Leslie668 is away: This isn't goodby
March 1, 2017 8:53 AM   Subscribe

AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) is going to disable access to its network for third party messaging apps like Adium as of March 28, likely ending the era of having a single client* for multiple chat platforms and being able to actually tell people you are unavailable.

*Except pidgin!

Nostalgia trip/ general history for those younger folks. Back when IM was starting AIM was big - just imagine all your SMS traffic and wechat/whatsapp/gchat and facebook messaging all happening at the same place. This is where A/S/L? got widespread use, and folks like BLOODNINJA and of course, people getting friendly with each other. People couldn't help but quickly disperse to other IM clients that weren't compatible, much like today.

This was a time when ICQ, AOL, YAHOO Messenger and Microsoft's MSN were the titans of IM communication - just look at this early post from Matt (#52! And back when a post could sunset with 0 comments). The chat wars were intense and there were many efforts to have a third party client that worked with all of them. Bantu was an early effort, Trillian, Adium (my fav) and Gaim -which became pidgin. Even the FCC got involved There was some strong opinions about IM on mefi.
posted by zenon (51 comments total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
When I logged in through Pidgin last night, it gave me the business about how that was shutting down. I was sad. I hope that some intrepid engineer can figure it out.
posted by deezil at 9:02 AM on March 1, 2017


Don't forget Jabber, which might have been even earlier.
posted by k5.user at 9:02 AM on March 1, 2017


.

Man, I was one of the lead devs for a while on TiK, which was a Tcl/Tk based AIM client that was originally released by AOL and then open sourced. I'm not even sure I could write "Hello World" in Tcl anymore.
posted by kmz at 9:03 AM on March 1, 2017 [11 favorites]


Still use AIM every and have for at least 15 years -- these days I use it through Trillian. Guess I'll switch to something else, though. What do the kids use today for desktop IMs?
posted by The Bellman at 9:07 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Jabber! I used that when google chat started getting traction. I also missed the super obvious point that you needed a client for all your IM because your outdated/broke/handmedown desktop computer couldn't possibly function with 4 or 5 different IM clients open.
posted by zenon at 9:08 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I recently switched away from using Adium to vanilla Google Talk, which is annoying (I don't want my chat windows covering up my email!) but works a little better in terms of syncing alerts. At the end I was using it to combine GTalk and MSN contacts, though. Never really was on AIM. I think I'm a smidge too young (although there was a period of ICQ use in high school).
posted by quaking fajita at 9:13 AM on March 1, 2017


> What do the kids use today for desktop IMs?

I don't know about actual kids, but as a late twenty-something, absolutely every single person I know abandoned AIM years ago in favor of Facebook Messenger. It used to support integration with third-party clients through XMPP but no longer does.

I'm not hugely enthusiastic about Facebook, but Messenger has not only replaced all other desktop instant messaging software in my social circle but has come very close to totally replacing SMS as well. It's extremely hard to avoid using it. I'm not active on Facebook per se but I still have an account so I can use Messenger.

If you're allergic to Facebook, which is understandable, maybe you could use Google Chat? It's still based on XMPP, so you can use third-party software, and maybe Google is marginally less likely to do skeezy stuff with your data than Facebook.
posted by a mirror and an encyclopedia at 9:15 AM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


I just set up a new computer and had to take a long, hard look for whether I still wanted Adium/Pidgin. Yahoo and MSN messenger seem to be totally dead, at least to me. Google Talk works very poorly. And I used to have a bunch of AIM buddies but they disappeared years ago. Most of that activity for me has moved on to Slack, but Slack's semi-private nature makes it pretty different.

The FCC's failure to enforce instant messenger interoperability was such a disappointment. It had its start as part of an anti-trust agreement related to the AOL / Time Warner merger. If it had taken hold it's possible all the IM networks would have interoperated and we'd have had a second peer to peer communication medium along the lines of email. Instead the Bush Administration took over in 2001 and gifted AOL with the promise they wouldn't enforce the requirement. They eventually dropped it.

Microsoft tried to force the issue; there was a time that AOL was exploiting a security hole in its own AIM client as part of the required handshake, so that MSN Messenger couldn't follow. Microsoft finally gave up. Adium/Trillium/Pidgin persisted as a sort of freebie handed to the few nerds who'd bother to install a third party chat app. Not surprised they're finally turning it off.
posted by Nelson at 9:16 AM on March 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


One very important aspect of Facebook Messenger is if you use it on your phone Facebook forces you to download their app, and then the app has these super hideously annoying "chat heads" that cover everything up. You can turn them off. It's hidden in the settings somewhere.

It took me so long to find that out.
posted by quaking fajita at 9:18 AM on March 1, 2017 [8 favorites]


I have my AOL chat account (wenestvedt@aol.com, naturally) set up in Apple's Messenger, and it hasn't mentioned anything to me. I use it for iCloud, GTalk, and this AIM account.

So will I be SOL in a month?
posted by wenestvedt at 9:33 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I haven't even chatted with anyone on AIM in about 7 years, but I still stay logged in on Apple Messages, so this sucks.

I've also been logged in to ICQ consistently since 1996, except for the time my account was nabbed by Russian hackers. But I recovered it, and it's back (6 digits, starting with a 1!! I was SO bummed when they switch from UIDs to usernames!)
posted by Cat Pie Hurts at 9:40 AM on March 1, 2017


I don't remember when or why I stopped installing Trillian and thus dropped off of AIM (and all the rest of the IMs.) I think probably just that most of the people I had talked with were gone, and the ones that were left weren't necessarily people I wanted pinging me at random moments. I do miss the era, though. I miss having a bunch of people virtually hanging out with me that I could start shooting the shit with if I felt like it without it being a big deal. IM, or IRC, or MUSH hangout rooms.
posted by tavella at 9:55 AM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


It had its start as part of an anti-trust agreement related to the AOL / Time Warner merger.

HAHAHAHAHOHOHOHEEHEE

Sorry for losing control there for a sec, you just said "the AOL / Time Warner merger."

AIM was great for its time. I was a bit snooty about it, having dealt with MasRelay and a VAX system in college: "this is just a fluffy graphic version of MasRelay!" Texting, no matter what the form, is a powerful thing, and AIM was part of it.

Hey, there's my Yahoo Messenger account heh
posted by Melismata at 10:00 AM on March 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


I was constantly on AIM (well, usually Trillian/Adium) in high school and college, but it seemed to die out right around the time Facebook and unlimited texting started blowing up. It's kinda sad that even though I'm friends with a lot of the same people on Facebook as I had in my Buddy list on AIM, I don't talk to most of them or have long back and forths anymore. There's something different about seeing that status and knowing if someone is there and likely to respond vs. sending a message on Facebook which is more likely to result in a delayed response (if anything). So I don't even bother reaching out like I did with AIM. For some reason constant mobile connections and social media have made things more isolated rather than less.
posted by downtohisturtles at 10:03 AM on March 1, 2017 [7 favorites]


I think because if someone was logged on specifically to chat and you saw they were available, you knew they actually wanted to talk, rather than just "has a phone and checked Facebook at least once."
posted by corb at 10:07 AM on March 1, 2017 [14 favorites]


In 1996, I was on IRC.

In overlapping succession: ICQ, MSN, AIM, whatever Yahoo's thing was, GTalk, etc.

in 2017, I am on IRC.
posted by brennen at 10:10 AM on March 1, 2017 [13 favorites]


Apple dropped OSCAR and XMPP in favor of their own iMessage protocol five or six years ago. So this announcement will not affect them.
posted by ardgedee at 10:12 AM on March 1, 2017


> maybe you could use Google Chat? It's still based on XMPP, so you can use third-party software, and maybe Google is marginally less likely to do skeezy stuff with your data than Facebook.

Google is, however, 1000% more likely to just terminate Google Chat entirely, especially given that Google Hangouts now replaces it.
posted by qntm at 10:12 AM on March 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


What do the kids use today for desktop IMs?

Discord seems popular with gamers, both as a combined IM and group chat/IRC type tool. Slack too, but that's more corporate. Then there's the voice apps too, Skype, Curse, etc...

I have a gaming group that does tabletop RPGs that way. Slack seems more full featured than discord, so we settled on that.
posted by bonehead at 10:23 AM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


As a general IM replacement, OWS seems pretty interesting too.
posted by bonehead at 10:27 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I use AIM for a very specific purpose. As far as I know it's the only client that allows different fonts and colors and it also logs those fonts and colors.

This makes me sad.
posted by INFJ at 10:30 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


As a general IM replacement, OWS seems pretty interesting too.

That's Signal, right? I use it on my phone, but I didn't think desktop Signal was available other than for Chromebooks.

Google is, however, 1000% more likely to just terminate Google Chat entirely, especially given that Google Hangouts now replaces it.

And Allo as well. I'd be perfectly happy to use a Google product since they already own me. They just have to tell me which one.
posted by The Bellman at 10:36 AM on March 1, 2017


That's Signal, right?

Yeah. And they are a minority flavour, for sure. Whatsapp is 10-100 times their size in users. But I think some sort of end-to-end encryption is essential for the next gen IM clients.
posted by bonehead at 10:48 AM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


All I know is that whenever get any kind of notification from anything at anytime the "uh oh" from ICQ is what pops into my head.
posted by srboisvert at 10:51 AM on March 1, 2017 [9 favorites]


I use (and love) Adium, and when Yahoo pulled the plug on third-party integration, I switched to XMPP/Jabber and haven't looked back. I still have a couple of AIM contacts, but they're actually phone numbers I can text to via AIM. I guess no longer.

FWIW, I don't miss Yahoo, and I'll miss AIM even less. Fuck 'em and their hostility to third-party apps.
posted by Thorzdad at 10:53 AM on March 1, 2017


When someone mentions IM, I immediately think of dialup modems.
posted by tommasz at 10:59 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


After all these years I still have two people that I will chat with on AIM regularly.

We met in fandom, and have always used pseudonyms - we know each other's real names, but to me there has always been a mental separation between accounts that are linked to my real name and accounts that aren't. So, I never really switched to using my Facebook or gmail accounts to chat with them.

And also, the list of people I want to chat with online is a lot shorter than my list of Facebook or gmail contacts.

I've also found that AIM third party apps are more reliable than the actual AIM app when I'm trying to log in with a poor connection. The actual AIM app doesn't even work on my computer; it just tells me there's a problem on their end...

So this makes me go =/.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:09 AM on March 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


I've been using AIM+OTR (with Pidgin on Windows and Adium on Macs) for end-to-end encrypted chat for years. I guess I will have to figure out how to modernize.
posted by contraption at 11:26 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm fairly sure that the only reason that I ever used the likes of AIM was to talk to someone who'd been on it since elder days and refused to switch, and I don't think that I was ever very fond of it. I may be conflating it with Yahoo Instant Messenger, likewise the failing IM service of a why-won't-it-die dinosaur; it turns out that they shut off the servers for their desktop-OS-based clients last September. I only ever used it to chat with someone that I met through OK Cupid whose main entertainment was World of Warcraft, with a guild that had migrated over from an even older MMORPG--Ultima Online, I think. Sic transit gloria internet.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:34 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


The title of this made me very sad. I miss Leslie. She chose 668 because it was "the neighbor of the beast."
posted by ftrain at 11:36 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


I still log in, but it's honestly been years since I actually had a conversation on there. Hardly anyone from my contact list ever logs in anymore. I set up XMPP which I wanted to be the path forward, but after google broke their interoperability, it killed that idea.

IM was a lovely thing. It's too bad it didn't work out.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:48 AM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Trillian is great. This saddens me.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:51 AM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


So, I never really switched to using my Facebook or gmail accounts to chat with them.

The people I know who do this now seem to mostly be socializing on various private Discord servers and other chat functions, which makes things... weird. So I've started making friends with some of my girlfriend's fandom friends through Rabb.it, but they all socialize on Discord when they aren't actually watching stuff? But the person who can invite people to that Discord servers rarely shows up now and so now I can only talk to these people like once a week while waiting to get deemed legit enough to get an invite.

I know at least a few people who I talk to clearly on accounts that aren't their primary Google accounts, which can be a bit awkward but at least it's something where you can reach out to someone as an individual. The current trend seems to be invite-only networks that on the one hand weed out a lot of the spam and harassment, but on the other hand make it a lot harder to actually socialize on the internet with strangers.
posted by Sequence at 12:04 PM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


GChat died, Hangouts doesn't have a Desktop client, and not sure how Allo works but I have a feeling Google will shut it down soon. Skype is around but it's better for 1:1 convos as most people have moved to Discord since it's free (for now).

Eh not a fan of FB since I don't want to give online friends my IRL names/PN and I imagine it's more than awkward to ask a stranger for their info vs just a handle because you're both fans of a TV show/game.
posted by chrono_rabbit at 12:46 PM on March 1, 2017


IM was a lovely thing. It's too bad it didn't work out.

What's funny is it did work out, it's just called text messaging. And people think of it as mostly a mobile tool. Although the way iMessage blurs the lines is really nice. Too bad it's yet an other proprietary network; I just switched off of Macs back to Windows and iMessage is the one thing I really miss.

Although half of what makes IM great is presence, knowing if someone is online. Text messaging doesn't give you that. Then again neither does Google Talk; they've totally fucked up their presence with the web integrations.
posted by Nelson at 12:48 PM on March 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


maybe Google is marginally less likely to do skeezy stuff with your data than Facebook.

The hilarious irony about Google Hangouts/Talk vs. Facebook Messenger is that Google makes it nearly goddamn impossible to usefully search your chat history. I mean, if there was one thing you think Google would be good at, it'd be search. But nope. The regular Hangouts web client can't even do search, you have to go in through Gmail, and most of the time it doesn't even work. Facebook, on the other hand, has a really nice search interface that's great for pulling up some address that someone gave to you six months ago.

Totally bizarre.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:59 PM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Although half of what makes IM great is presence, knowing if someone is online.

This is what makes Discord and Slack so fantastic too. Too bad Google fucked up so badly with Wave.
posted by bonehead at 1:03 PM on March 1, 2017 [2 favorites]


Google is, however, 1000% more likely to just terminate Google Chat entirely, especially given that Google Hangouts now replaces it.

Google is killing the API for Hangouts, so don't expect to be running that on a 3rd party desktop app anytime soon.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 1:18 PM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Jabber! I used that when google chat started getting traction.

Jabber (a.k.a. XMPP) is a different beast from all the others mentioned here, because it was an open protocol/network from the start. Every other IM network I'm aware of used its own proprietary protocol and distributed its own client(s). Multi-protocol clients were all (AFAIK) based on reverse-engineered protocols, and never had the blessing of the networks they connected to.

Google Talk, GTalk, GChat

There is/was a service called Google Talk, but I think most people who use these terms today are actually talking about Google Hangouts. Google Talk is an XMPP-based service which I believe is still usable, but it hasn't been officially supported in years. The chat feature in Gmail used to be based on Google Talk, but these days it uses Hangouts.

That's Signal, right? I use it on my phone, but I didn't think desktop Signal was available other than for Chromebooks.

It's a Chrome app, so it should work on Chrome in Windows, MacOS, and Linux. It looks like it's being actively maintained, so at some point it will probably be re-released as either a Chrome extension or an ordinary web site, because Chrome apps are being phased out for platforms other than Chrome OS. Existing apps should continue to work for quite some time on all platforms, though.

And Allo as well. I'd be perfectly happy to use a Google product since they already own me. They just have to tell me which one.

Google's messaging strategy is an absolute mess right now. If you like Google, I recommend sticking with Hangouts for the foreseeable future, because it's by far the most mature IM product they offer right now.

I set up XMPP which I wanted to be the path forward, but after google broke their interoperability, it killed that idea.

It's debatable whether Google "broke their interoperability". The part they killed was server-to-server federation, which hardly anyone used or supported.

Hangouts doesn't have a Desktop client

Technically correct, but in practice there's a Hangouts Chrome app that makes a perfectly good desktop client. If you allow Chrome the run in the background (the default setting, I believe), it will stay active even when you don't have any Chrome windows open. All my coworkers are on Hangouts, so I use it a lot, and since I'm a Google Fi customer, I can also use it to send and receive SMS messages (or even phone calls, but I prefer a phone for that). The main limitation is that it's hard to coax Chrome into letting you use more than one account at a time; anyone who's interested in doing that is welcome to Memail me for details on how to make it work.

Although half of what makes IM great is presence, knowing if someone is online. Text messaging doesn't give you that. Then again neither does Google Talk; they've totally fucked up their presence with the web integrations.

Presence is kind of a meaningless concept these days, because most IM users have a mobile device they carry with them all the time, and for a lot of people, a mobile device is the only way they use IM services. It sucks that there's no longer a way to tell at a glance which of your friends are available for a chat, but there's really no reliable way to tell anymore.

The best indicator today might be to look at whether the user's phone is in do-no-disturb mode, but that's only possible in recent versions of Android, and app makers are probably hesitant to use that information, because users don't expect their do-no-disturb status to be broadcast to the world. (It's even worse on iOS; apparently silent mode can be detected using an ugly hack, but according to this thread it's not something Apple intends to ever support officially.)
posted by shponglespore at 2:12 PM on March 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


One very important aspect of Facebook Messenger is if you use it on your phone Facebook forces you to download their app,

On iOS Safari there is an easy workaround. Force load the desktop version of your FB home page, then you can see and respond to messages without installing the evil FB app.
posted by spitbull at 4:34 PM on March 1, 2017


The impending doom of AIM is a calamity for me because I use it to RP with, and I don't know any other IM that logs everything right to my documents folder so I can access it even without being online. Can anyone think of anything else that will do that for me? I don't want to lose all my logs!
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 5:20 PM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


there is an easy workaround. Force load the desktop version of your FB home page

Think for a minute about your "easy workaround". You can't use the Facebook app to view messaegs. You can't use the Facebook website in the phone's browser to view messages. But if you use an obscure option hidden inside the browser, you can make it so Facebook doesn't detect you are using an iPhone. Your reward is you can finally read your messages, but only after you either squint to read the tiny font (desktop layout, natch) or zoom in awkwardly on part of the page.

Could it be any more user hostile?
posted by Nelson at 5:52 PM on March 1, 2017 [4 favorites]


Similarly, AOL publicly announced today that they are shuttering DMOZ in two weeks.
posted by koavf at 6:06 PM on March 1, 2017 [1 favorite]


Jabber / XMPP still works fine, it's decentralized and federated so like email it doesn't ever have to die. All it lacks are the two most essential things to success in the modern age:

* Monetization-ability
* Zero effort installation

Start with a chat app. I recommend Conversations for Android or Gajim for desktop. Then create a Jabber account at any of the better servers. I picked one outside the US with "A" security rating. Create an account (varies by server), and set up Conversations (95% of people have already given up).

Then turn on OTR or the hot new OMEMO encryption and you have a secure chat platform because fuck you that's why.

It's really too bad it'll never catch on.
posted by anthill at 8:09 PM on March 1, 2017 [3 favorites]


Metafilter: It used to support integration with third-party clients through XMPP but no longer does.
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:41 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


I am someone who can technically say I've been using IRC since the 80s. I had no idea what I was doing, so I only joined # and when someone said there were "channels" I tried numeric channel names only. But then the BBS I was using that had gone shell-server-ISP started joining this brand new network that would ban the mischievous "Eris" server, the Eris-Free Network.

I remember seeing snatches of updates about the first Iraq war via IRC, and a blind admin of a smaller network setting up the closed-caption feed from CNN to dump into a news channel during 9/11.

Occasionally I get infuriated because a bunch of people will get excited about something that isn't IRC, but which is entirely proprietary and terrifying. I keep having that feeling in the pit of my stomach like "This is it. This is the point where everyone vanishes and I can't follow, just like when the BBSes all died out."

I keep hoping we can hit something from one of the redecentralise folks where we can own our own space, rather than piggy-backing on some corporate channel. We can trust IRC specifically because we can set up networks along with people we trust. That's crucial, to me.

But I don't think I ever need to really worry: because of this ObXKCD
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 2:49 AM on March 2, 2017 [2 favorites]


Your reward is you can finally read your messages, but only after you either squint to read the tiny font (desktop layout, natch) or zoom in awkwardly on part of the page.

Not that this particularly detracts from the awkward steps you need to go through to access a web page on your web browser, but if you keep the mobile URL m.facebook.com and request the desktop version you still get a messenger system at a reasonable font size. For now. At least on my system (Android tablet, using Chrome).
posted by eykal at 3:36 AM on March 2, 2017


Similarly, AOL publicly announced today that they are shuttering DMOZ in two weeks.

Heavens, how on earth will anyone be able to seed their revolutionary new world-wide-web-crawler now?
posted by mubba at 7:49 AM on March 2, 2017


Bah, you should just be happy picking up messages from your FidoNet point.

(I recently discovered that telnet BBSs are a thing. I am not sure why.)
posted by scruss at 8:49 AM on March 2, 2017


Metafilter: It used to support integration with third-party clients through XMPP but no longer does.

Actually I think I'm logged in to MeFi chat right now with an XMPP client...
posted by brennen at 10:17 AM on March 2, 2017


UPDATE: AIM is ONLY ending support of for MD5 authentication and Pidgin is going to be updated to work with the new security scheme. AOL noted that "Our messaging to users with ... Third party at login was misleading." That means abandonware like Adium are going to be out of luck, but that was a matter of time.

I was sort of joking about Pidgin, but it looks like it might actually be the universal client (except Discord) with native support of a bunch of protocols and plugins for a bunch of popular services:

Native support:
  • AIM
  • Bonjour
  • Google Talk
  • Groupwise!
  • ICQ
  • IRC
  • MSN
  • XMPP
  • Yahoo!
Plugins courtesy of Eion Robb (holding a radish) He's even got pidgin connected to OKcupid!
posted by zenon at 9:08 AM on March 4, 2017


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