Guess Pidgin developed real snags in SSL lib with the release of v2.4.0, or maybe it was because some changes at Google's end that started causing the error... Either way, a lot of people (including me) started getting 'Authorization error' which lead to disabling of account.
I bit of going around net helped me resolve the issue...
[Basic Tab]
Domain: googlemail.com
[Advanced Tab]
Require SSL/TLS: checked
Force old (port 5223) SSL: checked
Connect port: 5223
Connect Server: talk.google.com
Proxy type: Use Global Proxy Settings
In case you get a 'Read Error', then your connection maybe slow or network proxy maybe blocking the traffic. For the former one, just retry logging in.
Pidgin (2.5.3) does not exit cleanly on Vista. Now I dont know who is the culprit - OS or the software... still its one of the things that I feel is adding to list of evidences of 'De-evolution of MS with Vista'.
