LAN Chat With Pidgin

Edit: I don't like it.

We have a small local network with three/four PC stations. I have searched for years for a good, solid and free way to chat. I can't remember all the different programs I've tried over the years but some worked on older versions of Windows and then faded away. I had given up and had been using Google but despite working well over the internet, it didn't seem to serve us very well locally. One of the drawbacks for us is Google Chat is tied to Gmail and when we had an employee change we needed to play around. I want the chat tied to that specific station, no matter who is using it and without the ever evolving creepiness of Google Chat.

One last time I searched and discovered how easy it is to set up Pidgin. You need to have Apple's Bonjour service set up which almost made me bolt, but everything has big memory now and resources are not a problem. File transfer works great also.

Here is a link to show how simple the setup is.

I like using a hot key to bring up the buddy list but you will need a third party plug in dll for this. Find it here.