Trillian Astra Now in Wide Beta

Instant messaging junkies know Trillian as the only client that will allow a user to be in contact with all their contacts at once, no matter what system the contacts use. The latest revision, known as Astra, is now in a wide beta cycle, with download a usage being promoted heavily but the developer.

from Tech Connect

Cerulean Studios’ newest instant messaging application Trillian Astra is closing in fast but while work is still being done on it, a public beta version has been delivered and is awaiting testing. After being years in the making, Trillian Astra can brag with featuring hundreds of featuring including support for AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, Jabber/XMPP, Google Talk, MySpaceIM, IRC, Skype, Twitter, and Facebook, stylish themes and skins, tabbed text and video chats, animated widgets, and more.

Those interested in what Trillian Astra can really do can download the 109 build for Windows XP, Vista and 7 from this page.

Though I have not tried this very latest build, I was invited to try the previous one, and found it very serviceable, with no glaring flaws. The product uses a fair amount of memory, but less than if you were running 2 or three other clients to achieve the same results.

In general, I like the interface, but, like everything else designed for Vista or 7, the scale seems to be designed for touch (or people losing their sight). No word on this from Cerulean, but I suppose it might be a feature in the works, though probably not immediately. I’ll be trying this build to check to see if the company has added a way to reduce the size of the popup, which is, rather large.

Trillian continues to build a slick, quality product, which remains unchallenged overall. People will point out Pidgin, but to that I say that the look and feel is like the comparison of special effects in Star Wars to the effects in the old CBS show “Lost in Space” or perhaps the original “Star Trek“. Pidgin looks and feels clunky, and Astra looks like it is ready to take its place on the most tricked-out Windows desktop.

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You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.- Albert Einstein

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