Slashdot Mirror
AOL vs. Trillian
Trinition writes: "ZDNews is reporting that AOL is once again trying to shut out the competition. Trillian has been updated twice in the past 24 hours to work around the blocks AOL is throwing up to prevent the popular IM client from interoperating with the AOL Instant Messenger service. Will Cerulean Studios hold up better than those they follow in the footsteps of (i.e. Microsoft, AT&T and Jabber)?"
I'm not sure of the current status of the application, but AOL has been doing the same thing to the OS X application Fire (a multi network IM client). Ever since it's release it's been a game of AOL blocking and subsequent update "fixing" the block,
Seems to me that all this extra programming is wasted cycles that could be better used for additional features for applications.
This is one area where greed is holding back innovation in the IM market.
It's AOL's software, AOL's servers and AOL's IM protocol. Why should they feel compelled to allow 3rd party software to access their network?
Thats the thing tho.. Trillian isn't fighting them with lawyers.... they're fighting with coders. Hacking their way around the problem. Aol to my knowledge hasn't told them to cut it out, just tried to prevent the whole thing.
And since Trillian is able to keep up within a day's notice, I can't see how the efforts on AOL's part are making any significant dent.
Of course, thats not really the issue here. But its better they do it this way than sue competitors. Not to say thats not an option they're reserving for the future.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Trillian is a very nice client - we use it almost exclusively here at work, as it lets us keep in contact with people using multiple IM platforms, and also doesn't ram ads down our throats.
One interesting thing is that the new AIM blocks only seem to affect Trillian v0.7x - some of our users still using v0.6x are still working fine, whereas us early adopters are having to update rapidly.
Luckily, the newest (v0.721) build includes an auto update function, so keeping up to date is likely to be much easier in the future. Bear in mind that there's a limit to how much AOL can do to break the protocols, as they don't want to shut out all of their previous clients.
Is that they're killing off Trillian, and their first fix was to force them to turn off their "SecureIM" feature. Something that uses 128bit encryption between trillian clients. I loved that feature. The other odd thing is AOL isn't stopping third party clients from attaching to ICQ, another IM network that they own.
Oh well.. I'm glad I signed up for MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger and use trillian for both of those too..
Free Mac Mini
I am not making a comment on the fairness of the practice here, just stating the reality of the situation.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Personally I wish it hadn't gone that far. Better to stay under the radar.. But anyways.. trillian was cut off, unless you disabled secureIM. That only worked for a day though. Cerulean released a patch that disabled it automatically but the next day access was blocked again.
Someone though AOL was on a mission. He even showed a screen shot that showed the uninstall icon for AIM being a crossed out trillian icon. Too bad he didn't realize that that icon was some kind of bug, cuz my uninstall icon was a vncviewer icon. GO figure.
But the fix for that second day was to go back to an even older version of trillian. Now cerulean just released one that works now without having to go back to an older version.
Some people just seemed to jump the gun a little I think.
Then again.. maybe AOL does have it in for them. Either way the cerulean guys are doing a great job!
You crazy man? You piss off supahfly!
Well, almost.
Trillian is a simple, small and pretty customizeable app that takes my start bar from 5 icons down to one and manages my history, chats and everything with one app.
It will be AOL's loss if they get rid of a chunk of people on the network. How it can be a security risk is beyond me. You have to signup the same way and access the same network, is AOL just so inept it doesn't know how to write a secure im client?
Oh well. Maybe it is time to sue AOL for having a monopoly and waiving its monopolostic powers over IM technology. Don't they own ICQ, don't they Own AIM? Doesn't owning that much marketshare and preventing other users from using such technology constitute a monopoly using its powers to prevent other business from competing in the market?
Oh well. trillian is great, i wish them the best of luck sneaking around IM's / AOL's policies.
Only thing that can topple big companies are big companies...
Now, I disagree. Remember the Microsoft Antitrust case? I think we all saw how the little guy won that one.
how the hell is it a monopoly? is MSN messenger just a figment of my imagination?
they spent R&D money developing AIM, testing it, promoting it, upgrading it, etc. why in the hell should they be forced to open it up to people who want to piggyback on it? that's total and utter bullshit, and one of the things i can't stand about the slashdot crowd. .
gotta have everything, who cares if they spent a chunk of change and man-hours working on it, i want it, so it should be free and everyone should be able to use it.
BilldaCat
I must say that AIM is the best thing that AOL produces. (Not counting Winamp/ICQ as those are merely apps that they bought and haven't "AOL-ized" too much.) But some people I know are on AIM, Yahoo, and even ICQ. I tried out Trillian and now I'm loving being able to only run one IM client. (Plus it'll check for new Yahoo e-mail while I'm chatting with an AIM buddy.)
Back in July there was a story about AOL saying they were working on letting AIM access other messaging clients. I guess it's ok for AIM to access Yahoo/MS/etc buddy lists but it's not ok for another app to access the AIM servers. Nice double standard there AOL. (Apparently they want Open Standards for Instant Messaging to apply to everyone but them.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
No doubt the posts will soon start flowing in that AOL is evil for preventing this little company from accessing their network. My question is why is this wrong? Why should America Online not be the exclusive provider of America Online Instant Messaging functionality? Sure they do it to make money off of ads and exert some kind of institutional control. But do other companies have a right to be a part of this? Is it merely that AOL will have a monopoly on the instant messaging market? There certainly seem to be enough big competitors out there to prevent this. Just curious about why all the fuss.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
On the one had I agree that Trillion should keep trying. That way more attention can be shed on just how childish this company can be and how if they react this way to IM clients, how will they react on larger issues that affect the public?
Conversely, why use up all of your resources reinventing somebody else's wheel?
You forgot one. It's a matter of revenue. AOL IM serves ads. Trillian doesn't serve ads for AOL. If you use Trillian, AOL doesn't get ad revenues. The only security they care about is investor security.
do not read this line twice.
"It has long been our very public policy that when a service unleashes software that hacks into our system, and endangers the security of our system, we stop it," AOL spokeswoman Kathy McKiernan said.
Sometimes you have to just sit back and admire the pr spins people can put on an issue. Since Sept.11 the security issue is a no brainer. However, the system hacking aspect is just above and beyond. Kathy recognizes that one can use enough half-truths to defend her statements that trillian is hacking into AIM servers. It's absolutely amazing how such blatant blocking of a service can spun so effectively. AOL gets some kudos from me on reminding us here on just how evil they can be. It's completely deceptive and underhanded, and yet completely unprovable to any but the technically literate.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world he didn't exist. -Verbal Kint
I don't really understand why anyone gets upset whenever AOL blocks a non-AIM client from using their proprietary network and resources. AOL owns the systems that power AIM and should be allowed to prevent non-AIM clients from accessing them altogether, in fact, they have every right to protect their property and to see that their resources are used according to their will.
It has nothing to do with AOL being predatory (as mentioned in the article) or "selfish" (also mentioned in the article). It has everything to do with AOL protecting the resources that it, as a corporation, owns.
Should be easy to boycott AIM advertisers. Half of the ads seem to be advertising free hours if you sign up for AOL!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Okay, so if AIM blocks the clients that block the advertisements, you're going to boycott the advertisers? Okay, so if your boycott works, then AOL has problems funding AIM and are pushed to futher close it and be bastards to the independent messenger clients. Taking this to it's furthest extreme would mean eliminating AIM all together. Then what? Then you have one less viable option for instant messaging.
This is a rather nasty quandry. The people who run the servers that all of this traffic goes over need to fund those servers somehow. If they leave the protocol open to everybody and don't have some way to force through advertisements, how do they pay for it? I like using Trillian, and Gaim (depending on what OS I'm dealing with), but I can see AOL's point.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Slashdot.org is also concerned about ad revenues... one of the big reasons they've given for not having a usenet feed of the comments here is that they wouldn't be able to pay for the cost of those users' network and computer usage.
It's not evil to want to be able to at least break even on a service you're providing.
Can anyone explain to me how AOL is changing their protocol without breaking their own IM? Is their client just more flexible, or does it have built in support for a dozen protocol revisions?
I would hope that whatever they're doing the clues as to what the next change might be are already there in the client. Perhaps we could build a fake ICQ server and run tests on the AOL client with slightly modified protocols to see what it supports. Then build in the same support into Trillian et al.
For me I'd love to stop using AOL's ICQ since I use OS X. The official client doesn't behave at all like a good OS X app should.
I can't spell or type, but that doesn't mean I'm unusually stupid.
I mean, think about it, if 1million people are using Trillian, that's probably 1million people who aren't seeing AOL's built-in AIM ads, and that would probably throw off their selling points. Maybe a solve for this would be for trillian to implement AOL's ads? (of course ads do suck, but maybe that would be a compromise that AOL could live with?)
-- Dan
What? Without the ad money from the ads they put on AIM, they wouldn't even bother to let you use their service for free becuase they would be losing money on it. So you want a free ride that AOL has to pay for? Don't you see the hypocricy in your post?
I have no clue how this even got modded up.
From the article, they said that they were doing it because of security. I don't buy that. I believe they are doing it because they are trying to make money off their ads, and don't want anyone to take that away. OK, fine. But, if that is the reason, SAY SO. No one will deny they are a public company, and want to protect their investment. THAT was my point, and it seems everyone missed it.
Sent from your iPad.
What AOL should do is lock down their protocol so that nobody else can use it. Then, license the way for anybody to access the protocol providing that they show the advertisements that AOL provides. Thus anybody who wants to make a client can do so with little trouble and AOL doesn't have to worry about profits.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
For the millionth time, AOL is not preventing 3rd party clients from interoperating with the AOL Instant Messenger system. What they are doing is preventing 3rd party clients from using OSCAR, which is AOL's "private" protocol for AIM. They're not touching TOC, which is the protocol which AOL makes available for 3rd party clients to use.
Sure, flame me because:
1) TOC doesn't have all the features of OSCAR
2) TOC (might) use more resources than OSCAR on AOL's side, so you're doing them a favor.
3) AOL's required by the court to let us play in their sandbox.
4) AOL's a big bully.
5) Information wants to be free, man!
If AOL wants to make a subset of the features available to 3rd party clients, it's their prerogative. They own the servers, they wrote the service, they pay for the people to maintain the servers. And if TOC uses more resources than OSCAR on AOL's servers (which is just a rumor, and not confirmed from anyone with any authority), that's AOL's business, not yours. And no, AOL is not required by any court to let 3rd party clients play with AIM. They're only required to make the "next generation" AIM available to 3rd parties.
If you use OSCAR to connect to AIM and you don't use AOL's clients to do it, you don't get to complain when they change OSCAR around, regardless of whether they're deliberately blocking someone or just making modifications to the protocol for something else. Use TOC, or use another IM service.
-Todd
"The details of my life are quite inconsequential..."
Gotta love the quote from the AOL spokeswoman:
"It has long been our very public policy that when a service unleashes software that hacks into our system, and endangers the security of our system, we stop it," AOL spokeswoman Kathy McKiernan said.
So, since I run Trillian does that make me a hacker? And here I thought I was running an app that just made my life a whole lot easier by combining various incompatible IM services into one easy-to-use application.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Don't worry there won't be an antitrust suit against AOL. Just like Intel, AOL gives generous contributions to the government.
Last night I was using Fire, a program very similar to Trillian, but for os-X. Things seemed to be working fine.
I wonder how/why AOL targeted one client, but not others. I haven't updated my fire client in weeks, so I know they aren't jumping through hoops (yet).
--T
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
They're just upset that people can use their service without them making ad revenues.
This is just like saying that they're just upset that people can take the goods out of their store without making revenues. It's stealing, even if you're not physically taking something.
If MS wants to force everyone to use proprietary software for THEIR service, then it is their right. There IS a cost - using their software and having screen realestate dedicated to ads. The same goes for AOL's IM.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
A corporation, AOL is.
A possible competitor, Trillian is not. Trillian does not "compete" with AIM, it complements it. With all the Trillian users out there, why should AOL stop access to them? It increases the number of people on AOL can talk to.
"...when a service unleashes software that hacks into our system, and endangers the security of our system, we stop it."
That's a load of crap. Trillian does not hack into their system, it connects to it just as an official client does. Just because Trillian "happens" to speak the same language doesn't mean it's illegal. Again, third party clients make life easier for the people on AIM -- after all, AOL wouldn't want them downloading, say, MSN and using that instead, right? Blocking third party clients does not help AOL, it just makes life more intersting for both sets of developers as well as making it more difficult for people to communicate.
While there is truth in that it *is* their system and it *is* their place to decide whether or not to take action, doing so is simply a dumb idea.
But, wow! I just downloaded this program, and it is sharp! I'm very impressed. You would think a multi-billion dollar company like AOL/TW would be able to put out a quality product like this, but once again, my theory that the little guys always do it better proves true. I hope the big guys realize this for once and give up on trying to shut out this chat client to their servers. If they were actually halfway smart, they'd get an agreement signed with Cerulean to allow some sort of advertising or something not too personally intrusive for the use of their aol servers.
If AOL's IM is not defined as a monopoly, then Microsoft doesn't have a monopoly either with Windows. Is Linix and OS X just a figment of my imagination?
Monopoly status isn't defined as 100% market share - essentially it's a market share so big that the monopoly has the power to dictate to the market instead of the other way around. Instead of consumer need controlling the market, the supplier leaves the consumer with a "take it or leave it" proposition.
With a secure monopoly, AOL can tell everyone - you have the right to use IM, which you need to stay in touch (they say), but you have to use our cheesy clients and you have to expose yourself to all of our advertisements (especially for AOLTimeWarner subsidiaries).
Do you know that 80% of the celebraties featured on the AOL and Compuserve splash pages are AOLTimeWarner products?
The open source counter to this is "let's make our own IM system". This is great, but if it cannot interface with the AOL IM system, then it's back to the old Microsoft technique of "Buy Office, or forget about reading the documents produced by the people who do buy Office."
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
If one million people are using Trillian instead of AIM, what makes you think any of these people would be using AIM if they weren't using Trillian? I for one have never seen the AIM client in my life, and I still use that portion of Trillian since it allows me to contact even more people. If I wasn't using Trillian, I would simply not be in touch with these people. I'm not prepared to run yet another IM program to do the exact same thing and I would rather just stay away from it. Especially with some security issues that have come up, and the potential bulkiness and advertisements of the AIM client.
Your idea is a valid thought at first glance, the comparison that 1M-people using Trillian "instead" of AIM means a 1M-ad-viewer loss to AIM. This is simply not true. It's the same kind of logic that applied when game publishers back in the heyday of Commodore 64 games pirating said that they were losing N times X dollars from piracy, where N is the number of pirate copies and X is the price per unit. Most of these N people would not pay the X dollars, or view the X advertisements and produce the N*X revenue the company claims to be losing.
If Trillian is forced to fall back to older AIM compatibility, or even drop AIM alltogether, I am hardly going out to get the AIM client. I'll badmouth the company by retelling this story when people ask me to go on AIM, and maybe I'll even win a few more contacts over to Trillian or ICQ or whatever service might be the most interesting.
I changed from ICQ to Trillian and found that I could even drop my old pIRCh as well. *I'm*not going to change IMs a second time. I'm staying.
/ Per
.. what?
you're an idiot.
we should talk.
xoxox,
the real world
BilldaCat
This is an erroneous analogy. Whether you use Netscape or IE or Konq or most other browsers to check your email at Hotmail, you will likely still see the advertisements, so there is not loss of ad revenue.
When you use a non AIM client, you will likely NOT see the advertisements, thus there IS a loss of ad revenue.
Now, I am shooting from the hip here (having not used Trillian's software), but one of the main issues here is that the AIM clones do not display the AIM advertisements. As the ZDNews article pointed out, Trillian has almost a million users - this is a substantial advertisement loss for AOL.
Perhaps if a clone also connected to AOL's ad server and showed the AOL advertisements, AOL might not be so quick to shut them down? Perhaps not - I have no information on how many non AOL users start using AOL as an ISP as a result of using AIM. That's a whole other can of worms.
I've mostly used AIM, largely because that's what most people I wanted to chat with used. (And I'm really irritated at losing contact with some Trillian using buddies.)
I tried ICQ, but AIM does at least two things better:
* the ICQ UI is a horrendous mess. AIM has a good, simple UI. Cleaner in many ways then the Trillian version I used. And as the release new versions of the AIM client, whenever they change default behaviors (like minimizing to task bar vs system tray, etc) they're very good at letting users get the old behavior back in the options menu.
* I have never received AIM spam, but those two weeks of ICQ were nothing but teen porn ads. I'm not sure if its ICQ numbering scheme that makes it so spam prone, or something AIM does better
There are somethings AIM doesn't do, like my friend pointed out ICQ has a cool autolog of conversations feature, but overall, AIM is a
good little client, other clients could take a few pages from its usability book.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
The main problem with AIM and Jabber is not the protocol, but AOL blocking the IP Address of Jabber's AIM transport. If it's moved to a new IP, it's usually blocked in a matter of only hours.
Apparently they notice when hundreds of client connections are coming off one IP Address, no problems.
I'd just like to say how much I enjoy using trillian and that it has really made things easy for my parents and grandparents who are too simple to understand concepts such as IM wars. Email works irregarless of what client you use, why the heck can't anyone figure out how to do the same with instant messaging? Selfishness has caused the electronic society to drop the ball on this one.
I'm a writer, a poet, a genius, I know it. I don't buy software, I grow it.
So why should they Allow Netscape Browsers to run on their OS? Why should they allow AOL to be installed on their OS?
Why should ISP's provide the bandwidth that AOL uses with there "proprietary application"?
Double standards R us
not my words here, but exactly how i feel:
"Okay, here's the thing people just refuse to understand. Radio, like AIM, is not free. You are being paid a wage of "music" or "talking to your friends" in exchange for viewing their ads and running their client. If you wish to NOT hear/view these ads, you can elect not to recieve your service wage. When a company finds out that you have been taking their money (in effect) without doing your job (looking at ads) they're GOING TO TRY TO STOP YOU. This is NOT brain surgery, people. AOL is not in business to make you happy, or to be a pillar of freedom and hope in these dark times. They're around to make money, Trillian is indirectly preventing that, and they're going to take actions to remove this undesirable state. If you want an open IM client, go use another one."
in other news, monopolys aren't illegal.
BilldaCat
Of course you can hide the ads in AIM by editing aim.odl and netwait.odl. Just remove the "load_ocm advert required" from aim.odl between the {}'s of on_group(5) and on_group(11). Do the same in netwait.odl. ;)
proton != antielectron
After all these years of being "connected" to the Internet, it looks like they still don't "get it."
You just summarily described Jabber.
Just my $.02...I use Trillian as well, specifically for the reason that another user stated above. I have friends that use Yahoo, some on MSN, lots on IM, and a few on ICQ.
ALSO, Trillian supports 128-bit end-to-end encryption (Blowfish) for the AOL and ICQ protocols, which is something that no one else does. I would think that the privacy freaks (myself included) would grab it just for that.
El riesgo vive siempre!
I find it hilarious that AOL claims that they don't allow other clients to connect to their networks because of "security" when a short time ago the AIM client millions of people use on their desktops was found to be vulnerable to a remote attack that could execute arbitrary code on the client's system.
Glad to see they're so concerned about security.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Since I signed up with a user name on AIM they make money off of me. They use me as a resource to fund their activities therefore I will use them as a resource for mine. If through my choice of clients I consume more resources than they gain from me then it's time for them to look at a different business model. The last time I looked the majority ad on AIM was still for AOL's own over priced service. I did not, upon signing up with AIM, agree to use a particular client to consume said resource therefore they should not block me from use because of my choice. Saying that there is no "business relationship" makes it appear that AOL wants one, this is not the case as has been proven time and time again. AOL does not want business relationships that will do nothing to further their capture of market share.
"Do not be swept up in the momentum of mediocrity." - anon
I agree. There was a guy a little way above who wanted to use one program to talk to friends using a variety of IM transports. This is a perfectly reasonable thing to want, but it's not a right: if AOL doesn't want AOL IM to be able to talk to other IM systems, that's its choice (however misguided).
Trillian is a very good work-around; but as this type of thing shows, it is (sadly) only a work-around. The only lasting solution to the IM kerfuffle is to get people to stop using closed systems and move onto some open, non-proprietary system.
Actually, that sounds like it could be a good thing in general. I'm surprised it hasn't occurred to anybody here before.
One of the best features IMHO is that Trillian provides 128-bit SSL style encryption OVER the AOL IM or ICQ system (to other Trillian clients).
I support the Trillian coders, and encourage others to do the same. I think it's deplorable the way AOL 'shifts' its attitude whenever it suits: When they wanted to expand their user base, and feared the big, scary 'internet', they integrated standard protocols etc into their closed dialup service. When they wanted to gain a foothold in the IM mindshare war, they allowed non-AOL users to use their IM service. Now that they ARE the leading IM service (and bought the #2), it's suddenly THEIR network, THEIR protocol; how dare you use a client that doesn't generate ad revenue for them?
The fact that they cater to the computer neophytes and Luddites only complicates the issue. Joe geek can download and learn any program he wants to so he can IM Grandma, but there's no way you're gonna get Grandma to try out a cool new IM system because AOL is Evil and throwing around its muscle.
When the AOL-Time-Warner-MegaCorp merger happened, I thought the forced opening of their networks might lead to other regulated use of systems in their control. I'm so naive.
m00.
Had that been the headline you all would be absolutely LOVING AOL!
Side note have you sent your PayPal support to Trillian, have you ever REALLY supported them?
Razzious Domini
I could be a GREAT KARMA WHORE if I could just shed the few morals I have left.
But don't you think it is a little odd that this mess starts with AOL not a week after Trillian gets top pick in a CNET review of IM clients?
Bleh!
Funny, they don't seem to be blocking Gaim. Interesting selectivity.
Trillian unlike Microsoft, AT&T, and Jabber was designed exclusively to interoperate with several messenging services. I have friends who use AIM, MSN, Yahoo and ICQ, with Trillian I just need one ap to communicate with them all. It also has a pretty good IRC client built in, I for one love the program and hope AOL takes its head out its ass. AOL is moaning like a whore years after its Netscape was raped by Microsoft, yet they too are trying to dick with the competition. I thought TOC and OSCAR were supposed to be open standards by now?
Imagine incompatible e-mail clients, online services, DNS, news, etc...
Instant Messaging should be decentralized. This is what happens when commercial interests drive communication "standards" over the net.
Remember pre-popular-internet when mail programs wouldn't talk to each other? Exchange, cc:mail, lotus notes, and a host of others? Remember early online services that didn't permit access to content outside their worlds? MSN, AOL, Compuserve, Genie, etc...?
There should be an RFC, each ISP or provider should host their own IM server, their customers connect to it using the client of their choice, and outsiders send messages in for instant delivery based on a standard naming convention.
But we'll never get there now, it's too late. I'm just thankful the rest of the net isn't in this mess.
Here's AOL's response to an open IM network:
http://aim.aol.com/openim/
So why should they Allow Netscape Browsers to run on their OS? Why should they allow AOL to be installed on their OS?
Because people are paying for their product with the expectation of being able to do that, and because it's illegal to use a monopoly in one area to secure a monopoly in another.
Why should ISP's provide the bandwidth that AOL uses with there "proprietary application"?
Because people are paying for that bandwidth with the expectation of being able to do that, and would stop paying for it if no longer able to do that.
Exactly how much did you pay AOL for access to their network, again?
I thought when Trillian 7.0 came out, that Cerulean was making an error in their policies toward AIM.
In version 6.x, Trillian did not have any non-AIM features for AIM chat windows. With the release of 7.0, Cerulean added secure 128 bit encryption to AIM connenctions between two Trillian users, and possibly other features. This of course required that two Trillian clients be able to identify each other as Trillian clients. Whatever mechanism was used to determine this could easily have been used to lock Trillian out of the AIM networks.
Atanamis
RFC? I didn't know.
I find it ironic that Microsoft is calling for AOL to open up their network in the interest of open standards and communication. Amazing how "open friendly" they can be when they aren't #1 in an area.
I wonder if they are willing to open up a lot of the domain controller interfaces for the Samba team so they don't have to waste so much time reverse engineering it, "in the interest of open standards." :-)
But seriously...
AOL should be *irrelevant* to our IM needs. (the "we" here being /.'ers) Why should we be beholden to AOL, MSN, or any of the others when there's already a great alternative out there in Jabber? There are plenty of good clients out there. For Windows, there's Psi Messenger, for Linux/*BSD, there's the excellent Gabber, and for OSX, there's JabberFox, and Mac OS uh... "<X" has Jabbernaut*.
And, for the uber-geeks among us, you can even run your own Jabber *server*, too.
Also, contrary to popular belief, it's really not very hard to get all your current ICQ/AOL/MSN addicted friends to try out Jabber. I thought it would be difficult when I first started trying to convince my friends and family to use Jabber to talk to me, but they were actually happy to try it. People are so accustomed to running 2 or 3 IM programs (thank you, proprietary networks and protocols!) that they don't seem to mind one more. I've even gotten a few compliments on Jabber's lack of IM spam or ads. Plus, Psi for windows is pretty damn stable, so no worries about recommending a broken client. (how embarassing!)
So before you bitch about AOL, DO something about it instead. Support an already open, and far *superior* IM standard. Because it is AOL's right to say who does and doesn't get to use their networks and IM servers - after all, it's their stuff. But conversely, it's OUR right to say "FSCK YOU AOL!" and use and promote something BETTER.
*(for the sake of fairness, Jabbernaut really sucked hard last time I saw it, so Mac users not running OS X have my sympathy. Perhaps you should try one of the Java clients, like Shaolo...)
The Free desktop that Just Works
Not true. Advertising agencies take into account the number of active users. In addition, if an ad agency finds that less and less people are going to be using AIM (therefore less people actually viewing their ad), they would not pay as much. Think of it this way..there are going to be a couple million people watching TV on Super Bowl Sunday. Would you pay $1.5 million to advertise on PBS, who won't be showing the super bowl? That's the same logic in this case of Trillian vs AIM.
Again, another misconception. IANAL. AOL and AIM is a closed system. It is illegal for anybody or any group of people to intrude onto a closed system. AOL owns the servers, networks, etc to run this, why must they allow other people to use it for free? The reason they don't take them to court is 1) bad publicity. Anytime anybody is suing an underdog, it gets them bad publicity. Think of it this way, you and a couple million open source users would be pissed off at AOL if they were to sue Jabber (an open source IM client). They would be viewed as the RIAA of the IM world. 2) Litigations costs a lot of money and time. As a company (regardless of the size) time and money are two essential resources that can disappear rapidly. In the time that they put into this, something new might pop up and now their number 1 position fades to #3.
Again another falsehood. Under DMCA, reverse engineering a system is illegal. Look at Sony vs Modchip or Reverse Engineer of Adobe PDF or Sony Aibo vs Hackers or the DVD decryption... All of these were reverse engineering for interoperability.
AOL has a choice of doing something against a rival or not. It is the same as a police officer letting some speeders go without giving them a ticket. For them to go after EVERYONE would turn them more and more into RIAA.
"hacking" has a wide range of meanings. Again, I responded to the legal aspect above.
If this were true, Trillian could sue AOL. But instead of following the legal route, they are trying to do this through the backdoor. What you are saying is that Trillian is taking the law into their own hands. It is the same as shooting a thief instead of reporting it to the police.
The underlying fact is that, AIM belongs to AOL, they can choose who or what can use it. There is no law saying that any vendor must sell to everyone. The part about the security concern is this [my personal analysis] if I were to build a aim client put it out on the net for everyone to use, but hide a password sniffer in there, this creates a major vulnerability to the AOL system. Some AIM users are also AOL users. I could then access AOL using their account.
Quite true...I agree with you on this fact.
This is false. Any company can limit the amount of resources that you use. For example, there are FAP limits for cable modems and broadband. In addition, an "all you can eat" buffet is legally allowed to kick you out once you consume to much of their food (resources).
That is the exact definition of a business relationship. A company makes a business relationship so that it could make more money for itself. It's a fact. Companies aren't out there to save the world, companies sole purpose to to make a profit. This is a fact that a lot of times the people discussing business practices often miss. We often put ourselves in a idealized world where everyone helps out each other. In a capitalistic society that is not what the society is about. If you are looking for an environment where there is a fair sharing of profits where companies don't seek profits but to do some good, this is the socialist ideals at its core. Computer programmers and hackers alike from the very beginning have always been in a mindset of creating something for the shear joy of it and to help out the world. That is what drives many of us. In the past, there was very little profit to be made. Howerver, in the last couple of years, MBAs and marketting teams have taken over the industry. We are now subjected to their goals.
Now, again, I'm not bashing Trillian. I've been a long time trillian user. But it is hard to argue against facts of the law and facts of corporate/business world.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Because its their protocol and proprietary system. Its almost the same reason that drug companies get a legalized monopoly for the sale of a certain drug for x number of years. During this period, they could recoup the resources put into the research. AOL has put a lot of effort into developing AIM. By releasing it into the wild, they are diluting their profits. Like I said in my previous post. As a capitalist society the main goal of companies is profits. They are not there to make progress for the world. They are not there to spread wealth. A socialist society [in an ideal setting] guarantees that the wealth is equally spread and the goal of companies is to make progress. Look at social welfare in Canada and the social security system in the US. Canada guarantees everyone free medical coverage whereas the US is run by hefty insurance corporations.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Last time I checked, AOL official clients are available in Windows, Mac, Linux, Palm, and Java client. The idea of the java client is that it could run wherever java is able to run. Give me an example of a OS that is out there that AOL does not have an official client for and also there is a third party client.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
I s because if they did let anyone and everyone in, then they would quickly lose the war with MS over the IM clients...........
think about it, why would anyone bother going to AOL to get an IM client when MS has one built into the OS for you already and is ready for you to go and set up so you can talk to your buddies on AIM....though they are using Windows messenger also..........
the net result........MS gets all the marketshare in IM clients, and AOL gets to pay the sys admins to watch the servers and keep the account data safe for MS.
sounds like a winning plan to me.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Umm... because it's "Microsoft" Outlook Express? Checked who holds Hotmail's pink-slip lately?
j/k
Point taken, though... but the real reason is that most people do not use a POP3 client (and besides, don't they insert adds directly into your mail, now?) so they're not really losing much if a few do. If everyone did, you'd probably see that go away, as well.
No relation to Happy Monkey
If they care so much about third-party clients on their system, they would just make everyone upgrade to a new official AIM client and put some more secure protocol into place; I'm guessing this is largely a politically motivated action against Trillian.
"Reality is just a convenient measure of complexity" -Alvy Ray Smith
not anymore, i sold it for a sizeable chunk of change. who's the idiot now? :)
BilldaCat
You can use both AIM and MSN without having to subscribe to either's internet services...
of course the general public might not realize that... sort of like MSN advertizing "sign up and get unlimited hotmail accounts"... One can do that regardless of course.
In general, I don't have too much sympathy for people's ignorance regarding technology. No, it's a tool for most, not a a way of life and I don't think everyone should be able to compile their own kernel, but it's still a complicated tool and no one should think they can just turn it on and go yet.
Mechanics don't expect the average drive to know how to rebuild a transmission, but they do need to be able to check the oil and be ready to change a tire.
********************
I object to Intellect without Discipline.
It's not true that they left ICQ alone. For a few months (starting from late September or early October 2001) it is impossible to talk reliably to official ICQ2001 users.
Only in late December with new ICQ clients such as ickle is this problem on Linux solved (on Windows and Mac you can use AOL/Mirabilis' official client).
Incidentally, running the Mac ICQ client now on my new iBook. I find it funny that Licq has already copied ICQ2000's history+message view, and Ickle as well, while MacICQ has not. Oh well, at least it has Text-to-Speech.
Michel
Michel
Fedora Project Contribut
I helped spec another reasonably successful interoperable messenger: IndiaTimes, downloadable at http://messenger.indiatimes.com. Some of you may find this information of value: 1. IndiaTimes Messenger (developed by Geodesic: http://www.geodesic.org, the company I'm associated with) is the product we licensed to The Times Of India, India's largest newspaper - and, if they were to be believed, the world's no.2 English daily. It allows you to communicate with your AOL, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and IndiaTimes buddies through one small (1.5 MB) free download and simple interface. When I last checked an hour ago - AOL interconnectivity was still on. Further, the service is difficult to block as it is not server-based, but P2P client based. 2. In the last 3 months, over 1.1 million downloads of this messenger have taken place. In effect, it has perhaps 10% to 20% of the market for messenger users in India. Yahoo and MSN are other leaders here, and AOL is nearly absent in this market. 3. What is unique about this messenger vis a vis others out there: Trillium / Odigo etc, apart from being client-based is its cross communication capabilities. i.e. If I am on IndiaTimes, 'A' is on MSN, 'B' is on Yahoo, 'C' is on AOL and 'D' on ICQ, then A, B, C and D can talk with each other. Hence, my MSN buddy can talk to my AOL buddy can talk to my ICQ buddy. Something, that, to the best of my knowledge, no other messenger allows. Something, perhaps, of some coolness and value:) 4. As far as legal and other threats, we have reasonable research to believe that, despite all the noise, _no messenger company has ever taken an interoperable messenger company to court_. Ever. This may either be because of a desire to avoid a costly legal battle, or to avoid unfavourable publicity - or, more likely we think - because such a case would be thrown out of court. 5. There is enough precedent, we believe, to prove that your communication sent through a messenger is your property - not that of the messenger company's. So you have the right to have your property pass through whatever route you desire to reach its final destination. (The letter / post office analogy). Similarly, I, the receipient can choose to see a communication meant for me through whatever system I desire (roughly analogous to me having the freedom to read my Hotmail on any POP account). 6. Further, there are specific legal rulings specifically favouring interoperability - and even defending reverse engineering to ensure interoperability. One may not be wrong in predicting that there will be no legal cases, but further time-delaying tactics by AOL or others re-engineering their software to keep out the interoperables. My $0.02, Mahesh
I'm not saying they should just roll over and die. Maybe they can work out a deal with Trillian to put in the AOL ad banners. Maybe that would piss of Trillian users and kill the program anyways. But changing your protocols every other day to keep people off the network is a bad idea. Besides making your regular users sit through updates constantly, they've gotta be introducing bugs into the code. Sure, they have to satisfy investors, but not at the cost of destroying their product.
do not read this line twice.
AOL bought ICQ (Mirabilis) years ago. In fact ICQ 2000 uses Oscar, the AIM protocol...
There have been a hundred point-to-point talking protocols invented over the years. Pick one.
The reason centralization is .. "wanted" (I use that loosely) is as a directory -- to find the machine belonging to someone you know. Keep in mind that most users of these things have dynamic addresses. Logging into a central server is the way of making it so that anyone can find you using some sort of key (id#, username, or whatever).
I don't think there is going to ever be a completely non-centralized way of doing it. Look at DNS.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
let me get this straight.
there are viable alternatives, you choose not to use them because:
"wahhh, most of my friends are on AIM, and i don't like it, so i'm going to support other clients which:
1) take advantage of AOL's intellectual property 2) uses THEIR servers, which Trillian is not paying a dime towards
and where the hell does AOL get off, having an audacity to display an ad to support the -free- service they are providing! so, i will whine and bitch about how AOL is a monopoly and how UNFAIR IT IS THAT THEY AREN'T LETTING OTHER PEOPLE TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEIR PRODUCT, SERVERS, AND R&D TIME AND DOLLARS."
did i miss anything?
BilldaCat
The ad revenues are, of course, really the main issue here. Microsoft doesn't need to limit hotmail to IE users, because when I pull up hotmail in Opera I still see Microsoft's banners and they still make their money. When I connect to AIM with a nonstandard client, however, I do NOT see aol's banners. I'm getting their free service, and they aren't getting any revenue from me. The aim service is free to use, but it certainly isn't free to run. It's paid for by advertising.
Notice that the only non-webbrowser (and ad-free) access to hotmail is via Microsoft's own mail client (outlook/outlook express).
On the other hand, AOLTW is a huge megacorporation, and the cost of running the AIM network is probably trivial on the grand scale of their expenses. And, the vast majority of im users will probably just stick with the official client anyway. So whats the harm in a few million unofficial-client users?
___
The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason. --Ben Franklin
When you use a non AIM client, you will likely NOT see the advertisements, thus there IS a loss of ad revenue...but one of the main issues here is that the AIM clones do not display the AIM advertisements.
I sometimes use the OFFICIAL AIM client for Linux. No ads there (yet!). If ads are so important, then how come an official client doesn't display ads? Given that, how can ads really be an issue?
Please remember that the user interface is only a part of the job of messaging. A large, perhaps the largest, part of the job is running the servers that store and forward the messages. And that part ?isn't?? (I've never run Trillian, so I don't know for sure) addressed by a new GUI.
So Trillian may have a dynamite interface, but it doesn't pay for the infrastructure. Seems like AOL is in the right this time.
.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Flamebait Disclaimer: I am trying to be insightful, if i come through as flamebait, eh, oops.
/subscribers/ alone(remember, it is AOL/Time Warner.) These people make an obscene amount of cash every month!
Trillian is a better AIM client. It has so much AIM doesnt, for example Secure IM (128kbit encryption on both ends), and those things that it does (direct connect aka IM Images). You can make Trillian look nice. You can give your friends aliases so screen names have meaning. You can use AIM, IRC, ICQ, Y! and MSN. There are no advertisements. It is free.
As of November 2001, AOL had more than 32 million subscribers. Each pays $21.95 a month for full service. (Yes, i know there are cheaper plans, but the majority of the people are stuck using AOL dialup). Thats an estimated 704 million dollars a month ($22*32000000), just from AOL
An even better point: AOL owns ICQ. I can still log into ICQ via Trillian. Why do they let it go with ICQ? Why does AOL let people send mail outside of their network? It's the same principle, and a sad one at that
//pcable
Ok, since I got modded 'flamebait' for my starting this thread, let me try a different approach. ICQ throws ad banners at us too, but they still let Trillian (and like 20 other clients) connect with no problems. And AOL owns ICQ as well. Why would they only target AOL IM clones? MSN Messenger (iirc) uses ad banners too, and they don't kill other clients on the network.
do not read this line twice.
Actually, Microsoft built a special HTTP-based module into Outlook Express so that it can read Hotmail messages. And it does display banners.
The user base of MSN Messenger is much larger compared to the TOC clients, and that is why AOL made sure it couldn't access the AIM network. Same goes for Yahoo! Messenger.
If AOL is bothering with Trillian, I would take that as a sign that Trillian's user base has grown considerably. The irony is that Trillian is already able to connect to AIM again, while this little event gave it tons of publicity.
And the interface is far better than those of any of the messengers it uses, except for ICQ.
Well I'd agree that the interface has far less garbage than other clients, but there are actually too few options! Using the client isn't easy for the newcomer because it's not easy how do figure out what to do. It seems like you have to dig through one large settings screen for everything. People are expecting "File, Edit, Help, etc" and lots of quickbuttons for various services. And there's not much feedback about the connections themselves. I tried it not too long ago, and my ICQ connection kept going dark but it provided no feedback on what was going on.
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
Hmm? Jabber works perfectly. Oh wait, maybe you meant the "Jabber Transports", which allow connectivity to other instant messaging services. Those are a gamble, but then so is Trillian as you have just now learned.
Jabber itself (you know, the open IM system) will never suffer from these problems. There is no company to pull the rug out from under us. If the Trillian team really cared about its users, they would include Jabber support. Then these people would at least have an "out." And no, "ICQ", "MSN", and "Yahoo!" are not "outs." These companies could pull the same tricks as AOL.
They also have official clients (both the Java and Linux ones) that don't have ads.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
I think the term you're looking for is non-profit.
Despite how much you may wish AOL should play nice here, they aren't. Some posts mentioned how programmers are wasting their time reverse-engineering when they could be adding features to an AIM client. How about just not making an AIM client?
Jabber is an open instant messaging system. You may have heard of "Jabber Transports" which allow you to talk to other services. Please remember that these are only extension to the system, with the same possible flaws as Trillian. More importantly, Jabber is an IM system of its own, and works just fine. Our standard IM system is here, guys, and no one can stop us from using it. Not only is development of clients and other software encouraged, but you are given full protocol documentation. This is what co-operation is about. Making an IM client should not be a war. So quit wasting your time with these closed systems, and come join us!
Just stop using AIM, and tell your friends too also. I expected more Jabber related posts on this board, considering all the open source advocation that goes on here. If you were confused and thought that Jabber was "just another multi-IM" and nothing more, well... you have now been learned.
As for the other comment - unlike me, most of my family does use AOL. It's amazing the amount of SPAM they get in their inboxes from other AOL users. The worm/virii comment was directed at the statement by AOL that they block 3rd party clients due to "security" reasons. This just seems like complete B.S. when they don't do much to increase the security of AOL users. They could use virus scanning software on their mail servers to prevent the propogation of MS exploits. Perhaps they do now, but they didn't always.
I AM, therefore I THINK!
You don't have to if you don't want to. Just configure your software to block all content from major advertisers (doubleclick, etc...) and you can make your browsing experience 90% + ad free.
By your reasoning, it is immoral to do this, since it circumvents the service provider's revenue source. As an extension, though, since no one advertises if the advertising does no good, it is immoral to view a site without purchasing products from any and all advertisers there.
Actually, for those actively annoyed by advertisement, AOL should thank them for circumventing their ad servers. Those annoyed by ads may be less likely to purchase products whose advertising has annoyed them. By not viewing the ads, these people are increasing the sponsor's profits by protecting themselves from negative commercial associations.
Actually, if you set up Hotmail with Outlook Express it automagically puts a banner ad at the bottom of the Outlook Express window.
Seriously, try it.
Adversive
My cat's breath smells like cat food.
Morality never entered my argument.
I was simply stating that hotmail's ad revenue is fairly steady whether one uses IE, Netscape or any other browser (of course a small but negligable percentage of people can disable ads, it's irrelevant). AOL's Instant Messenger ad revenue is dependent on people using AIM.
It's a fact. That's all.