Digsby had some problems recently. Some big problems.
Remember this post:
http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-10309755-12.html ... from CNet's Seth Rosenblatt
or this one:
http://lifehacker.com/5336382/digsby-joins-the-dark-side-uses-your-pc-to-make-money by The How To Geek.
They sprung the story of Digsby's nefarious crapware practices and computer-resource borrowing (or more aptly, stealing).
Go open source! Said lifehacker:
"The only way you are definitely going to avoid greedy software developers exploiting you is to stick with open source, make sure to donate to your favorite open source projects, and stop installing software with bundled crapware."
So uninstall Digsby, they said.
And as Rosenblatt noted that it's entirely possible to keep Digsby from using your computer's resources for its research purposes:
"Users who want to keep Digsby but don't want the Plura system to run can disable it by going to the menu bar Help option, clicking on Support Digsby, and choosing Disable for Help Digsby Conduct Research."
Nonetheless, he concludes:
"Given that Digsby's competitors are able to offer similar and, in some cases, identical features, and that they're able to do it without burying a bad-faith feature in the EULA or behind a semi-functional pop-up, I'm going to stand by my assessment from yesterday: For now, don't use Digsby."
So, because I knew I could just go out there on the wide open web and instantly download some beautiful open source software that could do everything that Digsby does and maybe even do it, if not better, at least more 'ethically', I did what they said.
Right away.
I uninstalled Digsby which had worked absolutely beautifully and waded into the tubez to cobble together a set of open source-ware that would give me the ability to do email, IM, facebook and twitter in some unified way and with minimal browser openings.
And I found that it is impossible.
Maybe I'm wrong. But I tried everything I could get my hands on over the course of a week or so: feedalizr, which came close; tweetdeck which was nice but big, pidgin which does im. I gave twhirl another whirl. I tried a couple of other things as well. Meebo came the closest to what I was looking for. What I ultimately would up with was google desktop with gmail in the sidebar, meebo notifier with meebo chat app open in a google chrome application shortcut and tweetdeck running with facebook added in.
It was at about this time that I noticed that my cpu usage was running steadily between 95-100 percent and also about this time that I realized that I was crazy.
So I am eating crow. I have now re-installed Digsby. I read their post about the kerfuffle, this one here: http://blog.digsby.com/archives/693 and I voted at the bottom of the post for my preferred revenue generation option.
I've used the opt out feature to keep digsby from borrowing my CPU and right now at this moment, with digsby running keeping track of my gmail and two webmail accounts, facebook and twitter streams, 5 chrome windows open, each with mulptiple tabs and this post in its own gmail window, plug Google desktop, panda antivirus, wefi and whatever else... my CPU usage is under 45%.
So hey, don't panic. Reinstall that program, but be smarter than you where two weeks ago.
Let me put my own spin on Mr Rosenblatt's verdict: Given that Digsby's competitors have not even come close to finding a way to match Digsby's capabilities without eating your processor alive, and given that Digbsy does give you a way to avoid having your computer be made a part of their botnet, keep on using Digsby.
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