Regarding Thunderbird and Pidgin.

As with ubuntu one is doing a new install every 6 months - i reckoned
i was better off sticking to webmail [gmail is fast c.f. others] and
just using Thunderbird to download emails for archiving using the
ImportExport plugin once a year or so. To the best of my knowledge
Thundrbird is the only email client that offers that function... thus
the only one worth using IMHO. I do struggle with the view that
evolution is a good email client [maybe some good functions - ubuntu
documentation recommends that one installs Thunderbird in order to
convert from outlook to evolution!]

With gaim/Pidgin - i have dropped their use in favour of Meebo... it
saves chat which i copy to an .rtf file later.