Fring, the free VoIP and chat tool, just added a file transfer function to its portfolio, reports Ricky. So far it's just Fring-to-Fring transfers, plus MSN, but we're sure the full range of Fring IM systems will also be opened up soon to file sending (e.g. Skype, which we often use at AAS to send files across our virtual office!).
Read on in the full article.
I don't know what to make of Fring. It does some things much better than the other free IM clients (because they tend to be really awful), and its VoIP features are getting better than it used to be. And the native Symbian client is a nice addition. But I can't imagine why they still put Fring versions out with such ugly shortcomings as these:
1) No way to separate contacts into groups.
The whole bunch is just one looong list of unrelated contacts with no way to manage this mess by grouping. With Fring you can connect to a zillion IM services but you'd better have only a few contacts in all, or Fring will be tiring you soon.
2) No way to rename contacts
Everybody loves to set their own screen name. Some find it amusing, and some simply put their names in there. Fring excels at its worst when you have 4 contacts named simply John with no way to distinguish them, or when they put some phrase instead of their screen name that you can't use to identify them.
3) No way to select contact visibility
Do you really want to use your dear phone display-space by showing those contacts that you got 3 years ago and have never talked to since then, but that you want to keep just in case?
4) No way to select your visibility to contacts
Maybe you want to be invisible just to some people, but you can't do that in Fring.
5) No way to distinguish between contacts belonging to different IM services
If your Skype's John is different from your MSN's John, you won't be able to distinguish them: they all have that Fring icon.
6) No way to view contact details
OK, so you can't distinguish contacts. Too bad. But can you see each contact's details? (email address, username, etc.) NO!
7) No way to alter the contact display order
Are all your contacts equally important? Of course not. So why would you want to have that seldom-used contact that starts with an A right heading the contact list, while that frequently used contact that starts with L gets buried in the middle of the list?
We're not talking rocket science here. It's all very basic UI stuff, something that should take no more than a man-week's work. I really want to like Fring. But so far I can't. It's still too braindead.
I agree with most of the comments... some real flaws.
One point that 'may' be of help though is that you can tell with client John is on as when you move over the name, there is a hard to see box around the client type at the top of the screen
If you have a dark background, you just cant see this... but its clearer on white etc.
hey dude,,,itz working gr8,,,,but one thing i need to know,,,cauz i cud see my msn contacts by nick names only , there is no option to see their email ids, cauz most of my freinds tend to chnage there nick regularly, this creates a lot of confusion, is there any way i could see the email id of the contacts??