You've got friends using AOL, MSN, Yahoo!, and Google's instant messenger clients. You could install four different applications, or you could use a multi-protocol chat client like Pidgin, Miranda, or Trillian.

For mac users, the undisputed champion of multi-chat clients is Adium. Like all things Mac, the program has a cult-following and probably for good reason. It's a robust chat application that works with more than a dozen different chat protocols.

But it's about to get some competition. Cerulean Studios, the company behind Trillian is working on a Mac version of their popular IM client. The Mac version is still in the early alpha testing phase and doesn't have all the features you can find on its Windows cousin. In other words, while you can test it out today, you probably won't feel any urge to stop using Adium. Eventually the developers plan to add features and full-fledged multi-chat client for OS X.

In order to sign up for the Alpha you'll need to sign up for an account using the Windows version of Trillian Astra.

[via tuaw]