Gaim 2.0.0beta1 Released 383
BerkeleyDude writes "Gaim 2.0.0beta1 has been released! Here is the changelog.
New features include account status, away messages, etc, UPnP and NAT traversal support, new UI for buddylist, chat windows and preferences."
encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
I still don't understand why their developers chose to do this. One of the few things that is right with AIM is the secure-chat feature. It's fairly easy to set up, and its very secure.
Re:Idle Time Reporting Option Removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Switch to Kopete.
Re:Video chat with Yahoo chat people? (Score:3, Insightful)
Any objections?
(Pardon me for coming off all snarky, but some of us are interested in using Internet technologies for purposes that have nothing to do with prurient gratification.)
What the heck? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:i'll never use gaim (Score:4, Insightful)
Firstly: let me reiterate: I was beyond polite to both developers. I didn't bitch and moan, and I didn't flood them with unrequested details. I simply said that I had noted that NAT'd environments seemed to be causing gaim clients problems. Their responses were totally uncalled for. If they knew of the problems, and didn't want to discuss it.. there are more polite ways than saying, "Yeah, we know. And I'll probably never fix it, since I don't use NAT. Only loosers use NAT. Don't like it? Fine. Find another client." (yes, this is a paraphrase, but more accurate than you would like to think. It's both immature and uncalled for.)
Secondly: I never claimed that NAT traversal was easy. I have total sympathy for anyone coding to make it work... but that does not excuse the gaim developers' attitudes. There is little excuse for being a dick to a user. And not even caring if your code causes everyone under NAT to have headaches? Sorry.. but with attitudes like that.. their product will rarely improve, and they will drive away a large number of people that might have migrated to their product.
If you wish to use an IM client developed by people like that... fine. Just remember that next time you're bashing the poor quality of code and corporate apathy of companies like Microsoft or Real-Networks. (mind you, I am not a fan of either.)
Re:i'll never use gaim (Score:1, Insightful)
But... Let's consider this. If you went to Microsoft and asked them to implement a feature, do you really think they'd listen? Do you think they'd give you the relevant developer's email address?
(Rhetorical questions.)
Re:Idle Time Reporting Option Removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Amen. Gaim has a habit of removing the features I like most, and then not offering alternative instructions to still have that setting (surely it still can be managed via a config file somewhere, but I have no idea how). In the changelog, these feature removals are listed as: "Simplified configuration-x interface"
I will try out Gaim2 for myself, but if there truly is no way to set idle reporting to gaim usage, I will revert to 1.x
Making me dig and dig trying to figure out how to use Gaim the way I used to be able to use it is not simplifying the interface.
Re:Binary Packages (Score:2, Insightful)
So aside from gentoo, people are pretty much left with two options. Install from source and a binary package. I don't think it's reasonable to mock someone for asking if there's a binary disto available. Granted, there's a lot of distros out there, and it may be harder than it sounds, but don't jump on the guy for asking.
msn (Score:5, Insightful)
I know.. if it ain't there.. do it yourself... but I'm not capable of coding such a thing.
Maybe the specs are closed... whatever. Fact is that at this moment for a lot of young people.. msn is the killer app.
Re:Screenshots of the new buddy list anybody? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:and what about the passwords? (Score:1, Insightful)
Actually, if you read the page you're linking to, you should really find it makes perfect sense.
No, you're risking increased exposure. While the idea of using filesystem protections to secure the password is a good one in theory, it fails to provide layers of security, something that is nearly always a sound security principle.
If a system is compromised with some other avenue of attack, the unobscured nature of the stored password gives the attacker a password. While we are supposed to have different passwords for every system, we all know that reality is often far different.
This happened at my employer recently. Our system uses NTLM for most authentication, including Jabber. From a single compromise and the nature of the gaim stored password - instant access to anyone's accounts that stored a password with gaim (well, supposing that their password had been written in an appropriate place - it's not quite that simple).
Yes, yes, any obscuring that did not require a password would be a schill. It could be cracked with relatively little effort. But when a compromise has happened, there's a big difference between someone instantly having access to all accounts and someone having to do some work for each.
So while I agree - obscuring stored passwords does not increase security in any formal sense - it seems silly to deny that an extra layer of protection, capable of slowing an attacker, is useful.
Re:Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes (Score:2, Insightful)
Couple projects have tried to fork gaim, now you don't really hear any of them. I think that speaks for itself.
Re:i'll never use gaim (Score:4, Insightful)
But for GUI stuff, gaim is hard to beat.
If you don't like it, you don't like it. But if you're one of the guys bitching about the developer's attitude, step back and think about it for a moment. They're giving you free software, and they're trying to keep up with not one, but several closed protocols. It is open source, if you feel so strongly that they can't be trusted to do a decent job, fork the goddamned thing. Your reaction makes sense if you're paying for it, but you aren't. And they won't care if you stop using it... doesn't cost them any money.
This attitude befuddles me... if only you people would do the same with crappy commercial software, stop using it because the developers are assholes, Microsoft wouldn't be the force that it is today. Somehow though, it only ever gets applied to OSS...
Re:and what about the passwords? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:For WIndows users (Score:3, Insightful)
(1) GAIM should not have such a large memory footprint. I'm not sure if this has been fixed in 2.0 beta, but it's a huge gripe I have. Given enough time and use, GAIM will just become this behemoth application that slows everything to a crawl.
(2) I know the Aways Message code has been rewritten, and hopefully it has taken into account the fact that not all away message lengths and types are standard -- so setting one away message for all acounts is not really feasible. For example, I could place a huge away message for my AIM accounts, but my Yahoo account will be awkwardly cut off. It's just kinda lame.
(3) I wish the logging feature in GAIM could somehow recollect logs from the ancient versions of GAIM (sub 0.70, I believe). I have logs that extend wayyy back in time, and I'd love to be able to reclaim them in GAIM today. I know there are some elements that were not included in those logs to break them into the exact format that is being used now, but I'm sure they are still parseable and reclaimable.
(4) I honestly believe that GAIM looks like garbage. I know the UI stuff is what OSS has been all about sucking at, and this is no departure from what seems like the norm, but c'mon. I am seriously waiting for the moment when GAIM can look like DeadAIM or Trillian, or anything in that general region of interest. Frankly, I think GAIM is a super powerful program, that I have loved for years, but damnit, make it look nice.
(5) The file sending and receiving feature for GAIM is garbage. I rarely can receive and send files without something catastrophic happening to my client. That is terrible, and almost a reason why I am slowly making plans to move away from it. Yes, I am sad about this too. Well, hopefully you are sad.
(6) And I really want to be able to control my buddy list a lot better. I remeber testing a really unstable CVS copy of GAIM, and I did notice that there was a way to list buddies based on log size, which is excellent, but still. I want other ways to do it too. And I'm not sure if there are other ways (you could enlighten me), but I think that would be an amazing tool.
(7) And then, generally speaking, I want GAIM to have more features. I really want the clients that I have on GAIM to have much better access to the normal client's array of stuff
And that's that. I have ranted
-Pavan
Re:and what about the passwords? (Score:4, Insightful)
You overestimate the amount of sane people in the world.
This is why I reject biological scans. Nothing I could ever have is that sensitive that I would want to risk losing an eyeball over it. Besides, a password you can change when compromised (or even before it gets compromised), but when someone manages to duplicate whatever biological trait you use to identify yourself, you're screwed (which together with cloning tech might actually turn out to be a fine way of copying bio identities).
Re:and what about the passwords? (Score:5, Insightful)
People are thinking of encrypting the file as the equivalent of putting it in a vault so no one can get it. I see the encryption more as a "Please Keep Out" sign, where anyone can disregard it, but most people will respect your wishes.
Re:Binary Packages (Score:2, Insightful)
Other people don't like to use computers the same way you do. You're worse than the idiot 11 year olds I deal with every day that INSIST that Playstation is better than Nintendo. I like Debian. Other people might like Ubuntu, or Fedora, or Suse, or Slackware.
There are hundreds of Unix distributions, yet they're always one fucking idiot claiming his way to be the one true way. Moron.
Re:Option to remove icons from tabs still missing. (Score:3, Insightful)