I’m addicted to Twitter. And ever since Adobe released the alpha version of AIR for Linux I’ve been eager to try some of the Twitter desktop clients because, let’s face it, gtwitter and those other Linux-only Twitter clients suck. No offense to their developers, but they lack a certain polish that AIR clients possess.
For my comparison I’ve taken four of the most popular Twitter desktop clients for AIR, installed them on Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04 and made some general, but revealing, observations. Below is a screen grab of the four clients side by side just so you can see what they look like (click on the image to see larger).
OK, on to the interesting part. Reviews will follow the order presented in the screen grab from left to right.
Spaz
IMHO Spaz is the best looking Twitter client for AIR. Then again, that’s just an opinion. It has a super useful growl-like notifier of new tweets. Works great at retrieving and sending Twitterings. Unfortunately it doesn’t remember my password, even though I save it in the preferences. Also, and this is just a minor annoyance, I select the option to “minimize to systray” but it doesn’t. It just minimized to its place on my application bar just like every other program does. Though to be fair, none of the clients reviewed actually minimized to the systray like Amarok or Banshee do.
Conclusion for Spaz: Very usable on Linux.
Snitter
On Windows or Mac I absolutely love Snitter. But on Linux it’s crap and I don’t know why. For starters, you can’t close the application by clicking the close button. Nor can you close it by right-clicking anything. Attempting to close Snitter only results in some obscure error and you end up having to force quit every time via the System Monitor. Also, when Snitter is minimized it doesn’t go to the application panel like other programs do, it disappears completely. To make matters worse it has a lot of lag when typing. It’s usually 3 or 4 letters behind my fingers which gets very annoying very quickly. Other than those three issues it works just like it should.
P.S. – lack of those growl-like notifications is a bummer.
Conclusion for Snitter: Unusable on Linux.
Tweetr
Tweetr was the only AIR Twitter client tested that didn’t restyle the window decorator (in my case, Emerald). That’s neither a positive nor a negative, just an observation. It works flawlessly. It minimizes just fine, it closes without a glitch, updates quickly and looks good doing it. And like Spaz it has that super useful growl-like notifier of new tweets. This is definitely my favorite AIR Twitter client on Linux. It was also the only client tested that succeeded at remembering my username and password. The biggest negative for Tweetr is that it has no word count, and that’s kind of important when you’re limited to 140 characters. The word count for Tweetr is found in the title bar once you start typing. I guess that means there are no obvious negatives for Tweetr.
Conclusion for Tweetr: Very usable on Linux.
Twhirl
Last on my list of AIR Twitter clients to review is Twhirl. The design looks fruity to me, but that’s just my opinion. Also, there are way too many options surrounding the input box. But again, that’s just my opinion. Functionally Twhirl does just fine as a Twitter client. It retrieves updates, it sends my Twitterings and even makes itself opaque when it’s not in focus. Unfortunately it suffers from the problem of not remembering my password even when I check the box labeled “remember password?” Lack of growl-like notifications was also a let down.
Conclusion for Twhirl: Very usable on Linux.
Conclusion
All the clients with the exception of Snitter would make fine AIR Twitter clients for Linux. The only reason I would prefer Tweetr is because it actually remembers my username and password. Then again, Spaz is really great too and it even has a word count feature which Tweetr lacks.
9 Comments
Excellent round up, Ben. I’m fond of both Spaz and Tweetr, but gotta have that word count (so I’ve got the former on my Ubuntu, XP and Vista systems). I went over the 140 mark once using Tweetr and it just sent my truncated tweet and played a scream of death sound. Speaking of sound, for some reason the sound is not working for me right now w/ Spaz (even though the box is checked). PS – nice to see my coffee addiction featured in your post image.
I must amend my previous comment. I just reinstalled Tweetr in Ubuntu 8.04 and a declining word count appears in the top window bar once you start typing (replaces the ‘Tweetr 3.1’ label). Guess I didn’t notice that before. So, with that problem solved I think I’m going to switch over to Tweetr (at least on Ubuntu). I now see your point…not remembering my password is more annoying than I thought (worse than having no sound).
BTW, I know you said it wasn’t a plus or a minus that Tweetr takes on the resident Emerald theme, but one minor plus (besides visual appeal) is that you can double click on the window bar and minimize the app to just the bar (w/o sending it to the tray).
Thanks for the list, there were a few I was totally unfamiliar with and I will have to try them out. I have used and tried to get use to using Twhirl but something about it just doesn’t sit well with me, oh well. Thanks.
I see what you’re talking about, Scott. I’ve got to amend my post as well.
@Scott (not Fillmer): Great observation about Tweetr not restyling its window. As far as I’m concerned that’s my favorite client right now. Works without a hitch and looks really good too.
Oh, and you’re welcome for featuring your coffee addiction
I was hoping you’d notice 
I agree, I’m really liking Tweetr for Linux. It integrates well w/ the desktop (clean and uncluttered) and just works. The one feature it seems to lack that I find useful on the other clients is the time stamp, which is often combined w/ what tool you’re using (e.g., “15 minutes ago from Twitterfox”). I can do w/o the tool nod, but relative to your comment in the post about the native *nix Twitter apps (e.g., gTwitter, Twitux)…they really do fall short (time stamps all have the same time, text doesn’t wrap correctly, horizontal scroll bar won’t go away, input field accessible only via F5 key or menu, etc.
On last thing on Tweeter…I noticed that the link shortener in the settings panel had no option other than “none.” Is your’s enabled (and did you have to do anything)? BTW, the tweet notification sound still isn’t working for me with Spaz (at least not on Ubuntu), but it is using Tweetr.
Mine only has the “none” option as well. It would be interesting to figure out if we could install a plugin or something to enable that.
>Unfortunately it suffers from the problem of
>not remembering my password even when I check
>the box labeled “remember password?”
I got the same problem on Windows and Linux - the funny thing is that reinstalling helps.
I have no explanation for this behavior
I’m going to have to give that a try. Thanks for the tip!