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AOL IM Rival Pulls The Plug
A reader writes: "719software.com has an interesting story about TribalVoice who was probably the only real threat to AOL in the instant messenger field, since AOL's acquisition of ICQ. David fought Goliath and lost. Now the only one left fighting AOL over IM, is Microsoft. How ironic." There's actually more then just Pow Wow left - Jabber comes to mind, but the field has definitely narrowed over the last few years.
And abusive of net resources to boot.
I do on-demand dialup so I can process mail automatically. Normally, this means a 5 minute call when my system demands a connection and then it times out when the mail is done.
I came home one night to find my connection still up, more than 8 hours since the last scheduled mail transfer. Short version of story: some moron had registered a dialup IP address as their PowWow address, and their buddy's PowWow client had been trying to connect to his buddy's system every 20 seconds for the whole 8 hours. And this nonsense kept happening for several weeks.
Tribal couldn't understand why this might be a problem and they would do nothing to help find either the misregistered flubby or his buddy, nor would they provide enough protocol data so I could write a "shut the fuck up and go away" demon.
Of course, WebRamp is not blameless in this -- their marvelous product counted incoming PowWow packets as valid data even when all it did was throw them away as undeliverable. WebRamp couldn't understand why this was a problem, "just shut the modem off when you are done", they told me.
Even webservers that are trying to keep the previous caller's connection alive eventually back off and let the connection time out, but PowWow was never that smart. They'd have been filtered at the network routers were they my routers.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Now certainly there are much better things about IRC than IM, IMO, but most are related to the stability and scalability of the system. In addition, there's some privacy concerns, given that with IM, all your information and messages are going through a central server. And there are some things that IM can do that IRC can't, and vice versa. But from John Q. Public, those 'important' features are in IM, and not IRC.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
MSN IM doesn't allow you to send messages to somebody who is offline, or if you're in invisible mode. I had to install it for work, and I hate it. I can't belive a 350K d/l made me reboot too! Anyway, I've already typed several message and they had it tell me that it couldn't connect due to that person going off line. It's a POS. Somebody in another thread had indicated that AOL IM is similar. Yahoo IM is the best that I've tried!
Yahoo IM is my favourite. I just had to install MSN IM for work, and I hate it. Yahoo IM lets me stay invisible, but still send and receive messages. It lets me send messages to people who are not there, and it lets me take messages when I'm logged of. Conferencing is easy. It maintains one connection, logging me off when I log on from another machine. It doesn't require a reboot to install. It's cross platform.
Personally I prefer the Yahoo IM over MSN IM. It doesn't look as flashy as the MSN one, but it has better functionality. It doesn't require a reboot to install either.
Does anybody know what is going on with MessengerA2Z. I contacted them asking for the source code under the GPL. They responded that it would be available very shortly on sourceforge, but I haven't seen the site change at all:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/messengera2z
Bite me. I installed it on a Win2K AS and a Win2K Pro machine. It asked to reboot them both.
Oh, sorry.. I'm about 10 years too late for that one...
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Maybe I'm old fashioned about it, but I figure IRC is a better way of doing this stuff, but then I also don't like IRC that much. Like MUDs and other things, they steal a lot of time. IRC, MUD and IM are the sitcoms of the internet.
-- Solaris Central - http://w
Yahoo! does IM too, including voice.
They did make it work, but AOL foiled them.
Then they tried again, and again, and again. Each time, AOL blocked them. They've proven that they can tell the difference between clones and their official client. I don't know why AOL doesn't do the same thing to the linux clones. But don't say Microsoft hasn't tried, because they have.
It's a really nice client, as proprietary ones go. What sold me on it is that it was (as of 1.5 years ago) the only IM software that supported messaging over HTTP proxies. It comes for Linux and Java, too. And you can easily turn off the ad banner. What I don't like about it is that it sometimes drops messages, without any warnings (but then AFAIK all IM clients do).
Yet there are tons of free/open software clients working flawlessly. If we can figure it out, why can't they? Are they more vulnerable to legal action from AOL regarding reverse engineering?
Ug. Yes, I tried Odigo and deemed it crap almost immediately. It could never log me into Yahoo and it's AIM support was flaky. I guess I wasn't looking for the people finder part, I just wanted a unified messenger similar to Gaim or Everybuddy on Unix (I run them on Solaris, therefore I won't say "for linux") but for Windows. It sounded promising, but in practice it pretty much sucks.
jabberview.com has a list of all the public servers with all the gateways they have installed.
Tribal Voice's PowWow has been around longer than AOL's internet gateway to its instant messaging. They have always had tacky, cheap-looking software and a small number of active users. Three million? Sure, maybe cumulative in the 5 years after they first launched.
They had more active users than MSN and Yahoo instant messaging in the end? I find that hard to believe. This is like saying Vivo is still a "threat" to RealPlayer and MS Media Player, or that the Amiga is a "threat" to anything.
Like many CMGI acquisitions, TribalVoice was a cheap, third-rate product snapped up at a fire-sale price from yet another owner that couldn't make it fly.
Maybe because IRC is only realtime. It does not enable leaving messages when the recipient is offline. But email is ideal for when the correspondents are not online at the same time, so IM is not needed in that situation either.
AIM is probably the easiest to use, and I still use it. I also use ICQ, which is my preferred app, since I can communicate in ways other than just typing back and forth. I'll probably get rid of AIM one day, but I will stick to ICQ. I know AOL, a big evil corporation makes this stuff, but it still doesn't mean that it isn't useful. (I had the displeasure of working for them... trust me, its even more disorganized on the inside than it appears!)
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Wait a sec. Pow Wow was the only 3rd party to legally use AIM's protocol, also MSN, etc... If they went out of business, its *not* AOL's doing - its because something else was wrong - business plans, whatever.
ICQ and AIM have this too now days... but yes, Yahoo had it back when they didn't.
-----
I cannot believe you forgot Yahoo. It is small, fast, stores your contact list on the server, has almost no ads, and has Linux and FreeBSD clients.
They are also on the IMunited committee.
http://messenger.yahoo.com
-----
If you don't like all the marketing hype and shockwave movies don't go to jabber.com, but try the Free Software community site www.jabber.ORG.
Perhaps you should be the first person you know to try, then. :-) I use Jabber exclusivly now and by using the Jabber transports I'm able to chat with friends on AIM and ICQ while talking directly with Jeremie (head Jabber honcho) using Jabber. There's really more to the Jabber idea than IM, but that's how it got started so it's likely to appear that Jabber is just an IM solution for a long time. However, since it is all XML based, you can really transmit any form of data just as you would send a regular Jabber IM. That opens up huge possibilites for inter-program communications across the Internet (for example). It's a really big idea under the hood, but you have to get in there and play with it to understand it. Check out jabber.ORG (not .com) if you want to find out cool technical details.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
The working group charter is here, and there is additional information about protocol candidates available here.
The open source community needs to get with the program, read the RFC's and the Internet Drafts, and start coding.
Before it's too late.
jhw
Dissenter
Dissenter
"There is no knowledge that is not power."
Although it's not a major player yet, it definitely has potential: Webbased IM, entirely over http. Check it out at http://www.sofunky.com.
I swear it is just like watch a bunch of preschoolers arguing over a toy or something.
Unfortunately, there is nobody to come in and make them "share".
Why the hell should AOL share? They spent the money to develop the service and view it as a differentiation to sell their services. Its their servers and they should have the right to tell other people who want to use them to go screw themselves.
You can bet if IM had failed, all of AOL's competitors wouldn't be falling over themselves to help AOL pay for their failure....
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
There are probably quite a few reasons for this . . . the one that comes to mind first is the fact that instant messengers are somewhat more user-friendly than IRC. Extra features, such as voice or graphical smileys could also be a reason.
Expanding on the user friendly thread, registered screen names/nicks could be an issue as well. Granted there are services on some of the IRC networks but they're not simple point and click deals. You have to learn the commands, which are often beyond the grasp of regular Windows users. And dialup users can forget having a 24/7 connection, or perhaps eggdrops to keep their nicks on networks that don't have nick services.
Yet another reason could be the sheer number of IRC networks. I usually have 2 irc clients open so I can be on two networks simultaneously, to stay in touch with different groups of people. (Admittedly, I know of people who run 2 or more IM clients as well.)
And perhaps the biggest reason is AOL itself. Every subscriber they have is automatically an IM user, and if you want to converse in real time with AOL users, IM is the easiest way to do so. AOL users have no real reason to go and learn IRC, when most of the people they want to chat with have accepted, and use, AOL's defacto standard.
I go to one of the top CS schools and I have never seen anyone actually use Jabber or its clones...but Hemos et. al. seem to treat it like its popular and everyone uses it...
;-)
Do people out there actually use it, and if so, what's so great about it? Or is this just GNU/FUD?
--------------------------
I have been very interested in using Jabber but have not been able to find any public servers to use.
//Pingo
--- Linux or FreeBSD, it's like blondes or brunettes. I like both. ---
BeOS has a few good IM clients other than Jabber (which just came out for Be). For AOL IM, there's BeAIM. It looks nice and is easy to use. There are at least 3 ICQ clients that I know of...ICBMx86, GimmiICQ and Gimmick. The latter two are a bit flaky IMO. ICBMx86 (intercontinental ballistic messenger) works well. It takes a very minimalist approach - just a little grey box with your buddy lists and pop-up windows for chat.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
While I haven't used GNOME-ICU since it was still called GTK-ICQ, it also looks like a good product, good competition for LICQ, though maybe not quite as advanced yet.
Back in the day when I actually had free time, and was coding for fun, me and a few friends thought that would be the best client ever to right. I do agree that IRC would be a good alternative to all these IM services, but if a client was developed that acted as an IM client while using IRC server, you would be set. You could have it connect to some popular irc networks (not just one, for backup reasons), and just go from there... would not be that hard.
Its not what it is, its something else.
Its not what it is, its something else.
There is absolutely nothing about the "to my knowledge" disclaimer that qualifies it as a troll.
It is the same as saying, "I _think_ this is correct, but I may be wrong," which is a perfectly reasonable statement if one is slightly insecure as to the varacity of the details he or she is imparting. Liability is moot, as the gentleman/woman in question was only volunteering his/her understanding of a situation, without obligation for 100% accuracy to you, me, or anyone else on Slashdot. At least he/she was polite enough to indicate that his/her facts may have been in error.
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
I said:
There is absolutely nothing about the "to my knowledge" disclaimer that qualifies it as a troll.
You quote another issue entirely, which, yes, might be perceived as "trollish."
:-)
Neopets - the best free game on the Int
QNI is an instant messenger that uses IRC as its protocol. Its for BeOS. You can see it at BeBits. Granted its just a suggestion app, meant it was created with little features or functionality as it was just to get people's opinions. If you want to talk to the creater, go to #beos and look for YNOP. As for Jabber, it is still under development...that is the only excuse I can use for such a poor messenger system. The project is poorly documented, especially when concerning transports. Moreover, a number of the Jabber servers I have tried using can't guarantee that the transports work. I think using IRC would be a great idea. You could implement a way for the messages to be stored for offline messaging (heaven forbid someone actually have to implement something with no vision).
Has
futang futang!
Ah yes. But I want my software to be the client, not some thin client that has to send data to server that ...well..quite frankly is not a real solution for messaging at this time. Jabber is not stable enough for me to justify its usefulness.
Has
futang futang!
Licq is a darn good icq clone.
Use ICQ 2000b (maybe 2000a too, I can't check)? Look again. Start to send a file or url. hellllooooo ads! Isn't it just great? Boy, I'm glad I use licq...
ufdraco
we use AIM at work - i would say it is a vital tool to our everyday development environment.
sure, we also use email and newsservers, but unlike these asynchronous-type mediums, chat proggys are synchronous (or at least more so than email.) when i pop a question to a mate, i usually get a prompt response...whether i am asking him for the next round of foosball or if the SQL server is up.
just b/c you don't see a use for it, don't think that it isn't useful to others. i am very happy in my open environment now where i have email and AIM, as opposed to the corporate hell-hole i worked for previously who wouldn't let us run AIM at all....
it's like everything else a tool!
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
does anybody remember Broadcast? a macos networking tool which enabled a very early primitive version of peer-to-peer chat? it was all the rage on campus in 1995-96...
Anybody ever heard of Odigo? It combines ICQ, AIM and Yahoo messenger into one...very nicely I might add.
Odigo Homepage
rhino
Because it feels like something I've done before, yeah I could fake it but I'd still want more...
Hey, now... I agree with the diff. progs for diff. things. I use IRC all the time, but at work, or when I need to quickly poke my head into someones proverbial office, I send an IM, usually using Yahoo Messenger (which, I'm surprised wasn't mentioned.)
There is def. something to be said for the small footprint, one-click-startup-and-sign-on features of the progs. that are out there. I don't think it's a matter of 1337-nees, it's just convenience... and I didn't even need to condescend to anyone.
"I'm disrespectful to dirt! Can you see I am serious?"
Look at the popularity of GAIM for Linux, it's better then the windows client and widely used by *nix people. Hell, I used it on my solaris box at my old job.
--
Free Mac Mini
I know ICQ sells a copy of their server for inter-office use, but I can't see that market being very large. They have to pull a profit from somewhere..
--
Free Mac Mini
Also, at work, my boss HATES people to be on IRC, but for AIM/ICQ they don't really care, in fact we use ICQ for inter-office stuff all the time.
--
Free Mac Mini
-----
For a stable, well designed, easy to add features to, pretty e-mail client for X check out http://althea.sourceforge.net
I think I heard of them maybe once before this article. So I don't quite get this quote:
"TribalVoice who was probably the only real threat to AOL in the instant messenger field"
How can a geek who almost always has 4 IM programs running(ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!, and AIM) and has on several occasions looked for more not have gotten into "the only real threat to AOL in the instant messenger field"?? Why is it that I see people put Yahoo Messenger names on email sig files, but never TribalVoice??? And TV is the only real IM competition AOL had?? Just seems odd to me... Yahoo at least is a serious competitor to AIM, but not something I almost never heard of.
The people finder had its ups and downs...but I was usually in invisible/stealth mode.
Hence, I would deem some of the features (those that didn't work, it was still beta when I played with it) crap, but overall I thought it was good. I was most impressed with their response time to AOL's blockades.
I'll have to check out the two you mentioned
Ahh....the hope of a standard protocol for IM being implemented in the real world!
Galego
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
But the cool part is that you can go online to the AIM, Yahoo! and ICQ networks from one IM interface. The only quip is that AOL sets up some block regularly (at least last time I used Odgio, need to set it up on my home/new work box). But Odigo would inevitably bypass it.
Overall, I liked it and used it. It also allowed you to find people (If you're looking for love, conversation, etc.) by profiles or make yourself invisible. They are making a Mac version now, which they didn't before...don't see why they wouldn't make a Linux version. Would the source open up? Dunno! Anyone else use it/know of any Odigo for Linux movements?
Cheers,
Galego
Que Deus te de em dobro o que me desejas
[May God give you double that which you wish for me]
...is it true that Microsoft is crying foul over AOL's not opening their AIM up to MS-Messenger? As in not allowing MS Messenger users not being able to talk to users on AIM?
:-)
I remember hearing on the radio a news report that they were actually going to court for (get this) AOL stifling competition in this market. I've been all over CNN.com looking for the story, but can't find it. Anyone else hear about this, and if you have do you happen to have a link? I could use a good laugh
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
I use talk a great deal, as a Unix utility for communicating with other users on multiuser systems. There really arn't too many other uses for it though. If you're attempting to talk to other people on the net, IRC, or instant messengers are much better than giving everybody a shell account on a box and try to organize it with write.
Talk is completely useless IMHO. It requires a daemon to work (which introduces security issues) and it simply reproduces features of write. For instance, if two people wish to talk, they can just write eachother and then take turns typing (otherwise their words will get jumbled together). The only feature talk has is the possiblility of talking to people on remote computers, which duplicates the functionality of IRC as well as creating an even larger security issue, an open talk port to the internet.
By the way, you forgot to mention wall, a really useful command with which one can communicate with all users. Very useful in administrating multiuser boxes.
Jordan Bettis
``Wherever you go, there's another stupid sigfile quote.''Sure, Jabber is there, but I think it will be a long time, unfortunately, before it has anything meaningful to offer.
The server, to my knowledge, only runs on Linux, and still has some bugs -- especially in the agents. The clients (I've only tried the Windows flavor) are either buggy or lacking in features -- or both!
In fact, I tried experimentally to use Jabber last week instead of AIM (I tried JabberIM, WinJab and myJabber). I had to change servers twice because the previous one shut down an agent, or shut down completely. Each time, I essentially had to hand-enter my Roster items (a.k.a. buddy list) again since there is no way to import/export rosters.
I'm pretty close to installing VMWare and running Linux in it so I can run a Jabber server and develop my own client. But, who am I kidding? I don't have time for that!
I'll just stick to AIM, with all of its glorious bloat, for now
Or, whoever survives will just be stronger - and by an amount proportionate to their opponent :) And since they're both huge, the winner will be.. damned huge.
There's an option to turn off that window, too :) I've got my home machine setup to do that. Makes life muuuuch happier.
Hello,
It may have been a poor decision for Tribal Voice to choose a public relations company that was incapable of using its products on most of their computers. It is unfortunate that Tribal Voice never developed versions of PowWow for other operating systems, such as MacOS, which would have made it more accessible to the employees of the public relations firm.
Tribal Voice used InstallShield to set up the software on a computer, a very common program for installing software under Windows.
If you had trouble installing or using the software, or were concerned about security risks, it might have been useful to contact Tribal Voice directly to resolve these issues in order to make it easier for your employer to handle the Tribal Voice account.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
--
Dexter is a good dog.
Hello,
Tribal Voice used AOL's published protocols, which referenced their servers. If AOL did not wish for other companies to use their servers, they should not have published one of their instant messaging protocols publicly.
The situation is a little more analagous to the telephone system: If every phone company used different incompatible equipment, you would have to have multiple phones, phone lines, and bills so you could communicate with everyone who used a service different than yours. Different phone companies, though, do interconnect, even though the resources used may not be equal in each direction. Ultimately, the consumer benefits from this reciprocity.
Regards,
Aryeh Goretsky
--
Dexter is a good dog.
Right. There are enough morons bleeting away on IRC as it stands.
:wq
My contactlist is kept serverside. (or is this a disadvantage?)
This is a mixed blessing. AOL also keeps contact lists server-side, but only for the AOL-member version of their IM client (AIM stores contact lists client-side). The nice thing about server-side contact lists is the ease with which a user can port their account from one computer to the next. The problem with this is privacy/security issues.
Actually, all of the IM clients have one or two great features, along with some headache causing frustrations. Each one has a different piece of the puzzle. For instance, ICQ has the feature to require a user's authorization for another user to contact them. Unfortunately they botch the delivery of this feature by keeping the authentication client-side (no doubt a load off their servers, but a simple crack to older versions of the client allow malicious users to contact privacy-minded individuals whether they like it or not). Another result of client-side authentication is that users must repeatedly ask authorization to contact a friend every time they install the client on a new system.
Yahoo has better support over http proxies, AIM is almost entirely spam-free (although a few changes to the default configuration keep my ICQ spam to an easily dealt-with minimum).
I'd like to see these features in a universal IM client, should open standards develop in this arena:
* Local storage/management of contact list, but with an easy interface for exporting/importing contacts between clients on multiple computers
* Server-side authorization for contacting new users (possibly with a password feature for automatic authorization, allowing previously-authorized users or personal friends to automatically get authorization but without storing information on who is actually contacting who)
* Offline message delivery
* Multiple user peer-to-peer chat sessions
* File Transfer (possibly with the ability to publicly/privately share file directories and search for available files...users could choose to share certain files with publicly with the world, while keeping others restricted to users on their contact list, or even individual users...)
* Configurable user information, with the ability to offer different profiles to users with different levels of trust
* Standard privacy features such as the ability to make yourself invisible to certain users or groups of users, and the option to turn these off for those times your bored and really want to chat with strangers.
Because I don't have time to deal with all the port-scanning, splits, channel floods, etc.
In order to use the full AIM protocol, you have to reverse engineer it - besause the specs are not given out, and plus you are vulnerable to blocking and bugs if you dont interact well with the AIM servers.
Microsoft is also unlike Free developers, since it has a large concentrations of liability absorbing capital. I.E., they can be sued. Until they get out from under the "Antitrust" issue, they are not likely to countersue or do any "Microsoft pressure" tactics to force the issue.
For the life of me, I cannot figure out why people prefer AIM over ICQ. ICQ can do everything that AIM can do and there are no ads on ICQ. (of course, you can remove the ads on AIM) If you want a real-time chat in ICQ you just open up a talk session. Someone sends you a message, and you get a notification in the sys tray, not a huge window. The beautiful thing is you can just let it sit there in the queue with ICQ. You'll get to it when you get to it. With AIM, this large window pops up right in your face. "You WILL chat with me!" Subtlety is a lost art.
The truth is that AOL spends all it's time pushing AIM and none on ICQ. That's tragic. AOL bought a great product/service in ICQ. It's just too bad that they are not giving it a real chance.
Tell me what makes you so afraid
Of all those people you say you hate
www.trillian.cc seems to be a nice program that allows you to connect to AIM,MSN,Yahoo, and IRC. I have been using it for about a week and I relly like it. Xiadix
What needs to happen is make a standard for IMing, and then have every messenger compatible with it.
Its like if every single telephone company wasn't compatible with each other... whats the point of using a smaller company if you cant talk to anyone? At least if they are all equal in service you can freely choose the one that gives you the best options.
Anyone still using write and talk?
NAME
write - send a message to another user
SYNOPSIS
write user [ttyname]
DESCRIPTION
Write allows you to communicate with other users, by copying lines from
your terminal to theirs.
and another goodie:
NAME
talk - talk to another user
SYNOPSIS
talk person [ttyname]
DESCRIPTION
Talk is a visual communication program which copies lines from your ter
minal to that of another user.
Probably because IRC 1) isn't advertised as much 2) requires you to log into these giant servers, which don't all talk among themselves 3) is usually harder to use / is associated with more technical expertise, which not everyone cares to get into (i.e. grandma)
Wait...if AOL/timewarner/everything and Microsoft are feuding over this...should we be upset? THey are both huge companies!! They could destroy each other!!! /me prays!
:)
also...I found a typo..there-can-onlby-be-one dept.
Hemos, how do you spell only? slow down on those keys!
of course...by pointing out a spelling mistake, i have probably made several in this post....
The anti-salmon
ICQ doesn't have rotating ads like AIM and MSN, but the advertising is still there. Whenever you first start ICQ it pops up a window, with plenty of advertisments. Check out the ICQ homepage. Chock full of advertising. What AOL is failing to realize about ICQ is that it is not My Yahoo, or even AOL Lite. If they just stuck to a barebones IM client, instead of having all the bells and whistles of a "portal," I would be more willing to use them. The RAM that ICQ sucks up on a windows client is astounding.
aol instant messager doesnt allow for messages to be left or the person if they are offline either.. and with bots and proper scripting, irc clients can..
do a search for aol ip's sometime on irc.. there are many people that aol because its the only local isp they can get..
mine doesnt pop up the stupid webpage and im using the newest version.. although the newer version takes up loads of memory if you dont uninstall a ton of plugins.. also i regulary go thru the icq directory and delete things that i dont use that the program can live with out.. that annoying beep noise is easy to delete too then when you startup it cant find it to play it.. nice silent icq when i start my computer..
Unfortunately, there is nobody to come in and make them "share".
You can see parallels on a larger scale with other not so civilized types who come in and rip off people "for their own good".
"This reduction of service is by popular demand". etc.
a pox on all their houses.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Well, while the titans are fighting, we users can just have a look at the advantages of using one or other IM. Why should we or not use their products?
Actually I use both Microsoft IM and ICQ.
I use MS IM because:
I work at different offices on different nt through port 80, that is in most cases open to workstations and firewall configs, so IM connects preserve internet browsing to their employees. In most cases I am unabled to use ICQ.
You can check your hotmail account (that I use for the same reason as MS IM) without actually browsing to the webpage.
My contactlist is kept serverside. (or is this a disadvantage?)
I use ICQ because:
I can send messages to people not online, they'll receive it when they come online
There is a version for my linuxbox
I don't get adds
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
--I assume full responsibility for my actions, except the ones that are someone else's fault.
How about an open source IM that looks like a classic AIM/ICQ/YIM client, but not only speaks IRC, but all the other IM protocols, too? And what if it was a distributed network, like email?
That's Jabber.
Isn't this just a little strange? There doesn't seem to be any objective (business) reason to prefer one over the other, so this leaves me wondering if it isn't some sort of cultural bigotry. Kind of like "alcohol is a good drug used by us normal Joe's, but pot is a bad drug used by slackers, long-haired hippy freaks, and people that put their babies in microwaves.
Is IRC the messaging software of choice for liberals and child molesters?
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Right now it's between aol and microsoft. I don't like monopolies either, but don't you think microsoft has just way too much power? I'd rather aol have the monopoly on im and their isp service. At least that way Microsoft has some real competition.
Can you imagine if the fcc forced aol to open up their IM protocol? If they do it'd be 6 months away from microsofot taking it over. They'll embed it in their os, in all future versions of IE, in all Office suites, etc... You get the idea right? Remember how MS defeated Netscape?
Besides, the damn thing's free to download anyways. Why's MS so damn interested in the protocol? What do you think?
Did you forget to pay the typo tax, Hemos?
Except if AOL/MSN, etc. just decide to update their protocols to force the public to upgrade towards their tools...
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Trolling using another account since 2005.
With all these people complaining about the official ICQ's bloat why not try Miranda ICQ? It takes up about half a meg of RAM, has basic messaging and sending URL features and even plugins. Plus it's open source ;)
Talk doesn't use a three-way handshake and is thus firewall challenged.
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>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>80 column hard wrapped e-mail is not a sign of intelligent
>life
Here is the main reason...
In the world of Windows, AIM is widely used by newbies, as is AOL. So when Person A gets set up with AIM, and then person A tells their friends, the user bases grows rapidly (viral marketing). To use IRC, first of all, you have to know that it exists, and then you have to figure out how to use it. I personally don't think it's that tough, but your average AOL user probably wouldn't.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
All of the computers in the lab start up with it, and I hate it so much that I don't just close msmsgs, I terminate its process.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Why not just use Yahoo Messenger? In my opinion, it's the best chat client out there. It's easy to use, and it has a ton of features, like all of the content, and the ability to talk to your cell phone.
We all know that it is so, but it is healthier when there are just few strong competitors and not scores of small ones. They just mess up the market space without any useful impact.
There's always sufficient, but not always at the right place nor for the right folks.
The only chat clients that I use are IRC and ICQ. And since i'm on broadband, i'm connected to both 24/7. I know the ICQ thing pops up the first window, but if you press spacebar as soon as it pops up it closes it and you don't have to see it. Also, Because i use a way older version of ICQ (I don't know how the newer versions work), I never go to the ICQ web page. I know that I, myself have never contributed in anyway to ICQ's funding.
My question still, is why is something that probably doesn't produce too much cash, something of extremely high competition?
I see that AIM has their own little AOL ads embedded, and MSN IM has their own MSN ads embedded into them, but ICQ never pops up any ads on me. Why is it that there is this stupid competition out there for a chat service? Do AOL & Microsoft want to collect terabytes of pre-teen chatting? What is the deal?
It also plans to allow users to use distributed computing, and group file sharing (similar to Napster/Scour, but for any files)
This program has enormous potential, I hope everyone will check it out.
http://www.groove.net
Contrary to popular belief, I don't actually make my website for other people to look at.
When my gaming clan originally made the form for our join page, ICQ was required. However, once I went around checking what everybody had, ALL of the members already had AIM, while only 3 or 4 had ICQ. I'm not suprised. I've grown to like AIM more than ICQ, if only for it's quick messaging. I've customized it so it works for me, pretty much. The annoying sounds only ring when I first get a message, and I changed them to a random sound depending on my mood...
I think AIM's warning system is a pile of crap. In fact, BLOCK should be the ONLY option, and it should be taken effect immediately. As of right now, If you respond to a message and then block someone when they start warning you, they can still warn you to their full extent.. Wha? That's totally abused... Not to mention AOL's stupid system of allowing anyone to create any name at any time... All it asks for is differant email addresses. Hell, I have UNLIMITED email addresses. I could sit there all nite and create. There is no limit! Even if you use the SAME email, you can still do it 5 or so times before it asks you to change!
I don't know whether to be excited or scared. After AOL bought ICQ and Netscape, the world has been a scary place. Gah.
Seeka
Odigo is an AOL and ICQ-compliant IM. Whenever AOL finds a way to cut them off, Odigo releases a patch fix a day later :)
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
to be honist, i don't want thousands of AOL or MSN users bleeting away on IRC, i'm happy to let them have their pretty pop-up boxes and door bell sound effects while i can just chat to my mates in the "no-fuss" environment which is IRC.
Jabber has a module for this, IIRC.
Why are people using incompatible Instant Messangers, when there is IRC? IRCs protocol is open, it has clients for nearly every OS and arch, and only because A uses mIRC and B uses xchat it doesn't mean they can't talk to each other...
Or good ones which get less than 5% of the popular consense
Hey that reminds me your elections.
Ok, I'm wondering... how much does ICQ/IM/etc have to suffer from DOS attacks relative to e.g. IRC?
I'm guessing AOL has some bandwidth to spare, but still...
Is this less bad since there are no 'channels' to take over or what?
Moz.
see a Text Widget
How come nobody here will say the obvious?
You don't meet people of the female persuasion on IRC. They're all on the IM systems.
Hay thar.
Interesting that the nice Mr. Gates should be clamouring for open standards to be enforced by the FCC. Whatever next?
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Every bloody emperor has his hand up history's skirt [Peter Hammill/VdGG]
Developing a Jabber client should be easy. All you basically need is a TCP socket and a Sax parser to get started.
All of the hard stuff is handled by the Jabber server. The client just puts a UI on it, and sends and receives events with the server.
uh, yeah, whatever ever heard of apache, php, mysql, postgres, sendmail, bind, and on and on and on you probably are using 5 open source products or more to surf to this site and or send email and this site runs all open source stuff you are pretty damn ignorant, maybe that is what you are trying to say about "most people"?
Jabber is an excellent open source product and in fact far exceeds the "functionality" of AOL IM.
Jabber can communicate with its own network, AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo and even get RSS news feeds!
Jabber rocks, and for those who want something really cool, checkout mozdev.org and get jabberZilla, great plug in for Mozilla that puts jabber in the browser.