To instant message me, download a decent Jabber client (or Google Talk) and add either kethinov@jabber.org or kethinov@gmail.com to your contact list. All E-mail sent to those addresses will be ignored. They are Jabber addresses, not E-mail addresses.

I am available on other instant messaging services, but I strongly prefer Jabber.

Why Jabber?

The world needs to move away from the proprietary instant messaging services which currently dominate the internet. Have you ever completely read the terms of service for the IM system you use? Did you know they could alter those documents at any time? If you've read those Slashdot articles about AIM, then you may have discovered that the AIM 'situation' has been resolved. AIM themselves claim they're not spying on users, but this very incident is just one of many in history that proves that proprietary communication services are prone to abuse by their owners. Do you really want to trust your potentially highly sensitive information to a potentially totally unscrupulous corporation which may or may not have an agenda to push not necessarily in your favor by keeping you on their proprietary service?

The solution to this problem is Jabber. Jabber is an open instant messaging protocol which employs a philosophy of decentralization, similar to E-mail. This allows you to create an account with one of many public Jabber servers to use to message your friends instead of relying on the central AIM or MSN server. Or if you want, you may run your own server! In addition to the philosophy of server decentralization Jabber strictly adheres to the philosophy of free software. There are many free clients for every major operating system to choose from.

In short, here's why Jabber is so cool:

• You are not limited to a single client or a single Jabber server, but can still communicate with anyone using any client on any Jabber server, anywhere on the internet.
• Jabber supports offline messaging, unlike AIM.
• Jabber is built to last. If AOL and Microsoft should go out of business tomorrow, Jabber will still be here because it is free and decentralized.
• Using Jabber protects your freedom of speech and your privacy.
• Jabber Transports: You can configure Jabber to communicate with your AIM/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo/Whatever buddies if the server you choose supports that proprietary protocol. Just pick a server that does support the proprietary protocol you wish to use a transport for.

Here's some good Jabber servers and clients:

• Servers
  • Jabber.org - The official Jabber server.
  • "Google Talk" - An open Jabber server (and an extremely limited, but optional client) created by Google which uses your GMail account as your Jabber address.
  • If you're interested in using Jabber Transports to be able to communicate with buddies on other IM services, just pick one of many public servers that supports the features you want. Or create your own!
• Clients
  • Pidgin - My top pick. A free, excellent multiprotocol chat client for Linux and Windows. There is also a Mac port called Adium.
  • Exodus - A free, very nice pure Jabber client for Windows. Recommended for Windows users who don't like Pidgin.
  • iChat - The default IM client bundled with Mac OS X supports Jabber in addition to AIM. Recommended for Mac users who don't like Adium.
  • Gajim - A free, very nice pure Jabber client for Linux designed to support Jabber fully and integrate well into GNOME.
  • Kopete - A free, very nice multiprotocol chat client for Linux designed to integrate well into KDE.
  • PSI - A free, pure Jabber client which runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
  • Tkabber - A free, pure Jabber client which runs on Linux, Mac, and Windows.
  • Google Talk - Only supports logging into Google's Jabber server and only runs in Windows, but this client may show lots of promise in the future.

Stop using proprietary instant messengers and convince your friends to join you! Reclaim your freedom today!