Regarding animated gifs

Hi everyone, it has been a while since I was last active on these forums, I wonder how many people still remember me. :p

Anyway, before I get started, I figured that this forum was best suited for what I'm about to ask. If any mods think that this thread doesn't belong in this forum please feel free to move it.

So, now that I've got a bit more time in my hands, I was thinking about making more animated avatar and signatures in my spare time and was wondering what programs everyone uses nowadays.
I use to use ImageReady CS2 for my animated gifs but it seems that this program isn't in the later versions.
I am currently using PS CS3 for gif making but it can be a bit time consuming. The reason for this is because in ImageReady I remember being able to import a whole folder as frames and thus not needing to drag them all in one by one as I am doing now with PS.
I was wondering if there were any other programs similar to ImageReady? Or should I just start using ImageReady again or stick with PS. And also what programs you use for your gifs.
Thanks!