Trillian is a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application created by Cerulean Studios. It is currently available for Microsoft Windows,

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

, iOS,

BlackBerry OS BlackBerry OS is a discontinued proprietary mobile operating system developed by Canadian company BlackBerry Limited for its BlackBerry line of smartphone handheld devices. The operating system provides multitasking and supports specialized i ...

, and the Web. It can connect to multiple IM services, such as AIM, Bonjour,

Facebook Messenger Messenger is a proprietary instant messaging app and platform developed by Meta Platforms. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the company revamped its messaging service in 2010, released standalone iOS and Android apps in 2011, and ...

, Google Talk (Hangouts), IRC, XMPP (Jabber), VZ, and

Yahoo! Messenger Yahoo! Messenger (sometimes abbreviated Y!M) was an advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger was provided free of charge and could be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo I ...

networks; as well as

social networking site A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, act ...

s, such as

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...

, Foursquare,

LinkedIn LinkedIn () is an American business and employment-oriented online service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Launched on May 5, 2003, the platform is primarily used for professional networking and career development, and allows job s ...

, and

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

; and

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

services, such as

POP3 In computing, the Post Office Protocol (POP) is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a mail server. POP version 3 (POP3) is the version in common use, and along with IMAP the most comm ...

and

IMAP In computing, the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) is an Internet standard protocol used by email clients to retrieve email messages from a mail server over a TCP/IP connection. IMAP is defined by . IMAP was designed with the goal of pe ...

. Trillian no longer supports

Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versio ...

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, ...

as these services have combined and Microsoft chose to discontinue Skypekit. They also no longer support connecting to MySpace, and no longer support a distinct connection for

Gmail Gmail is a free email service provided by Google. As of 2019, it had 1.5 billion active user (computing), users worldwide. A user typically accesses Gmail in a web browser or the official mobile app. Google also supports the use of email clien ...

Hotmail Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, calendaring, contacts, and tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith as Hotmail, it was acquired by Microsoft in 19 ...

Yahoo! Mail Yahoo! Mail is an email service launched on October 8, 1997, by the American company Yahoo, Inc. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. Business email was previously available with the Yahoo! ...

although these can still be connected to via

. Currently, Trillian supports Facebook, Google, Jabber (XMPP), and Olark. Initially released July 1, 2000, as a

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

IRC client, the first commercial version ''(Trillian Pro 1.0)'' was published on September 10, 2002. The program was named after Trillian, a

fictional character In fiction, a character (or speaker, in poetry) is a person or other being in a narrative (such as a novel, Play (theatre), play, Radio series, radio or television series, music, film, or video game). The character may be entirely fictional or b ...

in ''

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' (sometimes referred to as ''HG2G'', ''HHGTTG'', ''H2G2'', or ''tHGttG'') is a comedy science fiction franchise created by Douglas Adams. Originally a 1978 radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it ...

'' by

Douglas Adams Douglas Noel Adams (11 March 1952 – 11 May 2001) was an English author and screenwriter, best known for ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy''. Originally a 1978 BBC radio comedy, ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' developed into a " ...

. A previous version of the official web site even had a tribute to Douglas Adams on its front page. On August 14, 2009, Trillian "Astra" (4.0) for Windows was released, along with its own Astra network. Trillian 5 for Windows was released in May 2011, and Trillian 6.0 was initially released in February 2017.

Features

Connection to multiple IM services

Trillian connects to multiple instant messaging services without the need of running multiple clients. Users can create multiple connections to the same service, and can also group connections under separate identities to prevent confusion. All contacts are gathered under the same contact list. Contacts are not bound to their own IM service groups, and can be dragged and dropped freely. Trillian represents each service with a different-colored sphere. Prior versions used the corporate logos for each service, but these were removed to avoid copyright issues, although some skins still use the original icons. The Trillian designers chose a color-coding scheme based on the underground maps used by the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The U ...

that uses different colors to differentiate between different lines.

IM services

* Green And Blue for Trillian Astra Network * Grey for IRC * Amber and Dark Gray for Bonjour (Rendezvous) * Purple for Jabber/XMPP (partially broken as of 10/27/2017) * Teal and Amber for

Google Talk Google Talk was an instant messaging service that provided both text and voice communication. The instant messaging service was variously referred to colloquially as Gchat, Gtalk, or Gmessage among its users. Google Talk was also the name of ...

(discontinued as of 2022) * Blue And Teal for

(discontinued as of 2022)

Mail services

A White Envelope for

POP Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * ''Pop'' (G ...

emails *

a Manila Envelope for

emails *

a Teal Envelope for

Prior versions of Trillian supported: * Microsoft Exchange * Lotus Sametime *

Novell GroupWise GroupWise is a messaging and collaboration platform from Micro Focus that supports email, calendaring, personal information management, instant messaging, and document management. The GroupWise platform consists of desktop client software, wh ...

Messenger

Metacontact

To eliminate duplicates and simplify the structure of the contact list, users can bundle multiple contact entries for the same person into one entry in the contact list, using the Metacontact feature (similarly to Ayttm's fallback messaging feature). Subcontacts will appear under the metacontact as small icons aligned in a manner of a tree.

Activity history

Trillian Pro comes with Activity History, and both log the history as both plain text files and as

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

files. Pro has a History Manager that shows the chat history and allows the user to add bookmarks for revision later on. XML-based history makes the log easy to manipulate, searchable and extendable for future functions.

Stream manipulation

Trillian Pro also has a stream manipulation feature labelled 'time travel', which allows the user to record, and subsequently review, pause, rewind, and fast forward live video and audio sessions.

SecureIM

SecureIM is an

encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can dec ...

system built into the Trillian Instant Messenger Client. It encrypts messages from user to user, so no passively observing

node In general, a node is a localized swelling (a "knot") or a point of intersection (a vertex). Node may refer to: In mathematics * Vertex (graph theory), a vertex in a mathematical graph * Vertex (geometry), a point where two or more curves, line ...

between the two is supposedly able to read the encrypted messages. SecureIM does ''not''

authenticate Authentication (from ''authentikos'', "real, genuine", from αὐθέντης ''authentes'', "author") is the act of proving an assertion, such as the identity of a computer system user. In contrast with identification, the act of indicati ...

its messages, and therefore it is susceptible to active attacks including simple forms of

man-in-the-middle attack In cryptography and computer security, a man-in-the-middle, monster-in-the-middle, machine-in-the-middle, monkey-in-the-middle, meddler-in-the-middle, manipulator-in-the-middle (MITM), person-in-the-middle (PITM) or adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) ...

s. According to Cerulean Studios, the makers of Trillian, SecureIM enciphers messages with 128-bit Blowfish encryption. It only works with the

OSCAR protocol OSCAR (''Open System for CommunicAtion in Realtime'') is AOL's proprietary instant messaging and presence information protocol. It was used by AOL's AIM instant messaging system and ICQ. Despite its name, the specifications for the protocol rem ...

and if both chat partners use Trillian. However, the key used for encryption is established using a

Diffie–Hellman key exchange Diffie–Hellman key exchangeSynonyms of Diffie–Hellman key exchange include: * Diffie–Hellman–Merkle key exchange * Diffie–Hellman key agreement * Diffie–Hellman key establishment * Diffie–Hellman key negotiation * Exponential key exc ...

which only uses a 128 bit prime number as modulus, which is extremely insecure and can be broken within minutes on a standard PC.

Instant lookup

Starting with version 3.0 in both the Basic and Pro suites, Trillian makes use of the English-language version of the

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a multilingual free online encyclopedia written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and using a wiki-based editing system. Wikipedia is the largest and most-read ref ...

free online encyclopedia for real-time referencing using its

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

of free knowledge. The feature is employed directly within a conversation window of a user. When one or more words are entered (by either user), Trillian checks all words against a database file and if a match is found, the word appears with a dotted green underline. When users point their

mouse A mouse ( : mice) is a small rodent. Characteristically, mice are known to have a pointed snout, small rounded ears, a body-length scaly tail, and a high breeding rate. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse (''Mus musculus' ...

over the word, the lead paragraph of the corresponding article is

download In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remo ...

ed from Wikipedia and displayed on screen as a

tooltip The tooltip, also known as infotip or hint, is a common graphical user interface (GUI) element in which, when hovering over a screen element or component, a text box displays information about that element, such as a description of a button's ...

. When users click on the underlined word, they are given the choice to visit the article

online In computer technology and telecommunications, online indicates a state of connectivity and offline indicates a disconnected state. In modern terminology, this usually refers to an Internet connection, but (especially when expressed "on line" o ...

Emotiblips

Emotiblips are the video equivalent of an emoticon. During video sessions, the user may stream a song or video to the other user in real time. One can send MP3s, WAVs, WMVs, and MPGs with this feature. QuickTime MOV files as Emotiblips are not currently supported.

Hidden smileys

In version 2.0 to the current, the default

emoticon An emoticon (, , rarely , ), short for "emotion icon", also known simply as an emote, is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using characters—usually punctuation marks, numbers, and letters—to express a person's feelings, m ...

set contains emoticons that don't appear in the menu but can be used in conversations. Some of these are animations that can only be viewed in Trillian Pro, but all of them can be used regardless.

Skins and interfaces (Discontinued)

Trillian has its own unique skinning engine known as ''SkinXML''. Many skins have been developed for Trillian and they can be downloaded from the official skins gallery or

deviantArt DeviantArt (historically stylized as deviantART) is an American online art community that features artwork, videography and photography, launched on August 7, 2000 by Angelo Sotira, Scott Jarkoff, and Matthew Stephens among others. DeviantArt ...

. Trillian also came with an easier skinning language, ''Stixe'', which is essentially a set of

Entities that simplifies repetitive codes and allows skinners to share XML and graphics in the form of emoticon packs, sound packs and interfaces. The default skins of Trillian are designed by Madelena Mak. Trillian Cordillera was used in ''Trillian 0.7x'', while Trillian Whistler has been the default skin for Trillian since Pro 1.0. Small cosmetic changes were noticeable in each major release. The ''Trillian Astra'' features a brand new design for the front-end UI, named Trillian Cordonata.

Plugins (Discontinued)

Trillian is a closed-source application, but the Pro version can be extended by

plugins Plug-in, plug in or plugin may refer to: * Plug-in (computing) is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. ** Audio plug-in, adds audio signal processing features ** Photoshop plugin, a piece of software t ...

. Plugins by Cerulean Studios itself include spell-check, weather monitor, a mini-browser (for viewing AIM profiles),

Winamp Winamp is a media player for Microsoft Windows originally developed by Justin Frankel and Dmitry Boldyrev by their company Nullsoft, which they later sold to AOL in 1999 for $80 million. It was then acquired by Radionomy in 2014. Sin ...

song title scroller, stock exchange monitor,

RSS RSS ( RDF Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) is a web feed that allows users and applications to access updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format. Subscribing to RSS feeds can allow a user to keep track of many di ...

feedreader, and conversation abilities for the Logitech G15 keyboard, as well as a plug-in for the XMPP and Bonjour networks. Others have developed various plug-ins, such as a ''games'' plug-in which can be used to play

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

and

checkers Checkers (American English), also known as draughts (; British English), is a group of strategy board games for two players which involve diagonal moves of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces. Checkers ...

, a protocol plugin to send

NetBIOS NetBIOS () is an acronym for Network Basic Input/Output System. It provides services related to the session layer of the OSI model allowing applications on separate computers to communicate over a local area network. As strictly an API, N ...

messages through Trillian, a plug-in to interact with Lotus Sametime clients, a plug-in to interact with Microsoft Exchange, a

and

email checker, or an automatic translator for many European languages to and from English. Trillian 5.1 for Windows and later included a plug-in that allows you to chat and make calls on Skype without Skype being installed. As of July 2014, Skype is no longer accessible from the Trillian client, as the Skype plug-in no longer works (some had been able to use older versions of the Trillian client, but now these also no longer work with Skype.) Plugins are available for free and are hosted on the official web site, but most need Trillian Pro 2+ to run.

In-Game Chat

Starting at version 5.3, Trillian users can toggle an overlay when playing a video game on the computer that allows the user to use Trillian's chat features, in a similar vein to

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporizat ...

's overlay chat. When toggled, the overlay will show the time according to the system's clock, and the chat window itself is a variation Trillian's base chat window, with tabs used for different sets of queries and channels. Also, when the overlay is not activated, users can view a toggle-able sticker that tells the user how many messages are unread.

History

Early beginnings

After several internal builds, the first ever public release of Trillian, version ''0.50'', was available on July 1, 2000, and was designed to be an IRC client. The release was deemed 'too buggy' and was immediately pulled off the shelf and replaced by a new version ''0.51'' on the same day. It featured a simple Connection Manager and skinned windows. A month later, two minor builds were released with additional IRC features and bug fixes. Despite these efforts, Trillian was not popular, as reflected in the number of downloads from CNET's Download.com. Trillian was a donateware at that time. They used

PayPal PayPal Holdings, Inc. is an American multinational financial technology company operating an online payments system in the majority of countries that support online money transfers, and serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper ...

for receiving donations through their web site.

Introduction of interoperability

Version ''0.6'', released November 29, 2000, represented a major change in the direction of development, when the client became able to connect to AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ and MSN Messenger simultaneously in one window. Although similar products, such as

Odigo Odigo Messenger was an early social networking service based on instant messaging. Odigo believed in connecting and forming friendships: members would "meet" if two or more visited the same web site simultaneously. Odigo Messenger allowed members ...

and Imici, already existed, Trillian was novel in the way that it distinguished contacts from different IM services clearly on the contact list, and it did not require registration of a proprietary account. It also did not lose connection easily like the other clients. A month later, Yahoo! Messenger support was introduced in Trillian ''0.61'', and it also featured a holiday skin for Christmas. Meanwhile, the Trillian community forums were opened to the public. During this period, new versions were released frequently, attracting many enthusiasts to the community. Skinning activity boomed and fan sites were created. A skinning contest was held on

in Summer, and the winner was selected to design the default skin for the next version of Trillian. Trillian hit 100,000 downloads on August 14, 2001.

Entry into mainstream and the "IM Wars"

Contrary to the anticipation for version "0.64" in the community, the next version of Trillian was numbered ''0.70''. It was released December 5, 2001. Development took five months, considerably longer than development of prior builds. The new version implemented file transfer in all IM services, a feature most requested by the community at the time. It also represented a number of skin language changes. It used the contact list as the main window (as opposed to a status window 'container' in prior versions) and featured a brand new default skin, ''Trillian Cordillera'', and an emoticon set boasting over 100 emoticons, setting a record apart from other messengers available at that time. Version ''0.71'' was released on December 18, 2001. It supported AIM group chats and was the first major IM client which included the ability to encrypt messages with SecureIM. In the following months, the number of downloads of Trillian surged, reaching 1 million on 27 January 2002, and 5 million within 6 months. Trillian received coverage and favorable reviews from mainstream media worldwide, particularly by CNET, ''

Wired ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fran ...

'' and

BetaNews eFront was an affiliate marketing network which purchased successful websites, such as ''Penny Arcade,'' SquareGamer, and BetaNews, and pooled traffic to those sites to command higher prices for advertising during an industrywide ad revenue slowd ...

. The lead developer and co-founder, Scott Werndorfer, was also interviewed on

TechTV TechTV is a defunct 24-hour cable and satellite channel based in San Francisco featuring news and shows about computers, technology, and the Internet. In 2004, it merged with the G4 gaming channel which ultimately dissolved TechTV programming ...

. AOL became aware that Trillian users were able to chat with their AIM buddies without having to download the AIM client, and on January 28, 2002, AOL blocked SecureIM access from Trillian clients. Cerulean appeared to have circumvented the block with version ''0.721'' of its client software, released one day later. This "AOL War" continued for the next couple of weeks, with Cerulean releasing subsequent patches ''0.722'', ''0.723'' and ''0.724''. Trillian appeared in the

Jupiter Media Metrix Jupiter Media Metrix, an American media measurement and analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also en ...

Internet audience ratings in February 2002 with 344,000 unique users, and grew to 610,000 by April 2002. While those numbers are very small compared to the major IM networks, Jupiter said Trillian consistently ranks highest according to the number of average minutes spent per month. Trillian also created a special version for

Iomega Iomega (later LenovoEMC) produced external, portable, and networked data storage products. Established in the 1980s in Roy, Utah, United States, Iomega sold more than 410 million digital storage drives and disks, including the Zip drive floppy ...

ActiveDisk.

Commercialisation with Trillian Pro

On September 9, 2002, a commercial version, ''Trillian Pro 1.0'', was released concurrently with ''Trillian Basic 0.74''. The commercial version was sold for $25 US for a year of subscription, but all those who donated to the development of Trillian before were eligible to a year of subscription at no cost. The new version had added SMS and mobile messaging abilities,

webcam A webcam is a video camera which is designed to record or stream to a computer or computer network. They are primarily used in videotelephony, livestreaming and social media, and security. Webcams can be built-in computer hardware or periphera ...

support, pop-up e-mail alerts and new plug-ins to shuttle news, weather and stock quotes directly to buddy lists. It appeared Trillian Pro would be marketed to corporate clients looking to keep in touch with suppliers or customers via a secured, interoperable IM network, and a relatively stern user interface. The company had no venture capital backing, and had depended entirely on donations from users to stay alive. Trillian Pro 1.0 was nominated and picked among three other nominees as the Best Internet Communication shareware in its debut year of being a "try before you buy" shareware. On April 26, 2003, total downloads of Trillian reached ten million.

Blocking from Yahoo! and cooperation with Gaim

A few weeks after ''Trillian Pro 2.0'' was released,

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...

attempted to block Trillian from connecting to its service in their "efforts to implement preventative measures to protect our users from potential spammers." A few patches were released by the Trillian developers, which resolved the issue. The Trillian developers assisted its open-source cross-platform rival Gaim in solving the Yahoo! connection issues. Sean Egan, the developer of Gaim, posted in its site, "Our friends over at Cerulean Studios managed to break my speed record at cracking Yahoo! authentication schemes with an impressive feat of hackery. They sent it over and here it is in Gaim 0.70." It was later revealed that the developers were friends and had helped each other on past occasions. Meanwhile, as Microsoft forced its users to upgrade to MSN Messenger 5.0 for upgrades in their servers for security issues, October 15, 2003 also would mark the deadline for Trillian support for MSN Messenger. However, it appeared that Cerulean Studios worked with

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

to resolve the issue on August 2, 2003, long before the deadline. On March 7, 2004, and June 23, 2004, Yahoo! changed its instant messaging language again to prevent third-party services, such as Trillian, from accessing its service. Like prior statements, the company said the block is meant as a pre-emptive measure against spammers. Cerulean Studios released a few patches to fix the issues within a day or two.

Trillian 3 Series

In August 2004, a new official

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

was created in attempt to rebuild connections between the Studios and its customers. Trillian 3 was announced in the blog, and a sneak preview was made available to a small group of testers. After months of beta-testing, the final build of Trillian 3 was released on December 18, 2004, with features such as new video and audio chat abilities throughout AIM, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger, an enhanced logging manager and integration with the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. It also featured a clean and re-organized user interface and a brand new official web site. The release also updated the long-abandoned ''Trillian Basic .74'' to match the new user interface and functionalities as ''Trillian Basic 3.0''. The number of accumulated downloads of Trillian Basic in Download.com hit 20 million within a matter of weeks. ''Trillian 3.1'' was released February 23, 2005. It included new features such as

Universal Plug and Play Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) is a set of networking protocols that permits networked devices, such as personal computers, printers, Internet gateways, Wi-Fi access points and mobile devices to seamlessly discover each other's presence on the ...

(UPnP) and multiple identities support. On June 10, 2011, all instances of Trillian 3 Basic got an automatic upgrade to Trillian 3 Pro, free of charge.

U3 and Google Pack

A version of Trillian that could run on U3 USB flash drives was released on October 21, 2005. Trillian could previously be run from generic flash drives or other storage devices with some minor unofficial modifications, known as "Trillian Anywhere". A U3 version of Trillian Astra is also posted on the official Cerulean Studios forum. On January 6, 2006,

Larry Page Lawrence Edward Page (born March 26, 1973) is an American business magnate, computer scientist and internet entrepreneur. He is best known for co-founding Google with Sergey Brin. Page was the chief executive officer of Google from 1997 u ...

, President of Products at

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

, announced Google Pack, a bundle of various applications including ''Trillian Basic 3.0'' as "a free collection of safe, useful software from Google and other companies that improves the user experience online and on the desktop". According to the Cerulean Studios blog, Trillian was discontinued from Google Pack on 19 May 2006. The inclusion of Trillian in Google Pack was perplexing to some media analysts as Google had at the time its own

service which touted the benefits of an open IM system. The free Trillian Basic client could not be used with Google Talk, however, the paid Trillian Pro was listed as one of the "client choices" in the Google Talk client choices list until Google Talk was replaced by Google Hangouts in May 2013.

Trillian Astra (Trillian 4)

More than a year after the release of ''Trillian 3.1'', the Cerulean Studios blog began spreading news again and announced the next version of Trillian, to be named ''Trillian Astra''. The name for version 4, ''Astra'', is the nickname used by the same fictional character that is the namesake of the software, which is a reference to

. The new release claimed to be faster and include a new login screen. A new domain, www.trillianastra.com, was disclosed to the public, with only the logo and blue background. On July 3, 2009, Cerulean Studios reopened the premium web version of Astra to public testing. On August 14, 2009, Cerulean Studios released the final gold build. Trillian has its own social network named Astra Network, in which users who have Astra ID can communicate with each other on the network regardless of platform. Cerulean Studios later registered a new domain, www.trillian.im, to provide a more user-friendly experience. On November 18, 2009, the first mobile version of Trillian was launched for iPhone. As of 2010, final builds for

BlackBerry The blackberry is an edible fruit produced by many species in the genus ''Rubus'' in the family Rosaceae, hybrids among these species within the subgenus ''Rubus'', and hybrids between the subgenera ''Rubus'' and ''Idaeobatus''. The taxonomy of ...

, and

Apple iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also include ...

were available for their markets ( Market,

App World BlackBerry World (previously known as BlackBerry App World) is an application distribution service, aka an 'app store', and application by BlackBerry Limited; for BlackBerry 10 devices, the BlackBerry PlayBook, and a majority of BlackBerry OS devi ...

and

App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the co ...

respectively). Trillian initially cost US$4.99 but became free of charge, supported by ads, in 2011. As of August 2010, the

version was in beta testing.

Trillian 5

On August 2, 2010, Trillian 5.0 was released as a public beta. Newer features included a resize-able interface, History synchronization, a new

ribbon A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of natural materials such as silk, cotton, and jute and of synthetic mater ...

inspired interface with Windows theme integration, new "marble-like" icons for service providers, the option to revert to the Trillian 3 & 4 interfaces, and a new social network interface window were introduced. Along with Trillian 5.0 For

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

and the aforementioned Mac beta. As of 2010, the Android and BlackBerry OS final builds were available on their respective markets for free.

OpenCandy

Included with the installation of Trillian 5.0 was a program called OpenCandy, which some security programs, including Microsoft Security Essentials, classed as

adware Adware, often called advertising-supported software by its developers, is software that generates revenue for its developer by automatically generating online advertisements in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the ...

. OpenCandy was removed shortly after on May 5, 2011.

Trillian 6

On January 8, 2016, Trillian 6 was released.

Loss of Networks

Trillian has stopped attempting to work around the systems to make their client work with other networks. They have also not done any development to integrate support for any of the newer networks. Instead they urge people to use their own IM service instead. * As Yahoo Messenger has decided to disable legacy support for 3rd party IM clients, Trillian is no longer able to connect to Yahoo as of August 31, 2016. * As AIM has shut down, Trillian, and all other clients, are no longer able to connect to AIM as of December 15, 2017. * As ICQ has decided to disable support for 3rd party IM clients, Trillian is no longer able to connect to ICQ as of April 1, 2019. * MSN IM accounts were also able to be used as

accounts, when Microsoft Acquired Skype in 2011, but could still use the service at that time. The service was shut down in 2013. * As (Microsoft)

has decided to disable support for 3rd party IM clients, Trillian is no longer able to connect to Skype in 2013 * As

has shut down, Trillian is no longer able to connect to the service, as of June 16, 2022.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Trillian (Software) 2000 software AIM (software) clients IOS software BlackBerry software Windows Internet Relay Chat clients Windows instant messaging clients Internet Relay Chat clients Portable software Instant messaging clients Online chat Android (operating system) software Yahoo! instant messaging clients