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Yahoo Shutting Out Third-Party IM Clients?

Posted by simoniker on from the sound-of-strangled-yodeling dept.

prostoalex writes "Following the lead of America Online's previous attempts and MSN's actions, Yahoo is planning an update that may cut out third-party providers like Trillian or Gaim. If you're a current Trillian user with a valid Yahoo ID, you probably noticed the new welcome message: 'Yahoo! is upgrading to its newest version of Yahoo! Messenger on September 24, 2003. The upgrade is part of an ongoing process to continually enhance the overall quality of the Yahoo! Messenger service for our millions of users'." Update: 09/18 01:17 GMT by S : Trillian has just released a patch that updates the IM software "...to the newest Yahoo! and MSN protocols, to remove the recent upgrade messages."

5 of 442 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Where's Open Source when you need it? by levik · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    P2P is not a very good model for IM - if the network is large enough locating a person you know may be difficult and unreliable (they may be quite a few hops away). Also, an IM system is only as good as the people you can reach with it. ICQ was the first on the scene, but AIM, Yahoo and MSN brought the crouds, and now the firstborn is fading to obscurity - even though it's feature rich to the point of being bloated.

    --
    Ñ'
  2. Psychic Predictions by Hal+The+Computer · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Nostradamus predicts that the following will comprise approx. 1/3 of the comments posted on this topic:

    SLASHDOTTER #1:
    I don't use an Instant Messageing client you ignorant clod. In Soviet Russia I telenet to port 80 on a beowolf cluster of Open BSD(which happens to be dying) servers.

    SLASHDOTTER #2:
    I for one welcome our new Yahooligan overlords.

    Oh Ya, and Nostradamus also predicts turmoil in the middle east. ;-)

    --

    int main(void){int x=01232;while(malloc(x));return x;}
  3. Re:You are missing the point by knowles420 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    SNAZZY BUZZ-WORD filled era of the DOT.BOMBS

    i remember back then... when you could register a domain name, make an ipo, and get rich. this was also the time when yahoo stock was stuck well above $100/share... oh how far they've fallen...

    --
    -knowles
  4. Semi-OT gripe on IM clients for OS X by istewart · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    I'm just going to make a really quick gripe about the following. I have an AIM account that I actively use, and Yahoo! and ICQ accounts that I not-so actively use.

    The official AIM client for OS X is trash. Pure and simple.

    There are three big third-party alternatives: Fire, iChat, and Adium. Of these, two are OSS and Fire is multi-protocol. However, all are significantly lacking in their capabilities. For instance, iChat does not support sending profiles or animated buddy icons, nor does it support tabbed IM windows. Fire and Adium support this, but Adium only has alpha OSCAR support and Fire is somewhat unstable. There are clients that I'm glazing over completely, such as Proteus and probably at least one other, but suffice to say, the state of IM is pretty damn shitty.

    I'm going to make a desperate plea for someone to make a native Aqua port of GAIM. GAIM is the greatest IM client ever. I've used the Windows port, and other than slow window resizing, it's great. I would do this myself, but my programming experience is very slim.

    Barring an actual port, does anybody have compilation instructions for OS X so I can at least run it under X11?

  5. ANAL TIME! by TrollBurger · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    your cousin's name is furnace, he's a fucking dwarf