I'm a big fan of instant messaging apps. They're fun and easy—plus, like Google Voice, they're sometimes a money-saving alternative to texting via your mobile number. Living on the west coast, they're one way I keep in touch with my east coast family, especially my busy brother and my mom, who loves her iPad's expandable, easy-on-the-eyes fonts. Plus, I sometimes ping Ars' staff on their IM accounts to work out stories (hey Nate, Eric!).

So when I got my Droid X, I started downloading IM aggregators, which allow you to IM different people on different services with the same interface. These include six free apps: Fring, Meebo IM, Nimbuzz, eBuddy, Palringo, and IMEasy. Which is the best? Frankly, I think they're all good. But they're all a little different too.

Fring

To tell the truth, I like Fring because of how it looks, especially the goofy looking square-headed green insect (?) critter logo. The cheery light green background, green foreground Fring theme offers a nice contrast to the grim, dark-themed, resistance-is-futile Droid schtick. I mean, I don't really want to spend my entire day inside the Borg, thematically speaking.

Once you download the app, Fring requires a login/nickname, e-mail, and password, then will give you a nice little profile page where you can upload a photo and display your nickname. From there, Fring can grab your address book phone contacts and put them up on a display page along with various IM services. My Fring Android app offers Google Talk, MSN Live, Yahoo, and AOL Instance Messenger (AIM), but not Facebook chat or Skype.

Fring, of course, is about a lot more than IM apps. The service offers voice and video conferencing. The company has had a little trouble with Skype of late. But for most IMs it's good to go, and also lets you network with other Fring users via their Fring ID.

One thing I'm not crazy about: the Google ads that show up while I'm IMing. They're especially prominent when the Droid is in horizontal mode. But given all the stuff that Fring tries to provide, the free app has to monetize itself somehow. It's a good service.

Meebo

Like Fring, Meebo offers a nice interface that allows you to access a wide variety of IM services, including AIM, Facebook, Google Talk, Jabber, Yahoo, MySpace, and MSN. For the life of me I couldn't log into my Facebook account with the app, but I don't use Facebook chat very much, and the other IM services I use worked quite well.

All your buddies are listed on your Meebo Android screen in an appealing, well-organized, light blue background cascade. The chatting works well. And Meebo makes it easy to add and remove individual accounts and to keep track of "current conversations," which are listed at the top of the screen. If IMing on your mobile doesn't satisfy your need to chat, you can also create Meebo plugins and extensions on webpages and browsers.

Nimbuzz

Visually speaking, I'm less drawn to Nimbuzz, which has a twelve-story government building sort of look. But behind the functional style is an app that is quite... well, functional. Android Nimbuzz gives you Skype, Yahoo, Facebook, Google Talk/Orkut, AIM, MySpace, Gadu Gadu, and Hyves. Oddly, the app insisted that I couldn't connect to Facebook, then Facebook buddies showed up. Everything else clicked in smoothly, including Skype.

You've got lots of options with Nimbuzz, including loading your phonebook to the app, arranging your contacts view either alphabetically or by the various services you use, showing display pictures or not, showing your offline contacts, starting the app as soon as you turn on your phone, and selecting Skype or Nimbuzz as your VoIP provider (or the SIP protocol as you use it).

And the app offers tons of options for notifications and calls—status bar, vibrate, flashing lights (if your phone has that)—the works. So you can have the phone jumping, flashing, and singing all day long as your IM buddies chirp in.

eBuddy

Android eBuddy works very quickly. All my IM apps and Facebook pop up without any trouble. The service integrates MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Google Talk, MySpace, and Hyves. It lets you set up an online greeting. And the app displays contact images and names in a nice, smooth interface.

Like Nimbuzz, you can sort contacts by names, groups, or accounts and add a slew of alert bells and whistles. You've got the option of logging in automatically at startup, or not. And the feature offers page tabs for your buddy list, your open chats, and your accounts.

As with Fring, eBuddy has a visually humorous, light exterior that comes complete with a little "eBuddy" buddy logo. This may be a bit too cute for some, but again, I experience it as a break from the Droid X combination Doom and Terminator mood thing. Of all these apps, I think that eBuddy works best for me.

Palringo and IMEasy

A lot of these services do more than Instant Messaging, obviously. If you're looking for something a little more focused on IM chat, Palringo might be the way to go. It gets you MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Gadu-Gadu, XMPP/Jabber, Facebook, Google Talk, and iChat. Not a lot of feature options, but you've got tabs for who is online and your groups, and you can choose your chat text size: small, medium, and large.

IMEasy will let you connect to AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, and Facebook Chat with even less options. It doesn't even require an interface login and password. At the bottom of the screen I got an ad that screams "WIN $1000 NOW" and links to a webpage that asks "Do you see a DUCK or a RABBIT?" There's an outskirts-of-Vegas kind of mood to the app that might appeal to some—or not.

But IMEasy also has a lot of visual interface options, including changing your background, font, and color, and downloading various themes.

Which one should you use?

So which of these should you use? It's a tough call, but my first choice is eBuddy, which offers an appealing visual interface backed by reliability. Second choices? If you're looking for VoIP support too, go with Nimbuzz or Fring—the latter if you want to build a network community around the app itself.

In third place, Android Meebo doesn't offer as many options, but the service offers a variety of plugins for websites and Web browsers. Fourth comes Palringo, a comparatively stripped down affair. But that might be attractive to many IM users. IMEasy comes last in my book.

One feature almost all these apps need improvement on is logging out, which in most instances involves wandering around menus until you find the secret exit corridor. eBuddy wins the functionality prize in this instance as well. Access "menu" on the left, then "logout," and you're out!