How is Skype for instant messaging?

Tim and I added a UK number to my Skype so he has a way of making a local call to call me that won't cost either of us a lot of money (using my UK mobile in the us for a phone call is over £1/min!) if he's not at his computer or his 'net goes down. 

Plus, it helped for his family while he's been here since his first week here we kind of put his mobile phone through the washing machine. Oops.

One thing you need to be aware of with Skype is that it can make your computer crash! That seems to happen with the newest version for some folks.  It can also slllloooowwwww  ddddooooooowwwwwwn everything to the point of freezing if your antivirus program interferes.  I had to add skype.exe to my Nod32 antivirus Exclusion list and that solved the problem. It was very frustrating. Now it works great.  I log on whenever I'm online just so the BF can see that I'm up and running and I can see similar.  Then if he needs to speak to me he uses Zerop which has been really great. 

AIM works the best for us for just IMing. We've been using skype to talk with webcams and if it messes up we both have msn messenger as a back up.

If you have US version of AIM, you can send a txt to any cell phone in the US and it doesn't charge you anything and it isn't any different than getting a regular text for the person you send it to. 

I use Skype exclusively for IMing now. I've been doing it for years, but I probably would have switched anyway when Three introduced Skype phones. Which are so awesome that I think I'll go add them to the few of my favorite things thread. Especially now that they've added international SkypeOut.

One thing you need to be aware of with Skype is that it can make your computer crash! That seems to happen with the newest version for some folks.  It can also slllloooowwwww  ddddooooooowwwwwwn everything to the point of freezing if your antivirus program interferes.  I had to add skype.exe to my Nod32 antivirus Exclusion list and that solved the problem. It was very frustrating. Now it works great.  I log on whenever I'm online just so the BF can see that I'm up and running and I can see similar.  Then if he needs to speak to me he uses Zerop which has been really great. 

I've never had any problems like that with Skype, nor heard of them until reading this.

I find Firefox to be a bigger resource hog over Skype, to be honest. 

I've never had any problems like that with Skype, nor heard of them until reading this.

I find Firefox to be a bigger resource hog over Skype, to be honest. 

I second BJSC, I have never heard of that problem either and find firefox more of a problem then skype.  I use skype for both IMing and phone calls and love it.  I do get annoyed when my call keeps dropping but when you are paying nothing, you can't complain too much! 

I've had the issue of delayed voice and even picture. It made calls painful to endure. I didn't really have problems with it crashing really, but I couldn't do anything else when I was using the webchat feature. The IM function was pretty basic to me- like being back with AOL in 1998. Annoying smileys, too (I know! Nitpicky!) I've found msn chat works best- can do voice calls to the other person's computer with camera or just camera/IM if it's late (flatmates sleeping).

Those of you who've used gmail chat- is it like a real, full function program or more like facebook level function?

I've had the issue of delayed voice and even picture. It made calls painful to endure. I didn't really have problems with it crashing really, but I couldn't do anything else when I was using the webchat feature. The IM function was pretty basic to me- like being back with AOL in 1998. Annoying smileys, too (I know! Nitpicky!) I've found msn chat works best- can do voice calls to the other person's computer with camera or just camera/IM if it's late (flatmates sleeping).

I second MSN chat--I tried Skype but it just lagged bad on my computer, and slowed everything down and was really crap quality on my PC compared to MSN. Me and Steve use MSN every day for the video/audio calls, and I've found the IM feature to be more to my liking than Skype--for me Skype is just really cluttered and awkward. But, that's mainly just me since I'm so used to MSN now, it's been my saving grace for 3 years

Those of you who've used gmail chat- is it like a real, full function program or more like facebook level function?

I haven't used the voice option for gchat, but you can set up Pidgin with gchat and it works pretty much like AIM. But from the web it's pretty similar to facebook chat, just no annoying lag.

Those of you who've used gmail chat- is it like a real, full function program or more like facebook level function?

Gmail Chat is better than Facebook. Not only is it reliable, but has the pop-out option, so you can open up a separate chat window like you could with AIM or MSN. Or you can keep it with your Gmail. And you have more settings you can choose for Gmail Chat. And it also logs your conversations and keeps them in your Gmail archives (if you so choose.)

You can pop out Facebook chat too.  I usually just leave myself offline on the FB chat though. It freezes up and lags so horribly on my computer, and sometimes it doesn't let me type in the IM box. 

i just signed up for skype's subscription service-- for 30 pounds a year (a year! couldn't believe it!), you get unlimited calls to phone numbers in any one country of your choosing.  so far, i've been really pleased with the quality, as well! my grandmother didn't even realize i wasn't calling on a regular phone.  you also get a 50 percent discount on a skype local number, if you choose to set that up, and then any calls you receive from that country are unlimited on your end, since the call would then fall into your subscription coverage.