[saltcured]

I use Pidgin with Gmail and Slack accounts today, much like I used it with MSN and AIM accounts many years ago.

I use the Hangouts and Slack apps on my Android phone to read scrollback history for the time period when Pidgin is signed off, or to monitor channels in mostly read-only mode while away from my desk.

I find responding via swype infuriating and rarely worth the effort. It leads to very low information content since people use poor grammar and vocabulary when writing on a touch screen and having every third word randomly replaced with something else by the UX.