GAIM user myself. b/c it's in sid and nothing else is. apt-get install gaim is too easy. I don't trust AIM encryption, since it's not client to client but goes through the server (like a built in man in the middle attack). Unfortunately, no-one uses GAIM, so GAIM encryption is also worthless. *meh* GAIM's logging is pretty nice (nice log viewer, searchable and all) which is quite nice. I just wish there was a way to integrate the logs from my lappy to my desktop. I hate trying to remember where I had a conversation.

File transfers are crap in both trillian and gaim, but i'm not too worried about it. It would be nice if it worked better. I'm looking forward, though, to increased usability of iFolder sharing with GAIM. For now, I just throw a file up on a publicly accessible part of my server for a few minutes while the person uses their browser to download it.

I used to be a trilian user, but i got quite sick of the community and the program itself wasn't developing quickly enough for my money. not that gaim is developing quickly per se, but it's free (and OSS).