free instant messaging client

Miranda IM

Miranda IM is a free instant messaging client for Windows, and while it doesn’t have the fancy features of other IM clients, it’s very functional and provides basic but solid features. Most important, however, is that it’s free and easy to use. With this software you can easily add accounts from your other IM clients, and that’s only for starters.

Spark

Spark is a free, open source IM client with a full complement of features and even plugin support. Developed by Jive Software, the program is Java based so any system that supports it will be able to run this application. Among the application's many features are voice calling, group chat, file transfers and more.