Trillian Astra, the multi-protocol instant messaging client, was officially released by Cerulean Studios.  Astra is available as a free download and is also upgradable to a pro version which includes more features.  The full announcement is available at the Trillian Blog.

Astra’s release came at a perfect time.  We reported just a few weeks ago that Astra was voted “Best Instant Messenger” in a poll conducted by Lifehacker.  Also, Digsby, an Astra competitor, was slammed in the media just days ago for utilizing their users’ computer resources in distributed computing projects with this fact buried deep in their license agreement.  Digsby has taken steps to remedy this situation, but trust is sometimes hard to regain.

Astra has been in beta testing for just over two years.  While this frustrated some beta testers, Cerulean Studios committed to releasing Astra when it was ready, not by some arbitrary date on a calendar.

The Trillian website has a very detailed and organized section on Astra’s features.  This section includes sorting and filtering capabilities along with an abundance of screen shots.

If you have a need for instant messaging on multiple services, Astra is definitely worth a test drive.