Have you tried gtalk on Chrome?

Seems to work everywhere that has an OS Recognized camera and mic. I've talked with people on linux, and windows, from my OS 10.6 machine.

Not even AIM? I find that hard to believe

It's absolutely true. I haven't used AIM much but a while ago I was trying to find an easy way to talk to my parents. When you want a hassle free experience, Skype so far is the only option.

It's absolutely true. I haven't used AIM much but a while ago I was trying to find an easy way to talk to my parents. When you want a hassle free experience, Skype WAS the only option.

It's now no longer hassle free. Like the OP I find the new Skype wretched, now use it less and would jump at helping my contacts and I switch.

Question: How many Mac users are in the internal Skype testing program? I'm guessing not many

I find it crazy that chatroulette does the cross-platform thing pretty well while using flash, but these IM clients are dedicated apps that are closer to the os and still cannot make it happen.

What is this AIM thing you mention?

// The rest of the world never really used AIM. Certainly here in Australia it was ICQ and then MSN (and now facebook) for chat.

Skype has always been the VOIP / Video Chat service of choice..