| Product: |
Trillian |
| Date: |
10/10/02 (515 review reads) |
| Rating: |
 |
Advantages: easy to use, consolidates messenger services, free
Disadvantages: full of bugs, causes system lock ups, Can loose your ICQ database
I have been useing Trillian for several months, and have found it to have major problems.
A little background on myself and my system first. I am an IT professional with over 15 years experience. My system was 1.4 GHz when I first installed the program, and is not a 1.8 GHz. I first ran it on Windows 98SE, then moved to Windows 2000.
Both in 98 and 2000, I noticed occasional lock-ups of my system. But it was after I upgraded that I discovered that the problem was with Trillian. I would watch the CPU useage on my task bar, and would see it suddenly jump from 2% to 100%. After bringing up Task Manager, I would see that Trillian was grabbing 98% of the processor. I saw this happen over and over again. I filed a bug report with the programmers, but never had any kind of reply from them.
Also I noticed that the program would loose connection with the various message services, most notably MSN and Yahoo. I would try to manually reconnect and had no success. However, after closing and opening Trillian, they would frequently come back on-line.
I most revently have been useing 0.72, and then suddenly I lost all connections. It appeard that somehow my user databases were lost or corrupted. I tried to put the information back in, and had no luck. So I uninstalled then reinstalled with 0.74, and am still unable to get connected to any of the servers. What bothers me most is that I have now lost my ICQ users. This is because unlike MSN and Yahoo, your friends list in ICQ is saved on your local machine.
During this upgrade, I noticed that Trillian is trying to sell version 1.0. This distresses me, because it makes me realize that I was nothing but a test subject in a Beta test. And I never did get any response when I wrote to them about the problems that I had when I used the program.
So while I give Trillian an A for concept, the way that the program performs I rate at a D-. If you want to try this and use e
ither Windows NT 4.1 or 2000, I encourage you to run your Task Manager in the task bar, and monitor the CPU useage. If it suddenly jumps to 100%, use Task Manager to close it. I have talked to other people that have seen this exact same problem in their systems.
Summary:
|
Last comments:
 |
- 11/10/02 OK, I will try to cover all of the things that have been posted here.
Fishbulb:
First, I did not go over what the program did, because that had been covered before. I was pleased with how the program "worked". my issues were with more technical things then "did it look nice". I left off those things I was satisfied with, to save room for those that I was not satisfied with, and had been covered many times by other people.
mumsmary :
Well, if you use 3 or more different IM programs, it might be worth looking into. But remember that the free version is largely a cut down beta of their main program which is $25.
nakedchoke:
I think the problem with MSN and Yahoo is that those services are trying to keep Trillian from useing their systems. I do not use AIM myself, but I have heard of the fight they have had with keeping Trillian users off of their system.
As a side note, expect Trillian to be sued very quickly. They are basically tapping into private chat networks with their program. As long at Trillian was free, there was no real damages. Now that they charge money, expect YIM, ICQ, MIM and AIM to start to file suit for this. This is because those chat services make money from advertising. With Trillian, the ad banners do not go out, so they loose money in effect.
Ronniec:
If you do not do this already, put a minimized Task Manager in your tool bar, and monitor it. I most often noticed the "runaway processor" problem occur when I either entered or left a paused status. For some reason, Trillian would suddenly grab all of my processor's CPU, and refuse to release it. But I know it happens at other times, because I can set myself to never be away, and it still happens. And this happened with 2 different processors and 4 different memory configurations, on 2 different installs of Win2k. But unless you know how to look in the Task Manager, you may never notice this problem. I suspect it was a problem when I used it in 98SE, but because of how the Task Manager works in that version, I was unable to pin down the exact cause of the lock-ups. |
 |
- 10/10/02 Hiya and welcome to DooYoo - a couple of tips/comments for you.
Your writing style is good and the layout of your op is great - very easy on the tired eyes. There was lots of information about problems with trillian on your machine and your O/S and task manager in general, but not once did you even mention what the product did/does - the only way I knew what it was was by reading the short description that DooYoo provided at the top!
Might be worth including a brief description of what it does, how it works and for me personally, I'd like to know does it pop up obtrusively or does it sit quiety in the corner etc etc.
Welcome to DooYoo - have fun! Fishbulb >><>?™ |
 |
- 10/10/02 Hello ,welcome to dooyoo, read ,rate, comment, write oppinionsand win friends and influence people.
Ihave never used trillion |
View all
5
comments
|
Deutschland 
España 
Italia 
France - 
