Got iChat? Add Fire To Your Mac And Chat More.

Add Chax to iChat and make it perfect, I said. “Not so” said Mac360 readers.

Perfect is in the eye of the beholder, of course. Can chat ever be perfect? With a little “Fire,” perhaps. Oh, this Fire is free.

Instant Messaging, or “chat” as it’s often called, is a big deal on Mac and Windows. There’s a dozen applications that IM, and many, if not most are not compatible with one another.

While Chax adds some nifty utilities to iChat AV which helps it on the road to “perfect”, I heard enough from more than one reader to rescind my “perfect” tag.

Why? What’s wrong with iChat that keeps it from being “perfect?” It works better and easier than any Instant Messaging system out there (my opinion; no flames, please).

Have you tried to configure AOL’s Instant Messenger on Windows? Ugh. Try it. You’ll begin to appreciate iChat even more.

Regardless, what would cause me to take back what I said about iChat being “perfect?” There’s a perfectly logical argument.

iChat only works with other iChat users and AOL’s Instant Messenger. Yes, there’s the Jabber component. No one but Tera uses that, right?

And that’s the point. There’s Yahoo Instant Messenger. AOL’s Instant Messenger. Apple’s iChat. There’s Jabber. There’s ICQ. Microsoft has their Instant Messenger.

See the problem? Everyone goes their own way so no one can really “chat” with each other. It’s a modern day version of the Tower of Babel.

”Fire” to the rescue. Tera and other Mac360 readers, actually many readers, pointed out that iChat could not be perfect because it could not talk with other IM services.

Frankly, that makes sense. Since I’ve got barely two months to go before giving birth, I figure this may be the last time I’ll recognize what sense looks like, so I’d better jump on the opportunity.

Changing my mind is not a problem. I’m already thinking twice about the benefits of pregnancy (besides that whole, “perpetuate the species” thing).

I asked Tera why so many were so upset that iChat wasn’t perfect. Tera said, “Try Fire.”

So I did. First, I tried it because Tera said to, and I respect her opinion. Second, I was more interested in Fire because it’s free. Open Source. I like that.

Finally, I tried Fire because I don’t want to give birth, have kids, grow old, and forget how to try things that are new and different.

Fire is a free Instant Messaging application for Mac OS X. If you like iChat, you’ll like Fire, but it’s not as easy to set up and run, though it’s also not difficult. iChat is that good.

Fire supports the most popular Instant Messaging services: AIM, ICQ, Irc, Jabber, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple (Bonjour, anyone?).

The latest version, avaiilable Here, is a Universal Binary, which means it’ll run on older PowerPC Macs in OS X, and the new Intel Macs using OS X.

Did I mention that Fire is free? All I can really say is, download it, install it, try it out. Your mileage may vary. No, it will vary. Fire is simple and straightforward, though it’s NOT iChat AV, or a substitute for it.

Fire simply connects and works with all the other “chat” services (IM). I got it to work with Tera’s Jabber, AOL, Microsoft MSN, and Yahoo’s IM. I didn’t try the others.

Why is this nifty application called “Fire?” The most popular online IM service is AOL’s Instant Messenger, known as AIM. What comes after AIM? Fire.

You know; Ready, Aim, Fire. It took me a moment to figure on that one but I was eating Mango sorbet with chocolate syrup at the time.

Add Fire to your Mac. Chat with whomever and wherever.

Tera Patricks
Alex, remember what I said about using the word “perfect” online? I prefer Adium X to Fire.

Bambi Hambi
I don’t use iChat for anything but video conferencing. Adium is always on so I can IM folks using AOL, Yahoo, and MSN.

Jack D. Miller
Frankly, I don’t care much for IM. I think it’s a big time waster and just something else to keep track of. iChat for video is best.

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