and koolim on the web, what else do i really need?

    Most users dont use these eyecandy features in IM clients, MSN really does work to keep it simple and clean.

25. loverlovergurl83
    

    November 27th, 2006 at 3:31 am

    I used 3.1 basic then (ahem) 3.1 pro and while pro is much better (I love Trillian), I’m not sure if I’d pay for v4…I’ll have to give it a test run first.

26. djchristianpeterson
    

    November 27th, 2006 at 3:32 am

    I’ve not used meebo (just discovered it reading here) so I’m going to give it a go, but if I don’t end up using it, I’ll definitely upgrade to Trillian 4!

27. Seth
    

    November 28th, 2006 at 8:22 am

    @Christopher Sisk

    Not everyone is an open-source revolutionary who refuses to use anything “commercial” (aka, “polished”) — do not compare Trillian to MSN or AOL, it is not riddled with advertising.

    Furthermore, you fall into the trap of equating being “tech-savvy” with being “masochistic” as many tend to do. Even those of us who are capable of zipping files ourselves, or even recompilling our kernels, what have you, do not necessarily eschew nice features in a program that do it for us. We tech-savvy people are notoriously lazy, in fact. (why make the command “copy” when we could just make it “cp”? ;))

    I think Cerulean is marketing it to exactly the right crowd — more and more people these days are using Trillian, and their target audience is in fact NOT the hardcore open source zealots because they know as well as we do that those people will never change their minds or use anything other than Gaim, on principle alone.

28. Negre
    

    December 3rd, 2006 at 11:15 am

    Seth just pwned that kid.

29. jonny683
    

    December 5th, 2006 at 6:11 pm

    jonny399

30. Dwayne
    

    December 8th, 2006 at 12:05 pm

    People also need to realize is that once you’ve paid $25 (not $30) for Trillian Pro you can add 1/5th of a year to your subscription for $5 and get the new version. Pay $25 once, and $5 for each major upgrade if the upgrade is released after your subscription expires.

    Bottom line, if you already paid for Trillian Pro, Astra will only cost you at most $5, not $30.

31. Izzy
    

    February 8th, 2007 at 6:00 am

    http://www.trillianastra.com/:
    “Now works on Macs and PCs anywhere”

    Brian:
    You mean cross-network IM tool. Trillian doesn’t run on MacOSX or Linux…it’s Windowz only.

    Lycos, gaim, yahoo, msn, and aim all constantly logged me off and are full of extraneous junk. The new version of aim’s layout I do not like (and recently adopted tabs). I’ve never found gaim to be intuitive or their layout appealing. To each his own. I’m personally looking foreward to astra.

    Thank you Seth. Some technically competent do appreciate asthetics. I’m also too lazy to compress the files I send to my friends.

32. Ken
    

    February 8th, 2007 at 6:22 pm

    I use multiple IM Programs back to ICQ earlier days, all have come a long way since even the 14.4 modem days which we thought was lightening fast compared to the previous modems and the net back then was no comparison, like a bullitin board but barely remember myself. Trillian I primarily use with gaim as a second, others are there is needed. The new Astra looks awesome and for me , I like the look also but know that the inside is most important. Trillian three has worked for me on XP Pro flawlessly as a messenger although I haven t used what other features might be there. They need support for their company and themselves to further make better programs. There might be other program out there free but I have tried many and find Triallin to be the best so far when it comes to multi Im programs and works as well as yahoo AIM, Google and Msn. I have all but I keep trillian running for it is my favorite. Hurry up LOL, waiting impatiently and will buy it as well for they deserve it .. Federal Way Wa

33. Kyle
    

    February 12th, 2007 at 8:36 am

    I don’t understand what people have against Trillian. In my opinion it is the best program to combine multiple IM clients, and the overhaul of 4.0 has me excited. The addtion of Google Talk is very welcome, since I use Gmail frequently. I’m also pretty excited about the new web features, and the idea of having a central location to put all of my website, facebook, IM, and any other of my web stuff!

    Appealing design + great features = good product

    Look at how far Apple has gone in the past few years, on mostly good design? Their computers can’t really do anything that a Windows machine can’t, but if you can convince people to use it with a sleek, simple interface, and a “cool” design, you’re in business.