I used Trillian, but then I tried Digsby, and that put me off trying any more of these “all-in-one” programs, which I wouldn’t use much of anyway. I’m not sure whether this is exactly what I was looking for, maybe it was, because I knew that Google had released something similar earlier, but it was only for Chrome OS.
Anyway, I installed it and right away I realized that it is effectively the new GTalk, and I was really pleased that Google is finally doing something with its GTalk, because the original client was from the year 0 (all right, from 2001). Right after installing it I tried chatting – everything worked great. I didn’t even have to sign in – if you are signed in to Chrome but not on the Google website, it takes the login details from Chrome, but if you are signed in on google.com (cz, etc.), it uses that account.
Even though I have English Windows (only currency, date and similar formats are set to Czech), the program is in Czech. For now the settings offer only these 4 options, all of them checked by default (and I keep them that way too):
- Sign in when the browser starts – This chat program starts with Chrome, but by default it does not close with it. However, you can change this in the Chrome settings.
- Show new conversations on top – at the bottom you will see an orange tab with the name of whoever wrote to you. When you click it, the conversation opens.
- Show an icon in the system notification area – this is good to keep enabled, because it gives you quick access to your Contact List.
- Play a sound for notifications – not only does it alert you when a brand new message arrives, but if you are away from your PC, it alerts you more and more often.
If you don’t reply for a longer time, a Chrome bubble pops up saying “You have new messages“. From this program you can call any phone or start a Hangout, even a group one. In any case, you will still need, for example, the Plugin Google Talk version 3.11.7.10909 – that is the one I currently have installed.
And now the best part – the chat window doesn’t hide when you are not in Chrome (you can just minimize any window into a 1 mm bar; when you hover over it, all the bars hidden this way slide out with names, now 1 cm tall, and when you click any of the bars, it is shown in full and no longer hides) or you can close it – then all the bars on the left slide to the right with an animation.
And the second great thing – maybe it annoys you that on Google+ and/or Google Mail chat windows pop up whenever someone writes to you.
With this extension that’s over. Simply put, all chats go into this extension, and when you click a contact in the chat window on G+, it opens in this extension, so you don’t end up with x+ windows. Installation link: 👻 The extension has disappeared from the Chrome Web Store.