I’ve used both Trillian and Miranda, and I’m sticking with Trillian. You can do loads more with Miranda, but basicly, it basicly all comes down to one thing: Miranda looks like ****.

There are hundreds of plug-ins for Miranda, which is definately a befenit, but the interface is extremely unhandy no matter which plugin you install (I’ve had about 30 installed at one time). Additionally, Miranda’s core is certainly lacking any form of user friendlyness, since they couldn’t think of simple things such as window-snapping, meta-contacts, buddyicons, etc. (Buddyicons are supported, though very poorly. You have to manually download the icons from each contact, and I haven’t found out how to set your own.)

Trillian, on the other hand, is always a relief to use. The beautiful skins and easy usage makes me sit back in my chair and sigh after strugling with Miranda for a while. Of course there are those drawbacks like no voice chat, protocol problems, etc., but there is no better alternative. If you’re not satisfied with Trillian, use each official service application seperately.