The America Online Protocol Revealed

Gods Misfit writes "The America Online protocol(Connecting, Logging In, Joining Chats, etc..) has remained a mystery for most of its life. The only way one could log into their AOL account was via the AOL software. A few months ago, some people set out to break down the AOL protocol and open the door for alternative America Online software. This document is the result: The AOL Protocol. A sign on example for Visual Basic programmers has been written and is available here." I suspect a fair number of people never try Linux or one of the BSDs because they're moderately happy with AOL as an ISP, and switching OSes would mean switching ISPs at the same time. A shame that AOL doesn't make this kind of information more easily available.

Comments

Cat and mouse games

[boinger]

How long until they make an arbitrary change that breaks all the "new" clients? While I don't understand why they'd care (the customer is still, in theory, paying for the service), the fact that they've kept it secret for so long makes me wonder if they'll let this slide. Not to mention their annoying policies regarding the AIM client (how many times did they break everybuddy?)

Re:Cat and mouse games

[Gaijin42]

The reason they won't let this slide : not all of AOL's revenue comes from subscription. They have lots of ads. And alternate clients could nix the ads, hence no ad revenue.

Re:Cat and mouse games

[rabtech]

Not if you figure out the AOL auto-updating mechanism as part of the protocol. Then, the only way they can lock alternatives out is to actually force everyone who is on AOL 2,3,4,5, and 6 to upgrade immediately. That isn't ever going to happen.

Well, that seals it

[MaximumBob]

Finally, I can get onto AOL using Linux! I'm installing it as soon as I get home!

Seriously, I don't know why whenever something gets posted on /., the sentiment "Finally! Now the average user will use Linux!" has to be used. The simple fact is that the average user isn't savvy enough to use it, and there is a large group of users who ARE savvy enough to use it, but find setting it up to be a big headache.

America Online isn't going to be Linux's killer app.

(ducks behind asbestos wall)

Not a big user group overlap..

[sid_vicious]

I suspect a fair number of people never try Linux or one of the BSDs because they're moderately happy with AOL as an ISP ...

Let's face it, the reason that AOL and Linux don't mesh isn't because there's no AOL-Linux interface. It's because people who use AOL use it for a reason - it's got a happy, friendly, push big rainbow colored buttons, don't-cut-yourself safety-scissors interface. Love 'em or hate 'em, it's what they do well - an interface so simple that even grandma can use the demon box.

Linux is still, even in its most user-friendly form, a system that requires you to get some dirt under your fingernails while you use it. It's still a power-user OS.
There just simply isn't a big overlap between the types of people who use AOL and the types of people who traditionally run Linux.

Re:Not a big user group overlap..

[Rick the Red]

There just simply isn't a big overlap between the types of people who use AOL and the types of people who traditionally run Linux.

Everything you say is true (I did't quote your entire post, but I mostly agree with all of it). There is one point you and many others overlook: @Home is bankrupt. What will thousands of Linux users do when their always-on, high-speed ISP goes away and is replaced by AOL? Switch to Windows? Perhaps so, either that or go back to a dial-up ISP. If I were faced with that choice, I'd prefer to figure out how to make AOL work with Linux. Or rather, figure out how to make Linux work with AOL. There may not be much overlap between Linux users and AOL subscribers now, but in the near future there may well be quite a bit of overlap as the "types who traditionally run Linux" are given few alternatives.

Unless you think it might be easer to get MSN to play with Linux.

Re:Silly Rabbit!

[passion]

no - but how many people leave their system booted into windows, since their SO, mom, whatever doesn't know how to:

# sync
# sync
# /sbin/shutdown -r now

If they could just click on a pretty AOL icon on the linux desktop, a lot of linux-users might drop their windows partition entirely.

AOL now sucks less

[Apreche]

Well AOL the company isn't so hot because they didn't give away this information. However the main reason that AOL stinks as an ISP is because in order to connect you have to load this enourmous hog of a program into memory. With a normal dial up isp you use dial up networking, and with a NIC you load nothing. If we could write a very small program that simply connects to aol and establishes an internet connection, that would be fantastic. People could still use AOL, but it wont suck, as much.