AOL Instant Messenger will be discontinued

In case you didn't get the email:

Dear AIM user,

We see that you've used AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) in the past, so we wanted to let you know that AIM will be discontinued and will no longer work as of December 15, 2017.

Before December 15, you can continue to use the service. After December 15, you will no longer have access to AIM and your data will be deleted. If you use an @aim.com email address, your email account will not be affected and you will still be able to send and receive email as usual.

We've loved working on AIM for you. From setting the perfect away message to that familiar ring of an incoming chat, AIM will always have a special place in our hearts. As we move forward, all of us at AOL (now Oath) are excited to continue building the next generation of iconic brands and life-changing products for users around the world.

You can visit our FAQ to learn more. Thank you for being an AIM user.

Sincerely, The AOL Instant Messenger team

I guess it's the last fossilized toe of that old dinosaur. Sadly it has been my go-to form of reliable, private, back channel communication for 20 years. How am I going to dredge up all the fellow old people now?

@archigeek said in AOL Instant Messenger will be discontinued:

I guess it's the last fossilized toe of that old dinosaur. Sadly it has been my go-to form of reliable, private, back channel communication for 20 years. How am I going to dredge up all the fellow old people now?

exactly, it was perfect for our dinosaur game and getting back in touch with people when they returned/sometimes keeping in touch when they left.

@allereli I'm fairly sad about a number of old contacts I'll lose when it shuts down. =(

Guess I'll try Discord.

https://forums.elanthia.online/topic/537/aggregate-chat-clients

I'll advertise my related thread here :) Trillian is not cutting it with integration with the newer messaging services. I WANT TO LOG IN ONCE!

@archigeek It's not bad, takes a little getting used to and the voice feature is great for talking to folks. The phone app is also pretty versatile, so it's good to take with.

@riend I used to use Teamspeak with a small group, and that worked pretty well. Larger groups I'm imagining it wouldn't be that enjoyable, unless there's tight control like a webex.

I vote that we donate 3 dollars each to Tillmen to have him make a Lich Messenger which can also be used on our mobile devices!

@archigeek The great thing about Discord is that it can be used just a messenger program. You can choose to disable your headphones and mic, so you're not bothered by any sound at all. =)

It's like Teamspeak only with a channel-wide chat function (unlike the chat option I think TS had, or maybe it was Vent, or whatever the flavor-of-the-day raiding voicechat was at the time... so many voicechats.)

That's what I do. It's a glorified chat room for me which is perfect. Just need to get my friends list set up over there.

And you can do video/screen sharing now too... So you can troubleshoot your friends computer issues via Discord now if you really wanted to or needed to. New friend can't get Lich to work? Hop on Discord, add as a friend and start a video session to share desktop screen via private message. Easy Peasey!

Pidgin is still a good client to use for multi-communication needs. I throw Hangouts, Skype, Facebook, and AIM through it currently. My only concern is it marks everything as read when something comes through, so I only keep it up when I'm around.

It has Slack, HipChat, and Discord integration as well. I just prefer to use their desktop/web apps.

@wyrom That sounds pretty awesome actually. Compressing windows = love.

It's VERY keyed to a minimalist as well. If you don't want all the bells and whistles of Trillian, that is. I personally hated how much garbage was on Trillian. Pidgin has tons of plugins though. And you could basically make your own.

+1 for Pidgin, although I only use it for AIM. (sad face)

@mogonis said in AOL Instant Messenger will be discontinued:

+1 for Pidgin, although I only use it for AIM. (sad face)

There are definitely plugins, if you're at all savvy with terminal, it looks like. It seems to even use a windows installer for those.

Just use discord

http://mashable.com/2014/04/15/aim-history/#lfus0R6YEPqY