Originally Posted by Deathpit

Perhaps you could use Trillian. It let you use AIM, YM, ICQ, IRC, and MSN via single program. It could load up the friends list from Yahoo! with username account. It's free.

Cerulean Studios: Creators of Trillian and Trillian Pro Instant Messengers

I use it to save hard drive space and dont eat up much CPU speed.