Labs

At the time of our review Google Talk was in beta with a limited number of users, so it's slightly unfair to compare it to mature products that have gone through several development stages. However, Google Talk does exactly what its name would lead you to expect: it lets you talk to your contacts as well as type your messages. At the moment it is a no-frills facility, but at just 841K it is quick to download and it doesn't dominate your working environment when in use.

To use Google Talk you'll need a free Google account and a Gmail address. As with other services, only unique names are allowed for such email addresses so you may end up with an unwieldy name, but Google Talk contacts will see the nickname

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of your choice.

The Add a friend link enables you to invite others to join the service. You can initiate a voice call with a contact in your list by clicking on the green Call icon. If a call is missed, both parties are notified. In situations where audio would be inappropriate you just click on the contact's name and type in the message entry line.

One feature of Google Talk is that even after you have switched off your PC, lines from previous conversations are still available. This means you can continue a thread over several sessions if necessary. However, it also means the conversation is being stored, albeit locally on your own PC, although this can be switched off in the Settings dialog. The other aspect that you might find off-putting is that when you use the service, Google's servers automatically record certain information about your use of Google Talk, such as when you use it, the size of your contact list and the contacts you communicate with, and the frequency and size of data transfers.

One big advantage of Google Talk is its compatibility with other services, so you can communicate using text chats with IM clients on other platforms. As well as being able to connect to Google Talk using its own client, you can also use third-party IM clients on Linux and Mac OS X.