AIM Shutdown: AOL Instant Messenger alternatives
AOL announced yesterday that it will shut down the company's messaging service AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) on December 15th, 2017.
AOL Instant Messenger was initially part of AOL Desktop before it was released as a standalone software program for Windows in 1997.
It became a popular messaging client in a crowded market, as it competed with programs like Yahoo Messenger, ICQ or MSN Messenger for market share.
The popularity of messaging client waned with the rise of new services and smartphones. AOL stopped development of the client back in 2012 but kept services online.
AIM Shutdown facts
Here are the most important information in regards to the discontinuation of AIM:
- AIM will be shut down on December 15, 2017, and users won't be able to sign in to the service anymore, or use it.
- Services will function normally until that date, downloads links will be removed prior however.
- Data associated with AIM will be deleted.
- The change won't affect @aim.com email addresses.
- Users can save images and files, and the chat history. Note that the option to do so will stop on December 15, 2017.
How to save the AIM chat history
Some AIM clients and the AIM website offer options to save the chat history. Note that this works only if you have not disabled the option to save a copy of your chats, and only for chats not set to "go off the record".
One of the easier options to access the chat history is to find it on the local hard drive. AOL suggests that you run a search for AIM Logs to find the location.
On Windows, the default location for logs is c:\users\username\Documents\AIM Logs\.
How to save AIM images and files
The chat log does not include images and files. To save those, do the following:
- Sign in to the AIM client.
- Open the chat history with a buddy, and scroll though the listing.
- Click on the image or file, it will open in a browser tab or window.
- Right-click on it to save it.
This is not a very elegant solution, especially if you want to save all images and files. Imagine having used the client for years with multiple contacts. You might spend days saving all images and files manually.
AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) alternatives
Here is a short list of alternatives that are still under development. The focus is on desktop programs, or services that include a desktop program:
- Facebook Messenger -- Available for mobile and desktop systems.
- Jitsi -- Open source audio/video and chat communication with end to end encryption and support for various protocols.
- Pidgin -- Pidgin is a multi-protocol chat client that supports several services and protocols include ICQ, XMPP, or IRC.
- Signal Messenger -- Available for Android, iOS and Desktop operating systems. Supports group, text, voice and video chat, document and picture sending, encryption, and more.
- Telegram Messenger -- Available for Android, iOS, Mac OS X, PC, Linux, and as a web version. Supports encryption, file sending, groups, message destruction, synchronization, and more.
- Trillian -- Instant messaging service for desktop and mobile operating systems.
Now You: Are you affected by the shutdown?
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.