[Alneyan]

I would recommend Trillian myself; easy to set up, easy to understand, no strings attached. Its main use is if you are using at least two of the five... erh... thingies it supports (ICQ, AIM, MSN, IRC and Yahoo); otherwise, unless you hate the basic ICQ client, it isn't exactly that useful.

And some high praise for Trillian: it takes less time to get up and running than you would need to say "Floccinaucinihilipilification"! Isn't that a great testimony of how convenient this program is? (I am a computer illiterate myself, and hold a party every time I can get my computer to boot without any unexpected problem)