Proteus (instant messaging client)

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Proteus

Proteus in Action
Maintainer:	Proteusapps
Stable release:	4.12 (August 09, 2005) _[+/-]
Preview release:	4.15b6 (October 20, 2006) _[+/-]
OS:	Mac OS X
Use:	Instant messaging client
License:	GPL
Website:	proteusx.org

Proteus is a popular instant messaging client for Mac OS X that supports multiple protocols through the libgaim library. It is written using OS X's Cocoa API, and it is released under the free software GNU General Public License.

[edit] Supported protocols (alphabetically)

Bonjour (for local networks, formerly known as Rendezvous)
Gadu-Gadu
Jabber (incl. Google Talk)
Lotus Sametime
MSN
OSCAR (viz ICQ, AIM and .Mac)
Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Japan

[edit] History

Proteus was originally developed by Justin Wood, then in 2004 Defaultware took over development. As of August 2006, Proteus has changed hands and is no longer maintained by Defaultware. It is now released under the GNU General Public License.

[edit] Design

Proteus's interface vaguely resembles that of Apple's Jabber and AIM client iChat, although iChat is brushed metal, while Proteus uses the standard Aqua. However it has support for more types of networks than iChat, and can also group multiple conversations in one window using tabs. Proteus fails to support some features of the AIM network, such as embedded images, and has limited support for file transfers. It currently has no audio or video conferencing abilities.

Proteus uses libgaim to connect to multiple services. Libgaim is a natural progression of the Gaim project. This allows the Proteus developers to work on the interface of Proteus, without working on the connections. Other projects, including competitor Adium, also utilize libgaim.

[edit] Privacy and Encryption

Proteus has presently no special privacy and encryption features. For those who just want/need some kind of privacy the Off-the-Record Messaging-proxy might be an option (presently only available for the OSCAR-Protocol as used within AIM, ICQ, .Mac).