Which do you prefer?

Yahoo, just because I like the games, mainly pool.. :D , the smilies, and well... the audiables... :)

With messenger programs I never find it's a case of what's the best. It's what do my friends & family use?

I personally prefer MSN but that said, I'm not a huge fan of MSN Messenger 7. Far too many annoying features and they try and sell you emoticons, winks etc. everywhere.

I agree with LT here. Since there isn't yet the interconnectivity of e-mail with IMing, what's important is what service the people you want to connect with use. That's why I have IDs on the 3 majors.

I use Trillian as my client. While its not as full featured as some of the individual service clients, its allows me to monitor my IMs in one client rather then have 3 open at a time. It also allows for consolidating my buddy list.