Proteus (instant messaging client)
Proteus is a popular instant messaging client for Mac OS X that supports multiple protocols through the libpurple library. It is written using OS X's Cocoa API.
Supported protocols
- Bonjour (for local networks, formerly known as Rendezvous)
- Gadu-Gadu
- Jabber
- Lotus Sametime
- .NET Messenger Service (also known as MSN)
- OSCAR (viz ICQ, AIM and .Mac)
- Yahoo! Messenger
History
Proteus was originally developed by Justin Wood, then in 2004 Defaultware took over development. As of August 2006, Proteus has changed hands and is no longer maintained by Defaultware.
Design
Proteus's interface vaguely resembles that of Apple's Jabber and AIM client iChat, although iChat is brushed metal, while Proteus uses the standard Aqua. However it has support for more types of networks than iChat, and can also group multiple conversations in one window using tabs. Proteus fails to support some features of the AIM network, such as embedded images, and has limited support for file transfers. It currently has no audio or video conferencing abilities.
Proteus uses libpurple to connect to multiple services. Libpurple is a NATURAL progression of the Pidgin project. This allows the Proteus developers to work on the interface of Proteus, without working on the connections. Other projects, including competitor Adium, also utilize libpurple.
Controversy
Proteus is based off the GPL licensed libgaim library. However, the developers do not share the source code for Proteus. The developers of Proteus claim that they are in compliance with the GPL by running an RPC-accessible daemon process to link to libgaim. As such, the developers have released the source code to the imservices module (their modified libgaim) while keeping the rest of their application proprietary.
Privacy and Encryption
Proteus has presently no special privacy and encryption features. For those who just want/need some kind of privacy the Off-the-Record Messaging-proxy might be an option (presently only available for the OSCAR-Protocol as used within AIM, ICQ, .Mac).
See also
- Comparison of instant messaging clients
- Comparison of IRC clients
- List of Jabber client software
External links
Reviews
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