The results here line up with last year's results, in that Pidgin is still the top pick. Surprisingly, the Microsoft-owned, completely proprietary Skype is still in second place with a healthy lead over the competition. I switched to BitlBee this year for all my IM needs, which falls into the "Other" category, but our favorite response, which came as a write-in from several people, was "Telepathy". It's great to see our digital version has traversed the galaxy and garnered readers on Vulcan. It will be interesting to see if "Mind Meld" makes the list of e-mail clients next year.

• Pidgin (formerly Gaim): 56%

• Skype: 15.1%

• Empathy: 9.2%

• Kopete: 8.8%

• Other: 7.8%

• Gajim: 1.2%

• Psi: 1.2%

• amsn: .4%

• kmess: .4%