Filed under: Internet Tools, Software Update
Proteus is now free
Proteus, the chat client for the Mac by Defaultware, is now free! With
Proteus, you can simultaneously connect to AIM, Yahoo!, MSN , ICQ, Jabber (including Gtalk), Bonjour, Gadu Gadu and
Sametime chat services. Plus, it sports a customizable, Mac-like UI and plays well with Address Book.When you download the current version 4.12, you will have to go through the registration process, but there will be no charge. Defaultware has stated that a new version that does not require any sort of registration will be made available soon, as well as a universal binary.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Threnody said 1:38PM on 2-23-2006
This is great news, I love Proteus. But I imagine this is only to draw attention to the product until version 5 is released. Then I expect they'll start charging for registration again.
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JB said 1:45PM on 2-23-2006
I was a fan of proteus for a long time but adium is more feature rich so I switched... once Proteus 5 comes out I may look again and see....
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sma said 1:48PM on 2-23-2006
how does it compare to adiumx?
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scoyle17 said 1:58PM on 2-23-2006
sorry for putting this here but I cant resist, it looks very like a new iPod is coming
http://www.engadget.com/2006/02/23/is-this-the-video-ipod-or-mac-tablet/
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MattK said 2:06PM on 2-23-2006
Any Proteus users want to extoll the virtues of Proteus relative to AdiumX?
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Lee Bennett said 3:05PM on 2-23-2006
I was a full-blown Proteus user until recently. Crazy thing is, I can't remember why I switched to Adium. Something was bugging me and I don't know what it was.
In any case, I'm pretty near solid on Adium now. I do miss Proteus' feature of acting as an intermediary to combine people from multiple protocols into a single chat, but I don't miss it so badly to go back to Proteus.
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Brad said 5:39PM on 2-23-2006
Proteus sucks for the fact that you can't rearrange the groups in the buddy list.
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Thomas said 5:40PM on 2-23-2006
That's good news, but Adium is free, was free and is awesome. Maybe I'll check it out though. :)
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Bigfat said 5:58PM on 2-23-2006
I also was a hardcore Proteus user for quite a long time, I think even purchased a license at one point. But similar to Lee, there was some feature or lack there of that I can't remember that was an annoyance, but I switched to Adium and haven't looked back since.
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Jared Ferguson said 6:50PM on 2-23-2006
. I also was a hardcore Proteus user for quite a long time, I think even purchased a license at one point. But similar to Lee, there was some feature or lack there of that I can't remember that was an annoyance, but I switched to Adium and haven't looked back since.
Now you see why they've made it free. :)
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geepee said 8:03PM on 2-23-2006
When the UB comes out, I'm dropping Adium and switching back to Proteus. The reason I hate Adium is because:
1) A connection error has occured: Could not send.
2) I have variable width tabs.
Since I have a license for Proteus from when I had my iBook, I'll gladly go back to it. There's not one issue I have with it. Adium has too many quirks for me.
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geepee said 8:04PM on 2-23-2006
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Heh, that should read "I HATE variable width tabs"...I can't type today. :/
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Stridey said 2:11AM on 2-24-2006
Meh. At least it has tabs. I checked out Proteus, but decided against it. It's got some good polish elements to it, and in some ways feels more integrated than Adium, but I'll be sticking with Adium because:
Tabbed chat window is necessary. A drawer just doesn't cut it.
Very customizable, but not as customizable as Adium.
I like OSS.
It was a close call though, and maybe some day I'll end up using it.
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J?me said 1:44PM on 2-24-2006
I am disappointed that Proteus is now free - one or two years ago, I purchased a license and shortly after that (also with the change in ownerchip), Proteus got buggy and unusable, so I switched to Adium, because I wanted reliability more than features.
Now they are making it free, and I once more feel like an idiot: first to have spent 30 bucks or something for crappy stuff and now... again! Darn! =)
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