Yahoo Messenger Blocks Outside IM Clients

jj00 writes "CNET News is reporting that Yahoo has started blocking 3rd party Messenger clients from their service. The article is about Trillian, but I have noticed that my gaim client hasn't been working for the past few days." As reported earlier.

Comments

nah

[Anonymous Coward]

More like "great way to stop giving the service away for free to freeloaders who generate no ad revenue" am i rite?

Re:nah

[FractusMan]

Yeah, I would have to agree with this post. I don't really see why anyone should bark about not being able to connect to private servers. You don't go to DisneyWorld and bitch at the ride-operators because you can't use your Six Flags tickets.

Re:nah

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I do. They sure give me strange looks though.

Re:nah

[Crusader of Yore]

>> great way to stop giving the service away for free to
>>freeloaders who generate no ad revenue

Oddly enough, the Mac version of YIM does not appear to have any ads. Why would they care if I should choose to use a third-party solution? Admittedly, I have yet to find a decent one, but that's beside the point.

Re:nah

[Xuli]

Was Yahoo not one of the founding members of the IMUnified group, whose sole purpose was to unify with goliaths such as MSFT to fight the tyranny of AOL? Aforementioned tyranny being comprised of AOL blocking outise clients from accessing their users.

What goes around comes around. Out of protest I am planning to use my AOL IM exclusively indefinitely unitil this is solved.

Starting with a work-related mandate to use Yahoo's IM service, I've since become quite a "Sticky" Yahoo visitor. My calendar is linked with their service, I forward a number of mail addresses there - I generate them money!

How, you ask? I am given, at the least (counting calendar, email, and news) three opportunities per visit to interact with Yahoo's advertisers and sponsors. This is a direct result of being a Yahoo IM user, and discovering how their other services integrated with their messaging client. While I cannot comment on MSN, and I don't dream of endorsing AOL for myriad reasons, I feel that Yahoo's services were robust enough to keep a technically demanding user such as myself attracted to the brand. In interacting with memebers of Yahoo's chat community, it seems to be the case that moderate to heavy users of it's chat/IM service also quickly adopt other Yahoo services. This equates to more unique pageviews per day from IM/chat users than off-the-street users and perusers. Yahoo IM users, on average, tend to be loyal out of necessity - not necessity becasue they are in any way indentured to format, design or interoperability to Yahoo, but becasue things "just work."

This move, to isolate IM users who may be using a different client (is it even reasonable to assume users will be happy with just one?) services is tragic. Yahoo has clearly missed the point that IM users are not IM users alone, but rather comprise some of the best audiences for exposure to their ads, and therefore, a direct path to revenues.

This move, to block users who've already made a conscious choice to use other Yahoo services is a faux pas, to say the least.

Re:nah

[CGP314]

Yes Dad.

Re:nah

[hetta]

Actually, the linux client doesn't have any ads. Here: YIM for *nix

Re:nah

[Peyna]

If you read the news.com article cited further up you'll realize that Yahoo states they have every intent with working with 3rd-party clients, and that they fully support a standards initiative.

They're basically just saying "Hey, we're putting this upgrade out there, and it's probably gonna break your client. You might want to talk to us and we'll tell you how to fix it."

Re:nah

[Mattb90]

Well, I would say that IMunified has fallen by the wayside a bit. Try heading to IMunified.org (where its official website once was) and you'll get this: - a symbol that MS, Yahoo and the others have probably lost interest in the scheme.

Re:nah

[LiquidCoooled]

money talks......

Microsoft have just done the same thing

Re:nah

[Potor]

where do get this theory from? this is what i read:

"If this has affected the way in which third parties interact with our service, it is merely a byproduct of our efforts to implement preventative measures to protect our users from potential spammers," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said.

Trillian claims to be working on a solution, but I see no evidence in this article that Yahoo is.

Re:nah

[squiggleslash]

Won't be able to de-encrypt it then (legally) eh?

Contrary to popular myth, there is no general (US) law against writing encryption and decryption tools, even "unauthorized" ones. What there is is a law, in the US, against writing such tools where the encryption is an access control for copyrighted works. Even then, there's some ambiguity about whether the law allows it anyway for interoperability, which is why many of the open-source DVD players consider themselves safe from the DMCA (they're not distributing DeCSS as a standalone tool) and why the DVDCCA also has a portfolio of patents to use as a back-up.

Yahoo can put in encryption up the wazoo, but as the system wouldn't be there to control access to copyrighted works, it most certainly wouldn't be illegal under the DMCA to circumvent it.

Even sillier, such gymnastics with the DMCA would be entirely unnecessary: it is perfectly valid for Yahoo to say unauthorized clients, whether they use encryption or not, are not allowed to access its servers and start suing under the usual hacking & contract regulations when people use such clients.

Re:nah

[rpmdp]

I have to agree with you. I'm right pissed at Yahoo. I even started a Yahoo group :) to protest how much I think they suck!

Join the protest at:
YIM_Sux

I think it's fitting to have the protest on their own site!

Re:nah

[Grumpendorfer]

Right, and OJ is hard at work looking for the real killer(s)...

Re:nah

[Macgruder]

You have a point.

But the question I have is this:

Is Yahoo! (and other IM servers) cutting off their own feet but blocking access to Trillian?

I use Trillian extensively, and have been doing so for two year. So do all of my friends. 55-60 people.

But if Yahoo! blocks Trillian, we'll just switch to another service. Most often I use MSN, but I can easily switch to ICQ or AOL if MSN starts blocking Trillian.

So, there's 50 users that Yahoo! lost, how many more times will this scenario be duplicated across the planet?

I think Yahoo! just made the same error other net services vendors (and the RIAA) made: They blocked usuage of their product by 'unathorized' (in their eyes) users. They are obviously hoping that people will start using Y! (or buy the CD, in the case of RIAA). But without giving the users a usable, convenient, and value-added service, users will just go someplace else. In the case of Y!, I'll drop it. CD's, I'll listen to what's on the radio, or net-cast, or listen to the MP3s I have.

They don't gain my loyalty, unless they offer a real alternative.

ex.

Y!: We don't want you to use their program for our service. It costs us money to maintain it, and when you don't use our program, we don't get any of it back.

User: But this program is easy to use, comes wit lots of neat features, and deosn't suck up a huge amount of memory or CPU cycles.

Y!: AH, but here's our new program. Y!+ for all the other features, and Y! Lite for just the bare bones. We'll even use plug-ins so you can have JUST the features you want.

User: Gee, thanks Y!. I'll use it, and be loyal forever!

Re:nah

[darien]

I think it's fitting to have the protest on their own site!

You do? You don't think it rather weakens your campaign for free stuff from Yahoo to have it hosted for free by Yahoo?

Re:nah

[darien]

So, there's 50 users that Yahoo! lost, how many more times will this scenario be duplicated across the planet?

Yes, but if these people are using Trillian, they weren't the sort of users Yahoo! wants anyway. They were using the service, but not generating any revenue to pay for it (principally by not looking at ads). Of course, Trillian users boosted Y!'s market share, and their presence made it a more attractive choice to new users, some of whom would use the official client, see the ads and generate revenue. But Y! seems to have concluded that letting Trillian users use their network for free doesn't attract enough new users of the official client to be cost-effective; so why would they encourage it?

I think Y! know exactly what they're doing. Depending on your long-term strategy, it can be better to have forty thousand customers making you a tiny profit than forty million who cost you money.

Re:nah

[cballowe]

you'd be closer if yahoo's client displayed ads. This isn't the AOL IM client - this is Yahoo. It has never shown me an ad. Nor does it have anywhere on it's UI where it could.

Re:nah

[loucura!]

OJ is a private citizen, why should he be out finding the "real killers" (if any exist), isn't that a job for the LAPD?

Re:nah

[Jaysyn]

Oddly enough the Windows version doesn't either. They aren't doing anything but limiting my choice, and making me waste more memory on 3 IM programs as opposed to one (Trillian).

Jaysyn

Re:nah

[Jaysyn]

Show me again where the ads are in the windows YM! client....

Oh that's right, there aren't any.

Jaysyn

Re:nah

[Theatetus]

Ad revenue?

emerge ymessenger
[lots of portage kvetching]
ymessenger

Hmmm... nope, no ads. None on the Windows version either. It does tie into my Yahoo! profile with a lot of links, though; maybe that gets them some ad revenue.

Re:nah

[zeruch]

yep, but its certainly a disservice to interoperability. I personally hate the fact that if I want to communicate with the various people I know I need an MSN client and AIM client, IRC and a partridge in a damn pear tree at this point.

Re:nah

[FenderGeek]

More like "great way to stop giving the service away for free to freeloaders who generate no ad revenue" am i rite?


Well, you would be right, but you're not. After all, Yahoo messenger has no ads on it. Period. Regardless of version or platform.

Re:nah

[catbutt]

Well, they may lose more than trillian users. This would not only inconvenience people who use trillian, it would inconvenience those who use the yahoo client and can no longer communicate with lots of their contacts.

My workplace uses yahoo, and most people use the yahoo client. There are a few of us that use trillian because we have a lot of contacts on other services.

If yahoo shuts trillian off, there are two things that could happen: 1) the trillian users will have to start using the yahoo client, or 2) we'll convince everyone to switch over to a service that allows 3rd party clients.

Knowing the culture in my company, I'd guess that #2 would happen in short order. Even those who are happy to use the yahoo client understand the value of not being "locked in".

I think Y! know exactly what they're doing. Depending on your long-term strategy, it can be better to have forty thousand customers making you a tiny profit than forty million who cost you money.

I think you may be underestimating the importance of metcalfe's law. The forty thousand customers who are left won't be sticking around long now that their contact list has shrunk by, on average, a factor of 1000.

Re:nah

[nm42]

Even sillier, such gymnastics with the DMCA would be entirely unnecessary: it is perfectly valid for Yahoo to say unauthorized clients, whether they use encryption or not, are not allowed to access its servers and start suing under the usual hacking & contract regulations when people use such clients.

I disagree here. If I have a valid username/password on a system, regardless of the protocol, why should they be able to punish me for picking a different client? How would you like it if you got busted for using PuTTY instead of MS telnet to log into your account on a webserver?

As for the freeloading, I pay Yahoo every year for extra mailbox space, so they are already making cash from me.

Re:nah

[pyrrhonist]

OJ is a private citizen, why should he be out finding the "real killers" (if any exist), isn't that a job for the LAPD?

Maybe because that's what he said he was going to do:
"I won't rest until I find the real killers." -OJ

Re:nah

[aminorex]

Methinks you've been watching too much TV.
The function of the police is not to protect
you. That is your responsibility. The function
of the police is to whack people down.

Re:nah

[aminorex]

Wrong. Yahoo users enjoy a panoply of services,
which provide myriad advertising revenue-generating
opportunities for Yahoo. IM is just one of the
features of the Yahoo suite, albiet the major
"gateway drug".

Yahoo's IM client software stinks on ICE, whereas
Trillian Pro rocks. Trillian is actually doing
Yahoo a huge favor by bringing them more IM clients,
who will then go on to be Address Book, Calendar,
Mail, Personals, Finance, News, Sports, etc. users
as well, thus producing page views, thus producing
dollars for Yahoo shareholders.

If Yahoo were attempting to block Trillian, I would,
as a Yahoo shareholder, be enormously pissed at
their incompetence. However, it seems more likely
to me that they are just upgrading their protocol,
and Slashdot sensationalism is creating a FUD cloud.

Anyhow, Trillian works for me now.

Re:nah

[qed123]

Dude, where were you when yahoo baited and switched tons of people a couple years ago when suddenly their "free for life" pop mail service suddenly went pay per view, credit card only. ALL those people who spammed all their friends with "DO YOU YAHOO?" in EVERY email they wrote suddenly felt like complete assholes ;) I don't see how you couldn't have seen this coming.

Re:nah

[loucura!]

I never claimed it was the responsibility of the police to protect me, I stated it is the responsibility of the police to find those guilty of a crime. Large difference.

Re:nah

[Grizzlysmit]

Show me again where the ads are in the windows YM! client.... Oh that's right, there aren't any.

Damm I could kill for mod points just now, why are half witts that bull dust on about add revenue modded up to +5 all the time I have too official clients running right now besides my beloved gaim, the aim one for linux, and the yahoo one for linux, and guess what as the parent to this says " NO SIGN OF ADDS" there are none zero, nil, so mod those stupid post about add revenue down as the stupid, rubbish they are, not up>

N.B. Hint: they are not insightful they're the work of sub normal intellects.

note: as far as I recall the msn client and the icq on don't have adds either.

Re:nah

[darien]

*lol* Big up to you, sir. I wouldn't normally call myself a subnormal intellect, but I admit I did foolishly allow myself to believe what I'd read on Slashdot, rather than bother downloading and installing the official client to check it. And actually I'm doing it again, because I still haven't bothered, so for all I know you could be trolling. But hey. :)

Windows Messenger has update also

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Microsloths IM as well and it required me to download an update when I logged on tonight, and it wouldn't let me on without updating... and it probably sent back the illegal CD key I use for my copy of XP. OOPS did I say that!?

Re:Windows Messenger has update also

[Anonymous Coward]

The CD key isn't breaking copyright law. The copy of XP might be. Using a non-original key with a legitimate copy of XP may still be illegal due to the DMCA (circumvention of copyprotection), but in many countries using a fake key to activate a legitimate copy of a program is perfectly legal.

Re:Windows Messenger has update also

[Afrosheen]

You and millions of others are probably half the reasons worms spread so fast. Microsoft thought they were being clever by having a real serial checker built into sp1 but sp1 fixed alot of holes. Without sp1 other patches don't want to install from Microsoft's update site (not to say that they WON'T but the site doesn't like you skipping it first).

So basically Microsoft helps prevent piracy (sorta, any keygen and serial changer can work miracles) while at the same time ensuring the spread of 0wn3d machines. Good job guys, quality work.

Re:Windows Messenger has update also

[shione]

Same here. I had older clients on all my computers. (All I need is it for is to chat. I dont care about filesharing, voice etc). Anyway I just downloaded the patch on my faster computer but on my slower ones I'll migrate them to aim. strange thing is after I installed the update from m's site (and did the necessary reboot) the ad window still doesn't show.

Re:Windows Messenger has update also

[NickFortune]

Yep - that's why I put a lock on my front door- to help prevent crime. A lot of people say that I'm just worried about my stuff being ripped off, but that's not true! I am passionately committed to whole crime prevetion thing.

Trouble is, Microsoft want to be the ones that put the lock on my house. For my protection, obviously. And they'll keep a copy just in case. And so they can let themselves whenever they want to. Just to check my security. And make sure I've not pinched anything. And maybe redecorate if they feel like it.

And if they sometimes take stuff away, well that's ok because it really all belongs to them anyway. All I do is pay for it, it says so on the licence.

And come the advent of Palladium, if I want to get in myself, all I'll have to do is ask them...

Yeah, good job boys. Quality work.

Re:Windows Messenger has update also

[ratpack91]

since when did having a warez version of xp prevent anyone from getting sp1? they blacklisted 2 serial numbers AFAIK. hey look even a legit website tells you how to get sp1 legally or illegally - "Of course, if you are one of those good folks who have a legit version of Windows, you can skip this section and jump straight to the installation of the Service Pack."

AIM started it

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember when Windows Messenger came out? It could connect to AIM's network, and had AOL allowed it, it's likely Windows Messenger would've destroyed their marketshare. Afterall, why use AIM to just to talk to one network when you can use Windows Messenger to talk to two? So, AOL cut them off. MS worked around it, AOL cut them off, and so on. Eventually, they reach some sort of agreement, and they don't talk to each other.

kopete

[sewagemaster]

kopete's still fine for me....

i havent been getting the upgrade messages from MSN now either

Re:kopete

[jeanke]

I still have problems with kopete.
I'm using the latest "stable" release (0.7.2).
Although kopete mentions that I'm connected with the yahoo network, there is no connection (at least not an effective one).

Do you use the cvs version? That would be great.
Or did all your yahoo contacts just seem offline?

Re:kopete

[jacksonscottsly]

from the kopete website:

Kopete 0.7.2 is out! Many bugfixes. MSN plugin now supports msnp9 protocol (mandatory to login MSN Network starting from October 15)

Re:kopete

[troutsoup]

i like kopete rather quite a bit. i have it on suse, the one that came with suse 0.6.2 i think was really buggy, bumped up to 0.7.2 i think and while not as crashy it still does. otherwise this is a well thought out client, and i'll be glad to see it as the kopete team works out the bugs!

GAIM, jabber too?

[NuShrike]

Anybody using jabber affected also? This has been going on for 2 good days now.

Apparently, it's not just updating the version number of the protocol.

Re:GAIM, jabber too?

[kruntiform]

Of course Jabber is not affected. Why would it be? That is the beauty of Jabber and a good reason why everyone should be using it instead of closed IM protocols. (Good luck convincing anyone though!) If you have a Yahoo account which you log-in to from Gaim, though, you might want to clear the auto-login checkbox for that account for the time being as it won't work and it will just give an error. The Gaim people are working on a fix -- you can read the announcement on their web site. I imagine that any Yahoo gateways on Jabber servers would be broken too.

Re:GAIM, jabber too?

[Afrosheen]

Yahoo quit working for me 2 days ago and the Gaim site, yesterday, had no news mentioning recent developments, i.e. we know it's broken now. Any new stuff now?

Re:GAIM, jabber too?

[pivo]

So you're saying Jabber is somehow uneffected, but then you say that Yahoo gateways on Jabber servers would be broken. That means to me that Jabber is "broken" too, in that you can't use it to connect to Yahoo. With the exception of where the break is in the application model, why is this any different from the way that gaim or any other client is broken?

Re:GAIM, jabber too?

[Trejkaz]

That's going into how you define 'broken'. Jabber is a protocol, and could also refer to the Jabber server or clients, none of which are broken.

With respect to the Yahoo Transport (which is a separate part of the system, and often even runs as a separate process), yes, the Yahoo Transport is broken for connecting to Yahoo at the moment.

I've heard (second-hand) GAIM are working on a fix for their plugin, and Jabber's is based on GAIM's so its fix will follow shortly thereafter.

It's quite amusing that everyone was kicking up so much fuss about Microsoft's move, whereas it ends up being Yahoo who make the move with little warning.

Re:GAIM, jabber too?

[kruntiform]

You are quibbling about the definition of "Jabber". I simply meant that core part of Jabber is unaffected and is in fact immune from the problem of secret changes to closed protocols. Naturally any software -- whether in a client or server -- that connects to Yahoo's system has been affected. So yes, since Jabber servers have an optional component that can (or could) talk to Yahoo's system, you could say that Jabber has been affected if you like.

Re:GAIM, jabber too?

[NanoGator]

"Of course Jabber is not affected. Why would it be? That is the beauty of Jabber and a good reason why everyone should be using it instead of closed IM protocols."

Is Jabber using some kind of neural networking algorithm to analyze the change in Yahoo's protocols and adapt to them? If so, when did 7 of Nine join the team?

Re:GAIM, jabber too?

[kruntiform]

If the poster I was replying to was referring to Yahoo gateways, I must have misunderstood him. But he didn't mention Yahoo gateways -- he only mentioned Jabber and Gaim. I thought he was talking about some odd behavior in Gaim that was triggered by the Yahoo protocol change. In any case, I specifically said that the Yahoo gateways would probably be broken. Do I write unclearly or something?

I wasn't aware that people actually use the Yahoo gateways anyway. The previous time the Yahoo protocol changed, the gateway programmers took much longer to crack it than the Gaim programmers.

Re:GAIM, jabber too?

[pivo]

you could say that Jabber has been affected if you like

thanks? :/

The story is titled, "Yahoo Blocks Outside IM Clients", all non-Yahoo clients/gateways/whatever are effectively broken, regardless of where that break is. To say that Jabber is unaffected is just equivocation.

Re:GAIM, jabber too?

[kruntiform]

I wasn't equivocating as I wasn't being intentionally ambiguous. However, I can see that my original statement was ambiguous, and I've tried to clarify what I meant by it. I will try to write more clearly in the future! The statement "you could say that Jabber has been affected if you like" may have sounded condescending. If it did, I apologize, it was not meant to be. Yes, Jabber has been affected because the Yahoo gateways have been affected; but no, the fundamental functioning of Jabber as an IM system has not been affected -- one Jabber user can still talk to another Jabber user.

Please find a backdoor for Y! and MSN!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I hope they find a backdoor, because I can't use either my trillian on windows and gaim on linux with yahoo anymore.
I wouldn't mind using the original Yahoo! client, however, I also have ICQ, MSN and AIM accounts that I run at the same time, so having four different big apps running at the same time is just not nice, takes space, cpu, memory and their interfaces are bloated and irrelevant for the thing I want to do: simple IM.
This is why, I have to use Trillian or Gaim: simplicty, small interfaces, easy to have all contacts in the same place.
If Yahoo or anyone else made their client to support all 4 protocols, I wouldn't have a problem using one of them instead of trillian or gaim. But until they do, I really need an integrated solution, not a mess on my desktop!

Re:Please find a backdoor for Y! and MSN!

[aergern]

I wouldn't mind it either accept that the Yahoo! client for Linux is this UGLY GTK1 client. I mean come on..Gnome2 has been out for HOW LONG? The fonts are just unreadable. Besides..I agree that it's a PITA to have 4-7 clients running when one should do. They could even have modules from Yahoo! do what Yahoo! wants but still let protocol clients connect.

Re:Please find a backdoor for Y! and MSN!

[KernelHappy]

Hrmmm just checked trillian and notice I wasn't connected to Yahoo. Oddly enough it appears that my Yahoo configuration is suddenly missing, as in my user name and password are gone from the connection manager. I'm going to lose countless minutes of sleep on this one, the last time I sent/received amessage using my yahoo messenger account was months ago.

Their Network

[ultrabot]

Well, it's their network so they can block anyone they want.

If you don't like their rules (I don't), why don't create a free/open/documented IM network? Make it better than the commercial offerings, and people will come.

How's Jabber doing these days, anyway?

Re:Their Network

[inaeldi]

People will come, but only the usual open source Slashdot lurkers. Most people use the other networks because those companies have the money to spend to spend on advertising.

Then again, it wouldn't be ALL bad. No more AOLers anyways.

Re:Their Network

[AftanGustur]

Make it better than the commercial offerings, and people will come

Welcome stranger, we hope your space travel to our planet has ben a pleasant one.

Unfortunately, on our planet, things are not as simple as on yours. Here on Earth, companies don't hesitade to abuse their market position or enourmous wealth to block normal competition.

It doesn't matter if you create the best mousetrap, as long as Micro$traps controls the market you will get nowhere. You can't even advertise your new trap, since Micro$traps will threaten the magazines to stop advertising in their paper if yours will get printed.

Welcome to earth, we hope you will have a pleasant visit.

Re:Their Network

[ultrabot]

Here on Earth, companies don't hesitade to abuse their market position or enourmous wealth to block normal competition.

So we should just crawl into a hole and die?

IM is not owned by any company yet, let alone MSFT. An Open alternative has a good position to beat the proprietary opposition, especially as it is quite divided already. Open Standards are the "in" thing right now.

Wouldn't it be fabulous if various Corporate platforms (Notes, etc.) chose to use the Jabber protocol as the IM solution? Then everyone would be running Jabber clients already, and communicating with friends would be a natural extension of that activity. I took a look at the Jabber page, inspired by this article, and saw that they are co-operating with IETF to standardize the protocol... and therein lies the future.

Re:Their Network

[Eric Ass Raymond]

hesitade to abuse their market position or enourmous wealth to block normal competition.

And these companies were created as such - with all those resourcers in the beginning?

Nope. They made their fortunes and there's nothing unfair about using the fruits of their success to maintain their marketshare via advertising (which I suppose you mean by "abusing their market position) and stopping freeloaders from abusing their network (="blocking normal competition"?).

Re:Their Network

[slux]

Jabber's doing great. The Jabber software foundation recently issued a press release stating that Jabber has now passed ICQ in popularity.

Also, they're on their way to becoming an actual internet standard.

The last obstacles are file transfer (should be addressed soon) and actually getting people to migrate. When all your friends are on Yahoo for example, it's not that easy to switch. The gateways are supposed to help the problem, but of course right now the Jabber Yahoo gateway is not functioning either.

Re:Their Network

[DrEldarion]

Most people are on those networks because one person initially went on. Then his friends went on because he was on. Then their frends went on because they were on, etc... and now nobody wants to change because all their friends use that network.

-- Dr. Eldarion --

Re:Their Network

[Optikal]

That's probably because next to no one uses ICQ anymore. The majority switched over to AIM probably around '99 (my best guess from a shady recollection). So in other words, that's not saying too much.

Re:Their Network

[Anonymous Coward]

Jabber has now passed ICQ in popularity

Wow! That's amazing!

Do you think that someday it will be even more popular than Gopher?

Or -- maybe even -- more popular than Fingerd?

Re:Their Network

[whereiswaldo]

Well, it's their network so they can block anyone they want.

Does there exist an IM client which operates over P2P (peer to peer)? I think sending everything through a central corporate network is unnecessary. Why let them have all the control? And for what?

Re:Their Network

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

" Most people are on those networks because one person initially went on."

I propose we hunt that guy down and kill him.

What you've said is painfully true, coupled with the fact that you cant get most people to care about anything that doesnt have a noticable effect on them, and you have a bunch of mindless drones that are impossible to talk sense into.

Re:Their Network

[Motherfucking Shit]

It doesn't matter if you create the best mousetrap, as long as Micro$traps controls the market you will get nowhere. You can't even advertise your new trap, since Micro$traps will threaten the magazines to stop advertising in their paper if yours will get printed.

::cough:: bullshit ::cough::

Wired plugged two independent IM apps, Trillian included, giving both of them positive reviews. Doth not Microsoft advertise in Wired? I don't have the print copy of that issue but I'd be seriously surprised if there was not a Microsoft advert in it.

Where does KaZaA advertise? That's right, nowhere; they created a product that people like (as junky as it may be), so people use it, and tell their friends. When was the last time you were browsing a trade magazine and saw a full-page color ad for Apache? That's what I thought. Yet Apache is everywhere, even on Windows, even with numerous competitors.

Open source/free/alternative software doesn't need to advertise. When it's good, its user base will take care of promotion and evangelizing.

All that said, I don't really see any sort of open source IM initiative taking over. When it comes to IM, the fact is that people want to be on the same network as most or all of their friends. That means a centralized network (or at least a 100% interoperable collection of smaller networks), and that means a lot of bandwidth. Unless IBM, or Sun, or Redhat, or Google decide to pour a few spare millions into operating the infrastructure to power an open IM network, I don't see any "OSS friendly" company ever dominating the IM space.

Re:Their Network

[spyfrog]

We have gone throught this discussion on Slashdot before and come to terms with the fact that IM network usage is regional based. Nobody uses AIM in Europe - if you wanna talk whith us you have to use ICQ or MSN. The major network in Europe is still ICQ.

Re:Their Network

[AftanGustur]

So we should just crawl into a hole and die?

No, but claiming that you will be sucessful simply by having the best product is total BS in today's environment.

An Open alternative has a good position to beat the proprietary opposition, especially as it is quite divided already. Open Standards are the "in" thing right now.

Tell that to the 600 pound gorilla who controlls the market by proprietary standards. The whole corporate world can't switch to a different system, risking that tomorrow they will no longer be able to exchange information with their clients. This is called "Consumer-Lock In" and M$ has done a great job of making sure everybody is scared to switch from M$ products.

Re:Their Network

[IamTheRealMike]

IM is not owned by any company yet, let alone MSFT. An Open alternative has a good position to beat the proprietary opposition, especially as it is quite divided already. Open Standards are the "in" thing right now.

Unfortunately, here on Earth, many people use IM to talk to non-geek friends who probably don't understand why you can't just use the "official client" anyway.

Really, posts saying "it's their network, they can do as they please" piss me off. It's like saying, "hey, this company owns the road network around where you live, they can do what they like! If they decide to ban your old Mini from the roads, just move somewhere else where they don't own the roads".

In other words, it's not a realistic proposition. I'd love to abandon MSN, but I can't without all my friends wondering why I don't talk to them anymore. Of course I could simply not use IM anymore to talk to these people (but as some live abroad it's not practical to phone so really I'd lose them), in much the same way that I could move to another country to avoid a company that bans my car from their roads.

These companies do have monopolies, they have monopolies on my friends IM accounts, and they knew perfectly well when they started giving this stuff away for free that this is what would happen.

I have no problem whatsoever with freeloading on their networks, I didn't want to use them in the first place, and if I need to break into their networks then I will do so (at the same time as trying to convince my friends to use Jabber).

Re:Their Network

[Nodatadj]

No one I know uses ICQ.
In fact I thought AIM was using ICQ.

Re:Their Network

[IamTheRealMike]

Jabber's doing great. The Jabber software foundation recently issued a press release stating that Jabber has now passed ICQ in popularity.

Well, if you accept the JSFs estimate of 10 million Jabber users that is. I find that figure slightly optimistic.

Re:Their Network

[Mr. Droopy Drawers]

Actually, your analogy is a good one. Government (and pseudo-government) agencies control the toll-roads. They will keep you off of it. And bypassing their controls will eventually get you some tickets.

IM isn't exactly like your God-given right.

Take a few steps back, breath slowly, volunteer for an open-source IM network.

Re:Their Network

[ultrabot]

. I'd love to abandon MSN, but I can't without all my friends wondering why I don't talk to them anymore.

Well, you might want to say that you can be reached in Jabber network. Then they should just add Jabber to trilian (why hasn't this been done already?) and voila, they could talk to you.

I myself don't use Jabber, because my friends don't have accounts there (most use ICQ). But once people get burned enough times, they realize that an open standards based system that can't be taken away from them by a whim is the way to go... and they will migrate.

Re:Their Network

[I(rispee_I(reme]

The biggest problem with decentralized instant messenging is implementing buddy lists.
Almost every peer2peer program uses some degree of centralization, excepting freenet and the original gnutella 0.4 (0.6 and later added ultrapeer support). Those networks which are completely decentralized are characterized by slow, unreliable searches, due to having to check every peer on the network for bootleg.mp3 (for example).
Now, this problem can conceivably be worked around as long as you're searching for bootleg.mp3, since one copy's as good as any other, but when you transfer the decentralized architecture over to Instant Messaging, and instead of looking for that mp3, you're looking for your chat buddy (IM_Pal, for example), one IM_Pal is not as good as another.
So, for now, decentralized chat is a possibility, while decentralized IM is not, due to the buddy list which begs for a central authority to maintain it... At least as far as I know.

Re:Their Network

[IamTheRealMike]

Actually, your analogy is a good one. Government (and pseudo-government) agencies control the toll-roads. They will keep you off of it. And bypassing their controls will eventually get you some

Not in England. The roads are open to all, as long as you follow the highway code. There's no nonsense about people using "unofficial cars".

IM isn't exactly like your God-given right.

Neither is driving to work, but most people would get pretty annoyed if random car models started getting banned from the roads.

Take a few steps back, breath slowly, volunteer for an open-source IM network.

I co-admin theoretic.com, one of the oldest jabber servers around. I've been using Jabber since the days when 1.2 was still in testing. I've shown it to pretty much every friend who is in the slightest bit technical. Only two of them use it, on and off. The rest still use MSN. So please don't lecture me about how open source IM networks are going to cure the world, because I've got the t-shirt and can tell you that they only matter to people like us.

Re:Their Network

[RickHunter]

However, stupid moves like this will only kill off Yahoo's service. I know very few people who used it as their primary messenger service - most used it through something like Trillian or Jabber because they knew one or two people on it, and didn't want to bother with the official YIM client. Now that they've blocked Trillian and Jabber and such, these people have no reason to stay - they can't talk with their friends on YIM anymore, so they might as well move to AIM.

One of the main principles of the internet is that the value your the network to your users is proportional to the number of users on the network. The more users you have, even if they aren't all paying you, the more paying users you'll have because they'll have less reason to look elsewheres for their IM needs.

Re:Their Network

[westlake]

No one has been burned except those using third party clients....and they represent a negligible part of the IM market.

Re:Their Network

[eyeye]

True, my sister in law insisted we start using yahoo because its "better" (not sure why, maybe the webcam support). Ironically we were allready using MSN messenger - again because thats what she used.

I'd switch to jabber but it doesnt have sound, video(*) and account registration is more complex than other IM networks.

(*) I know there are other apps that do this but for the average user they prefer one app to do it all.

Re:Their Network

[eyeye]

Search google for jabber, its not p2p but its more decentralised (it works quite like email).

Re:Their Network

[eyeye]

Not in England. The roads are open to all, as long as you follow the highway code. There's no nonsense about people using "unofficial cars".

So what is road tax... you cant even legally park your car in your own street without it... and the congestion charging zone in london?
Sorry but you are really wrong, either you are not from England or you really didn't think your examples through.

Re:Their Network

[eyeye]

Trillian is hardly independant, it relies totally on the networks it is allowed to use them.
Without them what would be left - an IRC app?

Re:Their Network

[jacksonscottsly]

How's Jabber doing these days, anyway?

they claim to have surpassed ICQ in userbase.

Re:Their Network

[drinkypoo]

I'm not switching from Yahoo to anything else until I get not only file transfer that works through firewalls but also webcam support. Period. Webcam support is the #1 reason to use Yahoo messenger.

Re:Their Network

[stickyc]

Wouldn't it be fabulous if various Corporate platforms (Notes, etc.) chose to use the Jabber protocol as the IM solution? Then everyone would be running Jabber clients already, and communicating with friends would be a natural extension of that activity

The problem there is that in using an open source protocol, no one client has any major advantages over the other, so it's difficult to differentiate yourself from your competition and implement value-added-features to attract customers to your platform. If you do add unique features (especially ones that break other clients), then you're fragmenting the market just like it currently is.

Re:Their Network

[OneBarG]

Jabber is in the Pro version of Trillian and the devs have said that it will find its way into the free version eventually.

Re:Their Network

[ultrabot]

so it's difficult to differentiate yourself from your competition and implement value-added-features to attract customers to your platform.

But if you are already selling a platform, where IM is just an add-in, a standards-compliant IM is not going to hurt you.

Re:Their Network

[Orbital Sander]

Now, this problem can conceivably be worked around as long as you're searching for bootleg.mp3, since one copy's as good as any other, but when you transfer the decentralized architecture over to Instant Messaging, and instead of looking for that mp3, you're looking for your chat buddy (IM_Pal, for example), one IM_Pal is not as good as another.

...except that IM_Pal's information would be replicated across many peers, so you would be able to find her anywhere. This of course presents authentication issues, but those could be solved using public key cryptography. The p2p system would store vCards for people, with their public key in them, signed with that public key (for integrity). Now the person on the other side of that vCard may or may not be who they say they are, but there are many ways of identity verification (call, mail, IM a question that only they can answer...).

Re:Their Network

[Nucleon500]

I don't think IM needs a centralized network, any more than, say, email does. It just needs a standard protocol for clients to communicate with servers and servers to communicate with each other. This is Jabber's approach. The infrastructure to do this has been in place for years. Being on a different network simply means the @foo.bar part of your name changes.

So why are there centralized networks? I think it's just about control. AOL didn't want to create an open-standard decentralized thing like email, they wanted something they could control. Towards this end, they made their server and their client, and proceded to be control freaks about it. Others have copied them, and compatible clients have struggled to survive, but whatever they do is at the mercy of whoever owns the servers, which is exactly how those owners want it. Unfortunately, this means the IM companies will be even more opposed to Jabber than they will be to their other competitors.

Re:Their Network

[Psychotic_Wrath]

Where does KaZaA advertise
KaZaA doesn't have to advertise. The RIAA has done a GREAT job of that for them..... See the RIAA isnt ALL bad just mostly bad

Re:Their Network

[Jugalator]

Was probably referring to this article:
http://slashdot.org/articles/00/09/26/21 16218.shtm l

Re:Their Network

[Jugalator]

I don't know about that...
I still use finger all the time.

Aha! On your girlfr...

No wait.

This is Slashdot. :)

Re:Their Network

[Jugalator]

Also, they're on their way to becoming an actual internet standard.

Yeah, when they're getting to MSN's usage level...

Re:Their Network

[Lord_Dweomer]

"Micro$traps"

Did anybody else read this and go....."Micro $traps"? I wonder what those would be anyways, perhaps weird little velcro straps to assist the wee-people in their efforts to make me more shoes and chocolate chip cookies, and bring me presents on Christmas.

Re:Their Network

[/dev/trash]

And therein lies the problem, no one is going to switch. Especially when there is a "gateway" to make it all transparent.

Re:Their Network

[aminorex]

Thing is, I'm a Yahoo shareholder, so when they
do stupid crap, *I* suffer the consequences.

Re:Their Network

[aminorex]

Nah, that's an easy problem to solve: Just use a
circular hash to create a highly redundant virtual
presence service.

The hard part is dealing with NAT-to-NAT connections.
That requires a spectrum of solutions, each
of which buys you some incremental share of
the problematic cases. It's an asymptotic
business, and you always have to fall-back
to volunteer superservers -- for connection
brokering, if nothing else.

Re:Their Network

[NanoGator]

"Well, it's their network so they can block anyone they want."

Sure. I also have the right to complain if I don't like it.

"If you don't like their rules (I don't), why don't create a free/open/documented IM network? Make it better than the commercial offerings, and people will come."

And exactly how is one supposed to get this out in the world? Think about it. If they're using Trillian, isn't it because there are already too many protocols out there? Are your friends going to want to install yet another client in order to talk to just you?

Re:Their Network

[drunkenbatman]

IM is not owned by any company yet, let alone MSFT. An Open alternative has a good position to beat the proprietary opposition, especially as it is quite divided already. Open Standards are the "in" thing right now.

The concept is not owned... then again it isn't something you're necessarily entitled to either. Or rather, you arent entitled to their implimentation, but you can always roll your own. And there are open protocols like jabber and the like. The problem with IM seems to be most of the paradigms for wide-spread use are based upon a centralized server model, so someone has to run and pay for those servers.

Re:Their Network

[Arrgh]

The difference is that governments' maintenance of the road network constitutes a natural monopoly, because life would be fiendishly difficult if competition were allowed into the picture, at least not without some amazing technical infrastructure.

The IM market is a lot like the OS market--there are tremendous network effects, the cost of switching is high, and no one has much of an incentive to make life easier for other people.

jabber is the way to go

[Tybalta]

you should stick with jabber (and good ol' icq) ... and let this bastards burn in hell with their fucked up ideas.

Re:jabber is the way to go

[Oxide]

Well that wouldnt be a problem with me, ICQ, MSN, AIM, or Yahoo... whatever. However, the problem is with the people I want to message. How can you control what messanger client they use or like? Just because ICQ is the only network I can log in to, doesnt mean everyone I know must use ICQ as well. And lets face it, the majority of the world use windows with windows messanger clients, i.e MSN and Yahoo.

I'm afraid that soon we (Linux users) will find ourselves talking only to our selves on our GAIMs.

Re:jabber is the way to go

[AKnightCowboy]

And why is wanting to provide a uniform way of sending messages on a network 'fucked up'?

Jabber IS a uniform way of sending messages on a network, not to mention open source and unencumbered by one company controlling it. I have never understood what people see in instant messaging that we didn't already have in a more open format with IRC, but hey, I'm open for improvement.

Jabber seems to satisfy their "instant messaging" definition, but people still try to jury-rig a client to connect into AOL, Yahoo, and MSN. They're just hacks and these companies have made it abundantly clear that they'll never cooperate with third party clients willingly since most of them strip out advertising. So why play with them at all? Trillian should concentrate on being a completely kickass Jabber and/or IRC client and stick with open formats.

Re:jabber is the way to go

[Punchcardz]

Except then no one would use it/buy it.

Kind of the point of using trillian.....

why is this even an issue?

[GoatPigSheep]

Shouldn't everyone be using the open-source jabber ?

I mean anyone who uses a proprietary network to do communication on is taking some pretty big chances...

Re:why is this even an issue?

[MoonFog]

I mean anyone who uses a proprietary network to do communication on is taking some pretty big chances...
Why is this ? The regular user wouldn't recognize code if I hit him in the head with it. To him it doesn't matter if his chatting protocol is open source or not, he just wants to reach his those on his buddy list.

Re:why is this even an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

anyone who uses a proprietary network to do communication on is taking some pretty big chances...

You mean like the the telephone system?

Re:why is this even an issue?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean anyone who uses a proprietary network to do communication on is taking some pretty big chances...

Why is this ? The regular user wouldn't recognize code if I hit him in the head with it. To him it doesn't matter if his chatting protocol is open source or not, he just wants to reach his those on his buddy list.

Users may not understand the source code, but they'd probably understand the concept of an open network (and open protocols) if it was explained to them.

To talk to people on different services, people will have to use several clients simultanously (with multiple buddy lists), or a third-party client which connects to all or them but is occasionally blocked from some networks (so they can't reach certain people on their buddy list). Either way they'll understand these annoyances.

People might start using Jabber if they understood that an open protocol would allow them to easily reach those on their buddy list, without any problems. If there was enough demand, ISPs would operate Jabber servers, and possibly make agreements with Microsoft/AOL/Yahoo to connect their users to those networks. It seems unlikely right now, but instant messaging is still a growing market.

Lies

[Henry V .009]

This may or may not be a reasonable business decision, but do they really have to flat out lie to their customers?

"If this has affected the way in which third parties interact with our service, it is merely a byproduct of our efforts to implement preventative measures to protect our users from potential spammers," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said.

Who the hell decided that it was okay to to treat all your customers like I treat my retarded cousin Larry? I hope that they understand that a lot of us know and resent it when we are being lied to.

Re:Lies

[JanusFury]

I don't think Larry appreciates how you treat him. Just think of this as payback on a cosmic level. Retards have feelings too!

Re:Lies

[CGP314]

Who the hell decided that it was okay to to treat all your customers like I treat my retarded cousin Larry?

The Filthy Critic?! I thought you were dead! Good to have you back. : )

Re:Lies

[yRabbit]

Many "potential spammers" can, of course, just use their official clients. They could, if they wanted, take the time to send identical messages to people one at a time.

If they're only concerned about spammers, and third-party clients allow you to spam, they just need to implement some anti-spam measures on the server side of things (read: Block users from sending too many messages out in some intelligent manner or another), not block out many people who'd like to talk to others on their network but use a client they might trust or like more.
It sounds to me like they must not care about third party clients.. Why not simply tell the truth in their statement?

Re:Lies

[Concerned Onlooker]

"If this has affected the way in which third parties interact with our service, it is merely a byproduct of our efforts to implement preventative measures to protect our users from potential spammers," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said.

Well, irregardless she shouldn't have used the word "preventative." Don't misunderestimate me, I'm sure it gives the sentence an impactful feeling but it seemed unnecessary.

Re:Lies

[Zakabog]

I dunno about you but I actually have a retarded cousin Larry (Lawrence) and we treat him like we treat anyone else in our family.

Anyway, to get back on topic, it's Yahoo's service isn't it? And I'm pretty sure it's free (I could be wrong.) So what's wrong with them blocking other clients. Maybe their is a huge spam problem from third party clients (anyone can write a third party client that automates sending messages, it's very hard to use yahoo's own client to do that.) That's like being mad at AOL because you can't use a third party client to dial up.

Re:Lies

[Awptimus Prime]

Apparently you don't use the Yahoo! IM service. It's to the point I keep the client on a hidden virtual desktop since I don't like my boss walking by and seeing an IM from S3XXEEmama69 inviting me to view her webcam for $3.99/minute.

Spam and abuse on Yahoo! chat has been out of control for years. Plus, it's not like any corporate entity can tell the full truth about anything these days. Instead of a few people going "OH HEEEEY! What about them ads you want me to see??", they simply address the most beneficial points to the public. That's because the masses can be a whiney, time consuming waste of time and resource if you give them too much information.

Personally, I'd rather see Yahoo! make revenue off their small ads and keep their email and IM services free.

As I read this thread, I find no end to my disappointment in people's attitude towards a free service trying to get back a little of what they've given you. I think this model should be praised for even existing. Think about it. Don't you remember the days before you broadband connections? You know, back when people silently got nickeled and dimed to death over any little perk or service for analog phone service (think $5.95/mo for CallerID!). Now you get the world at your finger tips, for free, but yet whine endlessly when they would like to show you and advertisement in an attempt to run their business.

If half the people on this website got outside on occasion, they'd find there's a lot more to get upset about in the marketing industry than small non-popping up ads in an IM.

Chew on these:

- Gas stations that you can't even see in the windows because they are completely covered with beer, cigarette, and drink ads.

- Billboards with ~1100 watts worth of lights blanket our cities and dot our countryside.

- 6-10 minutes of TV commercials every 30 minutes. The same obnoxious commercials every break.

- MTV

- Spam

- Advertising in public school campuses.

- Companies scheming to put billboards in space.

It's not like the people complaining are even being forced into using a service at all. Everyone can go back to IRC and deal with the service level of a free realtime chat network. You know, smurfers, script kiddies, etc.

I got nothing, so I'll be quiet now. ;-)

Re:Lies

[Conor Turton]

You're only a customer if you're using their own client. You're not a customer if you're using a 3rd party client but merely a leecher of their resources.

Re:Lies

[veritron]

I know someone with Asperger's who makes a half million a year and watches enterprise religiously. Doesn't say much for his taste, though.

Re:Lies

[sqlrob]

It's not?

Re:Lies

[bogado]

So you mean that all is already lost so we shoudn't fight for the last bit of space that is not yet covered with ads? If you give up a bit soon they will cover your computer with ads, nd you not be able to boot your computer without watching a 20min of advertising, or maybe be firewalled every 10min until you watch a min or two of ads.

Re:Lies

[AlterTick]

REGARDLESS
irregardless IS NOT A WORD

Neither are "misunderestimate", or "impactful". He's poking fun at the yahoo spokeswoman who used the word "preventative", when the actual word is "preventive" (though the former has been mis-used since the 1600's). In other words, IT'S A JOKE YOU DAFT BASTARD!

Re:Lies

[Awptimus Prime]

Wow, you are really reaching. Your computer's desktop isn't the last safe-haven. It's been an advertising platform since commercial software came about (splash screens and install advertisements). The web is covered with ads and obnoxious popups. There's nothing left to save if you consider your computer to be some special ad-free zone.

I'd rather my computer be covered with ads than have any of the other things I listed in my preceeding post. Not that I want ads, but they are a fact of life. As long as capitalism dominates our lives, marketing groups will find new ways to dangle their brand names in front of our noses.

As I have said a million times, if you have such a serious problem with it, then uninstall your Yahoo! client and GO OUTSIDE, GET A LIFE. It's not the end of the world.

I know that sounds trollish, but really, getting all wound up over a FREE NETWORK posting ads is less than retarded. It all reminds me of when Slashdot went to advertising. Everyone cried and whined about it like some evil force had arrived.

For real, though, an IM client. It's not like you have anything to save. It's not your network, so there's nothing to 'fight' for. How are you going to fight it? Do you really think making a derogatory post on Slashdot is going to make a difference to Yahoo! executives? How about when you remove their client? Nah, you probably weren't going to buy anything anyway; not if you were upset enough about ads to remove the application.

This 1984 of advertising you speak of won't happen, ever. I doubt anyone in the Open Source movement would tool together an OS that required you to view ads when booting up your system. Discussion of such a point is meaningless.

I've been logged into Yahoo! for 5 hours today while working. I've seen no ads. I've been on Slashdot for 20 minutes today and have seen about 30. Go figure.

Re:Lies

[drinkypoo]

Their customers are the ones using their IM client. Everyone else is piggybacking on their network without their consent. I don't know why people are so up in arms about this, it's their network, and they can do whatever they want. If your third party client is so much better, you should be able to talk your friends into using it, and using some open IM protocol. If it isn't, then what are you so bent about?

Re:Lies

[drinkypoo]

Gas stations whose windows you can't see in? Shop somewhere else. They're not all like that. Billboards? They're paying for that power same as anyone else, and it's not like they put them right next to observatories. "Uranus Cream, for those long night spectroscopy sessions after eating spicy tacos!" TV Commercials? You have only yourself to blame for watching that crap, all the people who "get it" have been downloading their shows off the internet for months now, though that does generally involve a delay. For everyone else, there's TiVo or similar. I agree MTV is pretty retarded, but it's hardly one of the great evils of the world. People obviously watch it, and like it. Spam is a big problem but it's nothing like any of these other items because it intrudes into your home - You should be a LOT more annoyed with mass snail mailings, which not only take up your mailbox space and force you to do something with them, but are also made of paper, which while renewable (it's not like anyone is making old growth trees into paper) still tends to incur a certain environmental cost. Advertising on public school campuses is analogous to advertising on web sites. If it's paying for your service you should be happy. If parents do their job then the children will not be brainwashed by them anyway. And finally, billboards in space, which is a generally empty and primarily featureless place (consider what percentage of space contains something interesting), do not bother me in the least. If they start obscuring stargazing, come back and talked to me again.

Okay, so end of rant. Back to the actual substance. I do get from 0 to 3 porn spams on yahoo a day, and I'm not even set invisible. When I was, I didn't get any porn spams at all. You are 100% correct on the point that it would be better to see the services continue to be adware than to see them go payware, though. I use yahoo mail and messenger on occasion (it's nice to send URLs to my girlfriend rather than having to say them, or email them, this is my primary use of Y!Messenger) and would certainly not pay for either of them.

Re:Lies

[Awptimus Prime]

Hehe another missed point. I'm not upset about any of these things, just saying they are things people should care about more if they are going to care about marketing invading their lives.

Re:Lies

[drinkypoo]

My point is that none of those things are really annoying. They are all pretty avoidable. You really have to choose to participate in basically any of them. The only exception is spam, and to me that includes the animated banner ads all over everything. god DAMN they're annoying. :P I click on them once in a while (not on IMs though) because I want people to think that people buy things because of them, because they currently pay for a lot of the webshit I enjoy on a regular basis. (Though plenty of sites have gone to the even more annoying interstitial ad model lately...)

Re:Lies

[Awptimus Prime]

You can't avoid billboard ads and the sign-laden gas stations. At least not in urban areas. :]

They're cutting their own throats

[vaylen]

Most people have been using Trillian for so long that they will simply ask their friends to use ICQ or MSN so they can stay on their contact lists. In the end this will just result in fewer people using Yahoo messenger.

In a related story, NBC has decided to make their broadcast signal only work on a G.E. television. Brilliant move boys!

Re:They're cutting their own throats

[MoonFog]

After October 15 MSN access will also be restricted
We'll have to wait and see if ICQ will do the same thing eventually

Re:They're cutting their own throats

[LamerX]

Well, ICQ was bought out by AOL. Also, AOL and ICQ communicate using the same protocalls (look at the AIM/ICQ button in Gaim), I doubt that ICQ will be something to worry about by itself. If ICQ goes down, then so will AOL.

I don't really give a rip either way. If you've got a bunch of friends, just set up your own Jabber server (or join the main Jabber server). Tell your friends to use a real IM client instead of these crappy, ad-filled ones. Your close friends should at least listen, then probably will get thier friends to do the same.

Re:They're cutting their own throats

[Shrubber]

I'm not so sure that "most" people have been using Trillian, or any other multi-network IM client. Sure, a lot of people on Slashdot do, but every average person I know that uses any IM networks use the native clients, and in most cases use multiple.

Although there are many good reasons to use a single client that does all of them, there's also reasons not to. I'm absolutely not going to suggest to non-technical people I know that they try out Trillian because they'll be calling ME when these things happen and they can't connect to Yahoo one day, and AIM the next.

Re:They're cutting their own throats

[Naelphin]

This has already been fixed in the latest Trillian Patch, which also was meant to fix the yahoo problem. Unfortunately, the patch causes Trillian to crash when logging into yahoo now.

Re:They're cutting their own throats

[Trejkaz]

Use a single-network client... I am. Psi only connects to one network, the Jabber network. ;-)

Re:They're cutting their own throats

[westlake]

CBS color had FCC sanction but ran into early and intractable problems:

CBS was poised to go into production with sets using - big - mechanical color wheels, massive and unwieldy but still very small screen consoles even by 1940s standards. This made television engineers and marketers noticeably twitchy and was a serious tactical mistake when RCA was promising to deliver an all-electronic system from day one.

CBS color needed higher frequencies/greater band with than B/W. UHF only. This would prove economically viable in urbanized Europe but looked very questionable in the already suburbanized U.S. The final blow for CBS came with the Korean War, with production restrictions and a B/W consumer base in the tens of millions, compatible color was the only way to go.

Re:They're cutting their own throats

[cmj]

Interestingly enough AOL's blocking of Trillian last year (?) was the main impetus for almost everyone I know to start using Yahoo! Most of my department uses Trillian, so it was just a few clicks to a new account and we were off and running.

Now Yahoo pulls the same thing and we're all updating our contact lists with correct AIM IDs for each other.

I understand their need to make money on the advertising, and the desire to block spam, but it seems to me that this just reduces the value of their network.

The lesson to be learned here

[lateralus]

Never trust a corporation with anything you value or at least with proper constraints over that corporation.

If you want to feel safe that you can use your service tomorrow too then run jabber or any other service that you can run a server for if your main server stops.

Serves people right for trusting closed systems.

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[anonymous loser]

Never trust a corporation with anything you value or at least with proper constraints over that corporation.

I use Yahoo! Messenger and haven't experienced any problems whatsoever related to this. In fact there are a couple of new features with this newest version that I'm eager to try out. Why should I be concerned if some unendorsed 3rd party application no longer works because Yahoo decided to change the way their network or protocol functions? My client still works fine; it's just too bad if Trillian (whose newest beta version still works, BTW) or some other 3rd party meta-IM client gets borked along with all the spammers.

Serves people right for trusting closed systems.

It serves who right, exactly? Yahoo customers didn't experience any problems. You must mean the 3rd-party clients and spambots leeching on Yahoo's networks, because they are the only ones affected AFAIK.

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[lateralus]

You are of course very welcome to use someone else's infrastructure.

Just don't be surprised if one day they decide to stop giving you the service.

My main point is that if it is their network then 3rd party clients really can't complain.

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[kruntiform]

I use Yahoo! Messenger and haven't experienced any problems whatsoever related to this.

Not directly related to this perhaps, but I've had problems with Yahoo! Messenger. I've noticed a couple of problems: at times msgs have not gone through in one direction (so that there's a one-sided conversation); and sometimes contacts don't show up as being online even though they are not logged-in in invisible mode. So yes, Yahoo users are affected, in a way, by being locked in to what appears to be a crappy protocol or implementation of that protocol. Of course, we can't get the full picture (apart from what can be reverse-engineered on the client end) because the protocol and the official clients and server software are closed.

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[arkhan_jg]

Well, perhaps you could point out the official icq, msn and yahoo clients I could be using on linux.

Oh thats right, there aren't any.

How about those open protocols so people can set up their own servers and take the load off, while still providing access to the main network?

Oh that's right, the main services don't do that either.

The result is simple, when people like MSN and Yahoo block third party clients, third party people stop using it. (I'm NOT switching to windows just so I can run multiple bloatware apps just to IM. That'd be like having to use a different email client for each ISP you wanted to talk to)

"So?" I hear you cry. "They're just leeches anyway."

Well. The entire value of using an IM system is that your friends also use it. If your friends can't use it because they're blocked, then the value of that IM system is reduced. Less value, less likely to use at all.

For example, I've already got three people to try out icq and jabber because I no longer use MSN or Yahoo because of crap like this. They've all switched to Trillian because it's a much, much better client than the one official one provided. Now, if they get blocked for long as well, then they will stick to using icq and jabber only.

Thus, by their actions, the IM companies will have DRIVEN OFF real users.

It's exactly the same as in trade. Slap high tarriffs on entry to your markets, you'll gain a short-term advantage. Then everybody does it, you can't sell your goods abroad either, and bingo, everybody suffers as the market splits into multiple small ponds. Isolationism damages everybody.

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[Anonymous Coward]

And when all your friends are running msn it's SO easy to switch to jabber. Especially with the almost not totally broken msn transport that is available for it.

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[HeghmoH]

So just because Yahoo's official client is the most horrible, crashy, CPU-sucking, ugly chat client I have ever used (and, by the way, the Mac version which I use contains absolutely no advertising whatsoever, so they gain nothing from my use), and I want to use a third-party program that doesn't actually suck, that makes me a leech? Please explain further.

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[jrepin]

Couldn't agree more. Jabber is the future. We need open standards and freedom to deploy our own servers for open protocols. Just like wth e-mail. Imagine what a sucky world it would be if there were so many incompatible and propriatery e-mail standards owned by companies. Just scarry.

Jabber on people!

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[PrimeEnd]

Yahoo customers didn't experience any problems. You must mean the 3rd-party clients and spambots leeching on Yahoo's networks, because they are the only ones affected AFAIK.

Would you be perfectly happy if you could only send email to people using Yahoo mail? Why not, Yahoo customers wouldn't experience any problems.

BTW, in reading this thread and making this post you weren't leeching on Slashdot's network were you?

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[Anonymous Bullard]

Well, perhaps you could point out the official icq, msn and yahoo clients I could be using on linux. Oh thats right, there aren't any.

Well Yahoo's been offering Linux clients for quite some time.

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[sky_fire]

but the upgrade seems to have broken official client as well. :p

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[Trejkaz]

Incompetible and proprietory e-mail standards? You mean like Lotus's and Microsoft's?

Re:The lesson to be learned here

[arkhan_jg]

Oh good. A binary RPM or DEB file only. Wake me when it's in a format I can actually install without breaking half my distro, like a good old tarball.

Well..

[methangel]

I actually prefer the official Windows clients to the all-services-in-one packages. Memory is really not an issue these days either, considering how cheap it is.

But yeah, it's their service that they freely offer, they are logically allowed to control who accesses it. I do not disagree at all.

Re:Well..

[FrostedWheat]

Memory is really not an issue these days either

Taskbar space is just as limited however. Nothing worse than having 101 icons in your systray.

Re:Well..

[deinol]

Post a:

Memory is really not an issue these days either, considering how cheap it is.

I work at a store that also repairs computers. I can tell you that while memory is cheap, there are a lot of people who are still running older machines. People bring in Pentium I's and II's all the time. Even the occasional 486 shows up. Besides, once you have ICQ, AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Kazaa, Weatherbug, Gator, Comet Cursors, Norton Anti-Virus, Mcaffee, Office quick start, Cox quick connect, etc, etc, etc, running, I've seen Pentium 4 2.4 Ghz machines that make a Duran 700Mhz machine look super fast.

Post b:

My client still works fine; it's just too bad if Trillian (whose newest beta version still works, BTW) or some other 3rd party meta-IM client gets boked along with all the spammers.

The point of being able to use Trillian is to have one client for multiple networks. I use Trillian so I don't have to care which network someone is on. I'm on all of them. A single uniform client, with a single interface for each.

I don't worry about losing connectivity to one network for a short while, all the people I really want to talk to have multiple types of accounts as well.

Beta Patch already released

[M3wThr33]

Cerulean Studios already fought AOL and won.
If you hoof it on over to Trillian's website and logging into the member's section, you can get the beta Yahoo-patch.

How's that for response time?

Re:Beta Patch already released

[vanyel]

The patch they posted a couple days ago in advance didn't work, and neither does the current "fix" to not autoconnect. And since Fire seems to think my password's incorrect, I told everyone I've been chatting with on yahoo if they want to chat with me, they'll have to use icq. yahoo can take their proprietary protocol and talk to themselves for all I care.

Re:Beta Patch already released

[CGP314]

Gaim is already working on a crack too.

Re:Beta Patch already released

[typobox43]

Thanks a lot - I hadn't seen that yet. /me runs off to inform the IRC people

Re:Beta Patch already released

[NuShrike]

I confirm this. Beta patch for post 2.0pro release works fine with "new" Yahoo.

Re:Beta Patch already released

[nighty5]

Wow!

Thanks for the intel, I checked the status of a supposed patch for the Yahoo login problem not 6 hours ago, with no luck.

Must of just been released.

Pays to be a paying Trillian member.

Cheers.

Re:Beta Patch already released

[Zrech]

I have my MSN and AOL and YAHOO ALL WORKING on trillian, I thought this was a MOOT POINT as it was brought up a long time ago when trillian came out with the patch before microsoft came out with the fix! (lol try to understand that) I didnt update anything since then (about 2-3 weeks ago) and it still works great.

Re:Beta Patch already released

[MoOsEb0y]

Trillian's MySQL server took a shit. Any chance I could get a copy?

Re:Beta Patch already released

[nighty5]

yes it did!

Unfortunately I am in the same position as you. I'm still waiting.........

Re:Beta Patch already released

[mikeswi]

LOL.... Goddamn doesn't that figure? I've been logging in all day waiting to see if they've got a patch, and as soon as I hear they do, the database server goes AWOL.

Re:Beta Patch already released

[vanyel]

That's why I use Trillian and Fire in the first place, so it doesn't matter what system people are on, but on the other hand, I don't really much care for IM'ing in the first place, so that makes it easy to tell them if they want to chat with me, they'll have to use an open system... otherwise, email works great.

Re:Beta Patch already released

[Eugene]

Fast works for a small team. but I was wondering why they took the forum offline? to prevent the server being overloaded? prevent flaming?

and I still don't like the phoning home feature.. seems only the paying customer of Trillian Pro 2.0 gets screwed over for this.

Trillian

[BrookHarty]

Sitting here, and wondering why Yahoo wasnt working in trillian. Then I see it on slashdot.

Really, I dont use Yahoo for IM, but I know people that do. And I'd rather not run 4 IM programs, one for everyone. Trade out on advanced features, but I can use 1 program. Also been testing Gaim and consoleicq on my linux box. Both nice multi-im clients..

Trillian beta still works

[koreth]

If you're a paying Trillian customer, you can download the beta of their next major release, which works just fine with the Yahoo! Messenger network even after this change. I believe they've said they'll port the protocol change back to the free version as well. I'm running the beta and haven't noticed any disruption of service.

Re:Trillian beta still works

[typobox43]

Whoa. The beta still works?! Here's a bit of background info... some you might know, some you might not. Trillian 2.0 was released back on September 10th. Trillian 2.0 RC3 had come out within the last 48 hours (can't remember exactly when). After RC3 came out, Yahoo started sending the YahooMessengerTeam upgrade notices that you might have seen. Because of this, the Trillian development team made a quick change in the final version just before they were going to release it. This pushed back the release a good two-three hours. Anyway, they updated the final to the latest protocol. The beta isn't on the latest protocol, and from what I remember seeing, it wasn't supposed to work at all after the "upgrades." However, if it really still works, I've got a lot of people who will like to know it.

I don't think it's meant as a block.

[typobox43]

I've been watching this situation as it developed... I'm a very.. avid Trillian user. I highly doubt that the sole purpose of this was to block alternative clients. Why would they give a two weeks' warning, when the Trillian developers especially are known for releasing connectivity patches right when the problem occurs? (Remember back when AIM blocked Trillian... February 2002? There were five patched versions of Trillian released within a three-week period. That seems to say that there's not much chance in keeping alternative clients out by simply changing the protocol. I consider the MSN deal a completely different one from the Yahoo issue. MSN has publicly announced that there will be licensing for their protocol - which is great by me. That ensurance that I'm using completely legal software is always a plus. Yahoo, on the other hand, is a different story. They've not really made much comment about alternative IM aside from the "byproduct" comment. They seem to really be avoiding the issue. My theory here is that they decided it was time to upgrade everything... maybe spammers were the driving force, maybe not. Then, someone noticed that it was causing these alternative clients to have fits. Was it a byproduct of their changes? Yes. Was it unwanted? No. I think this was simply a case of "accidental genius."

Re:I don't think it's meant as a block.

[IamTheRealMike]

MSN has publicly announced that there will be licensing for their protocol - which is great by me. That ensurance that I'm using completely legal software is always a plus.

Hmm, wait. Since when do Microsoft licenses have any relation whatsoever to the law? They can claim only people with red hair can connect to MSN if they like, it alters the legal status of other people connecting to their network not one bit.

Remember. EULAs are not the law.

Re:I don't think it's meant as a block.

[benzapp]

I'm a very.. avid Trillian user.

Had to think about that one did ya.

Re:I don't think it's meant as a block.

[G00F]

In these days of lawyers, what is thedifference?

Over reaching laws, confusing words, and money, against someone with out money. Lets see who wins. :(

Lawsuits these days are nothing more than a way around the "innocent until proven guilty" for those with money that haven't created a law in their best interest yet.

Re:ohh yeh...

[Anonymous Coward]

This just pissis me off beyond all recognition!

Nice trick. Do you turn green and start throwing cars around?

Good news for Jabber

[rayed4]

Jabber will be the only option for Linux users = which means more users using Jabber = more popularity. But I wonder if open source Jabber server is good enough to be used by everyone, I tried to build it from FreeBSD ports but it didn't compile.

Re:Good news for Jabber

[kruntiform]

Yahoo have official clients for Linux and FreeBSD. But I hope you are right that this is good news for Jabber. You don't need to run your own Jabber server BTW. You can sign up for an account on one of the many public Jabber servers.

Gaim

[rf0]

Gaim people are trying and with the latest CVS 0.69 things have improved from not being able to connect to just getting incorrect password. They are getting there and I know there are lots of bug reports open on it and they are hopeful.

What is going to be more intersting is what happens with MSN + license. Yahoo isn't charging people to access their network (and yes it is their network so they can do this). Fun times ahead. Prehaps everyone should just move over to Jabber

Rus

Re:Gaim

[DashEvil]

I love how EVERYONE suggests that people move to jabber as if it is a perfect solution.

The people I want to talk to are on Yahoo, and no, they aren't going to install jabber just because of some IM client prefrence that I have.

I mean, rebelling, etc, all nice and all, but I'm not about to pick one peice of software over another just because of software idealisms.

Re:AIM Next?

[kalanar]

You can already use AIM with ICQ users or ICQ with AIM users, since Time Warner owns both. So the only issue is having Yahoo and MSN integrated with ICQ or an ICQ-like alternative.

Until ICQ disallows other clients and they haven't in many years (how long has micq been around?) AIM shouldn't be a concern.

Good for everyone else.

[fruity1983]

Not that I ever used it, and not that I know a single person who does, but if I did use it, I would stop, which would cause people who use Yahoo IM to switch to whatever I use in order to maintain contact with me.

Time for an open IM network.

well

[SteelRat]

they did have that auto-msg every time one would log on to YIM for about a month.

I suppose you could have taken the hint.

Re:Patience

[LooseChanj]

Oh, forgot to mention it's easy for me to say patience...cuz I dunno anyone on Y! anyway.

Not exactly

[LooseChanj]

I never once got that notice on *trillian*.

Re:Not exactly

[dreamking]

I use Trillian and I got it.

Re:Not exactly

[SteelRat]

I use *trillian* and I received *many*

*oh*kay*?

Yahoo say they're open to talking to 3rd parties

[kikibobo]

Check this story out from new.com.com.

Jumping to the conclusion that their intent is to block 3rd party clients is just wrong, according to this.

It sounds reasonable to occasionally force an upgrade, particularly in the interest of protecting privacy.

Yahoo ID's + Store

[Dj Stingray]

I run several Yahoo! Stores and since we all use Trillian at the office, we have not been able to access our online store back end. It seems that when Trillian tries to connect with Yahoo Messenger, it spams the Yahoo ID and locks it for 12 hours.

The Yahoo! Messenger "section" of Trillian is also causing the program to create errors on load up.

There is information on www.trillian.cc on how to disable the initial connection to Yahoo! messenger.

Looks like I am king of run-on sentences.

Jabber accounts must be more accessible

[dybdahl]

The obvious replacement for the proprietary systems is Jabber, must aunt Caroline must be able to create a Jabber account much easier - as it is today, Jabber requires knowledge of Jabber, which is a major obstacle.

Re:Jabber accounts must be more accessible

[rusty0101]

From having plaayed with several different jabber clients on windows, BeOS and Linux, I don't see the same issue that you claim is a problem. The only thing that I have seen that requires anything like Jabber knowledge is finding a server to connect to. So far as I know, every client uses a wizard of some sort to walk a user through creating an ID, setting up a password, etc.

Then again, having set up my own jabber server, and so forth, perhaps I am too much of a geek to understand what you are concerned with.

-Rusty

Re:ohh yeh...

[Eric Ass Raymond]

Maybe they want to stop freeloaders who do not contribute to the ad-revenues?

Why the hell do you expect that everything should be free?

It's only a matter of time...

[pointwood]

Before you have to use the official clients or pay for a multi-protocol client (like Trillian Pro) to be able to use several networks. Or maybe Yahoo will themselves support other protocols for a certain price, they have already hinted at that.

Yet another reason to switch to an open network like Jabber!

Re:It's only a matter of time...

[Jedi Alec]

so they won't let others into their system, but expect to be allowed into other systems at the same time, and actually charge for that? I'd love to see that...

Solution: ISPs hosting IM services

[gad_zuki!]

Why aren't ISPs jumping on the IM bandwagon?

The bandwidth can't be that bad especially compared to say binary newsgroups or IRC, it could be a selling point for potential customers (connecting to im.comcast.com), it would simplify and enhance file transfers and video (assuming they route intranet traffic different than internet traffic), etc.

It seems to me that they have the resources to implement an open and free protocol for their customers (or use an existing one) and provide the servers.

I guess the obvious reply to this is "what about ad revenue?" Well, does anyone know if there's any real money to be made here? Little easily ignored (not to mention easily blocked) ads probably aren't profitable nor do I think IM alone is profitable in itself.

I think ISPs could be treating IM like a newsfeed and decide whether they want to limit login access to their customers or open it to the world. Toss in some (mandatory?) encryption and authentication scheme and you're light-years ahead of the competition.

One of the biggest benefits, if not the biggest for me, is that I can enable encryption on my AIM connection in Trillian.

Maybe its a hard sell to the suits and the technophones, but I can really see a successful ad campaign on "New, fast, secure and easy to use IM," bundled with the new user CD. Also it would be supported by the ISP. Rhis would change all this protocol/reverse engineering bickering in almost no time.

The real benefit here would be competition. Okay, so you don't like Comcast's bundled client. Run Trillian. Don't like that either? Fine. Watch tons of news IM clients fighting for marketshare because the protocol is open. Build a standards comittee. There's a lot of potential here and the closed nature of commercial and proprietary IM protocols is really holding progress back.

Re:Solution: ISPs hosting IM services

[jgisclon]

The bandwidth can't be that bad especially compared to say binary newsgroups or IRC...

Many (most?) ISPs no longer operate their own NNTP servers. Far less bandwidth intensive and a helluva lot less hassle to subscribe to Usenet services like Supernews instead.

Next time you connect to your ISP's news server, do a traceroute. There's a good chance it's cnamed to corp.supernews.com or some other Usenet provider.

So, comparing the bandwidth requirements of operating a Jabber server (which would be open to people all over the Net to connect to, unless there's a way for the ISP to restrict accounts to only its subscribers) to "normal" ISP operations may be somewhat dubious.

Trillian wasn't merely blocked -

[nuckfuts]

it caused the program to crash. In many cases Trillian could not even start until automatic login to Yahoo! was edited out of an ini file.

Re:Trillian wasn't merely blocked -

[TehHustler]

I was wondering what it was for days, tearing my hair out I was. Thankfully the whole program doesnt lock up completely and you can just edit the settings in connection manager.

Re:AIM Next?

[shione]

About a month or two ago they dropped support for the old icq protocol. I still havent updgraded yet because the comp that had icq 99 is too weak to run the latest client.

They way I see it, if they lock me out I drop my support for them. msn mesenger wont let me log on on their official client today and I can't be bothered using d/l it again so I'm just going to stick with aol for now.

Stupid

[Teahouse]

MS and Yahoo are going all corporate cuthroat on IM. This is a product that will never generate real revenue. This is smallhead corporate thinking.

"We have the largest market share in the widget market! Too bad no one BUYS this particular type of widget."

All they are doing is inconviencing (or dare I say nerfing) an added feature of their offering that will only piss off their own clients. They can't talk to Auntie Cybersalot, who uses a different IM, anymore.

Re:Stupid

[wadetemp]

"We have the largest market share in the widget market! Too bad no one BUYS this particular type of widget."

The MS client is installed with Windows XP, and is arguably one of its most sellable features. Before you say "but you don't need to buy Windows to use IM", remember that AOL's been suckering people for years with email and chat, which are readily available without having to buy thier service.

Making money with open IMs

[ShadowDrake]

The obvious excuse for locking out third-party clients is to prevent getting by without seeing downloaded ads.

Why not merely develop a system that sends ads as messages-- like spammers do, but officially. Send one every x +/- y minutes of connect time, make up source accounts (or even force the account name to a friends-list member) to make filtering difficult.

Re:Making money with open IMs

[Hatta]

Why would anyone use such a client when there's jabber?

Re:Making money with open IMs

[Thomas Shaddack]

...and the next round will be SpamAssassin-like plug-ins for the clients.
It's even possible to write a proxy that sits between the server and the client, and in a MITM-like way filters the communication, lying to the server that the message was shown and the ad was seen.
I remember having some program (don't ask me what it was, it's couple years ago) which insisted on showing ads and refused to work when they were blocked. A simple Internet Junkbuster based proxy that served a solid-black GIF back for specified requests (instead of blindly blocking them) took care of it; the program still thought it gets advertising, and the ad window wasn't animated and colorful and distracting anymore.

Re:Making money with open IMs

[ShadowDrake]

The trick is that you rig up the messages so that you can't blindly filter.

Normal message format (as opposed to a special ad format) prevents filter by format or source

Randomized send time prevents ignoring the ad message that comes every 30 minutes.

Forged sender address precludes ignoring messages-- they may really be from a friend.

The client isn't the draw-- it's the service, so stop trying to make profit off the part people aren't interested in.

Alternatively, make users buy 'credit' by opening spam and going to mentioned click-through URLs. Then you can buy unlimited credit for $5 a month or face some sort of punishment (range from delay messages 20 seconds at server end to precluding contact by other users) if credits are exhausted.

Re:AIM Next?

[colinleroy]

MSN is not blocked. ayttm, eb-lite, gaim (in CVS) and some other clients already use MSNP8 or MSNP9.

Old news ?

[Krunch]

I've noticed that my Jabber client can't connect to Y! for some weeks now. Well, we still have AIM, ICQ and of course Jabber.

Re:Good.

[colinleroy]

No. Login really changed a few days after the protocol version bump in the header you're talking about.

Re:Freeloaders?

[Eric Ass Raymond]

What about non-revenue clients sutch as Gaim?

My point exactly.

Why should the compaines allow "non-revenue clients sutch as Gaim" in their network? There's no profit in that if people start using adless clients or clients that filter out ads.

Do you have any friends

[AnEmbodiedMind]

who aren't computer geeks?

Trying to convince / educate all of your friends, and them to convince / educate all of their friends, and them theirs is not practical in the short term.

Most people don't understand, and won't care even if you explain it to them.

Here's an idea

[Pompatus]

How about, instead of yahoo blocking outside clients like trillian and gaim, they work with them to incorporate the ads?

Many people use outside clients so they can connect to all of these services with one program. I'd wager many people are trained now to ignore the ads they see on the internet anyway. Or have ad blocking software that blocks the ads regardless of what client is used :)

Alternatives?

[Kris_J]

Given that email is full of spam and IM is full of, well, this crap, is there a nicer way for people to communicate on the Interweb?

Thanks Re:Trillian wasn't merely blocked -

[leoaugust]

Thanks for pointing out how to avoid these Trillian crashes ....

It happened to my laptop at work, and my home computer did the same. And because i have generally thought Yahoo! was less "commercial" than MS (i.e. no auto deleting your inbox .. no pain-in-the-**** things like "activation" etc etc etc) I never never suspected that it was the Yahoo autologin that was causing this trouble ...

But now I am back on IM using Trillina ... thanks ...

God, I just love slashdot for all these timely tips ...

Is

[crazy blade]

I really think we should not think sympathetically about this. Consider this metaphor:

Unless you are an AT&T subscriber, you can't call people with AT&T phones.

How is that essentially different? Yet, people would not tolerate the above. Why should they with IM?

Re:Freeloaders?

[pirhana]

I use yahoo messenger linux version and it doenst have any ad with it.

Fixing Trillian ... a bit

[orangeguru]

Try this for Trillian: Trillian -> users -> default -> yahoo.ini Change auto connect to: auto connect=0 You won't have yahoo, but the rest will be working now.

Re:Fixing Trillian ... a bit

[orangeguru]

Sigh. Did I say it's an backdoor my little troll?

Jabber

[WindBourne]

I currently use kopete (and occaisionly gaim which has much better protocols) due to hating to use so many different programs.
Worse, teh MS version of yahoo is awesome while the linux version is at best the mistreated stepchild.
Due to all the hassle that is going on, it is time to move away from so many protocols and server. I am re-establishing jabber at home and at work. It is time to move away from being tied into politics amongst the monsters and simply take back control

Re:Jabber

[MrClever]

Agreed. I am also running a Jabber server for the same reasons. Although being able to plug other services into a Jabber server is very useful. Until Yahoo nuked my connector of course. Still ICQ is functional.

Re:Jabber

[travail_jgd]

I upgraded Yahoo Messenger on my Linux system, and it's significantly better than previous versions. There may still be problems with file transfers, but according to the Yahoo developers they're looking into it.

(Then again, if you want to "move away from being tied into politics" you might want to avoid Free Software too -- I hear that some of the leaders are quite opinionated. ;)

When your rivals are better, block them

[mikeswi]

Yahoo may think this will cause 3rd party users to download the official client. I believe they are incorrect. People will just wait on Trillian to get back onto the network or they'll tell their other Trillian friends to switch to one of the other 3 networks it accesses.

I suppose since their software can't compete with their rivals' software on features and functionality, they're trying to compete on number of users. That's pretty stupid however, since AOL and MSN have that locked up.

Why not just friggin agree to a standard network that any client can access? Then they could concentrate on making the software good enough that people want to use it because they like it, not because they have 1 or 2 friends who refuse to use a different network? They could also concentrate on that secure, encrypted corporate version that AOL, Yahoo, and MSN all want to start selling to corporate buyers.

This is soo goood

[littleRedFriend]

Gaim does not work anymore! Finally, those of us developing under Linux have an excuse for not being disturbed every 10 minutes by marketing types. They forced us to use IM - while we really don't want to.

Keep up the good work Yahoo!

Re:This is soo goood

[JDBrechtel]

Isn't there an official yahoo client for linux?

=)

Hack it

[t_allardyce]

I use gaim but have yahoo installed just for these emergencies. But since they are being such assholes i think we should (like kazaa) distribute a hacked ad-free version that includes any extra disruptive features that yahoo would rather you didnt have ;) I know its pretty simple with reshacker or something to get rid of the adverts.

It's not that hard and no need for back doors

[enosys]

Someone just has to look at the protocol used by the official client using some TCP monitor and fix things so the non-official clients work the same way. No need to find back doors and this isn't that hard.

(They could make it hard by protecting the protocol using encryption and protecting the relevant code and encryption key(s) using anti-debugging techniques. Now that would be pure evil IMO.)

uh, just use jabber

[treat]

I don't understand, why are people complaining? Just use jabber.

Re:uh, just use jabber

[Cid Highwind]

But jabber only has 12 users, and they're all too busy posting to /. about how great jabber is to chat with anyone!

Re:uh, just use jabber

[Grimster]

You're kinda right, jabber is awesome too bad it's not more popular.

We use jabber in my company as a quick means to IM other techs/etc in the organization and it's great, the ability to have a chat window open and the other party leave and still chat and they come back later to what you wrote is extremely nice (I dunno if other IM's do this, I use Jabber and ICQ and that's all).

Re:uh, just use jabber

[catbutt]

Well, as someone else said jabber has few users (and while jabber allows you to communicate with non-jabber users, you can be blocked)

The solution, I'd think, is this:

1) Trillian build their jabber plug-in into the free client, and make it appear as "native" as do MSN, AIM, etc.

2) Trillian encourage people to use jabber, and even run a jabber server that people could use (for a nominal fee?).

3) ISP's bundle Trillian (for windows users).

4) ISP's provide their own jabber server for their users to have an account, just like having an email account.

5) The ISP could pay a license fee to MSN Yahoo and AIM so that their users can also connect to their friends using those services.

Everybody wins. The ISP could probably get a great deal on the license fees from all the services as well as trillian, since they are "buying in bulk".Trillian gets two additional sources of income...ISP license as well as Jabber server fee (for those whose ISP's don't provide a jabber account), but they are fair and spread evenly among their users.

Eventually jabber would become just like email, where it was expected that the ISP would provide it as a basic service. In the meantime, everyone can still connect to everyone else, and MSN Yahoo and AIM are getting a fair payment for the service they provide to those using 3rd party clients.

Ad Revenue?

[tarnin]

What ads? I use Yim at work and there are zero ads. The only ad that there is is a pop up screen when it starts that can be turned off in the options. No ads on the client itself like aim either. No hacking needed (eg. I'm not running DeadYim).

All this is is an update to their protocal that happened to break third party messengers. I looked for a license that you could purchace ala msn and couldnt find one. I believe that they will continue to allow third party messengers into their network.

Why is it just because they upgrade something and it breaks other programs that they didn't code people call out the wolves on them? Not all companies are M$ here. On the other side, not all companies are Opensource based and fully backwards compaible. In this case, Yahoo upgraded their core protocal and in doing that broke all backwards comptability. This, in my eyes, isn't some evil plot to get people to look at ads or get license money, it's just the way they do things.

Re:Ad Revenue?

[ajensen]

Why is it just because they upgrade something and it breaks other programs that they didn't code people call out the wolves on them?

Good point. I think that as IM users, we often forget that the "communicative" spirit behind instant messaging (unfortunately) isn't what keeps the services working. Someone has to foot the bill for bandwidth, equipment, equipment breakdown, and everything else. We the users tend to feel that if it interferes with our ability to communicate, then it is bad -- and we should call out the wolves, as you said.

See the big picture, people. Anything sponsored or operated by a company (a capitalistic entity) will have profit as its bottom line. That's not our fault, and it's not the company's fault. It's just The Way That They Are(TM).

Re:Ad Revenue?

[shark72]

The ads aren't as ubiquitous as in some other IM apps, but they're there, at least in the Windows version. Click the tabs along the bottom of the interface (to show weather, your stock portfolio, etc.) and you'll see them. You'll also see them if you use Yahoo! Messenger's video instant messaging.

Which article did you read?

[artemis67]

Coinciding with the upgrade, Yahoo said it would likely disable access to outside IM services such as Trillian. Yahoo set a deadline of Wednesday for its forced upgrade and its intention to disconnect Trillian.

This is most definitely an attempt on Yahoo's part to block third-party IM clients.

Nowhere in the article does it state that Yahoo still supports a standards initiative, or that it has any intent to work with third parties.

Re:Which article did you read?

[NemoX]

This quote really says it all. Kopete and Gaim are already working on a solution. You wont find either of those mentioned in the article, why? Because they don't CHARGE $$$ for people to use someone elses service, like Tillian does. Trillian is nothing but a leech that deserves to be shut down. That is why Microsoft only gave trillian access to its new MSN protocol after Trillian agreed to pay a fee.

I mean seriously, if you had a service you were providing for free/ad-ware, and some company added monthly costs to your bandwidth and cpu usage, and you received no money from them, yet they charged a fairly steep fee, wouldn't you be ticked off too?

BTW, Kopete has already released a fix for MSN, and both (Kopete and Gaim) are working on fixes for MSN and Yahoo! to be released soon.

Re:Which article did you read?

[jimbolaya]

I see your point, but couldn't they be just as "ticked off" about a free client adding bandwidth and CPU usage costs as a paid client?

Re:Which article did you read?

[raygundan]

Trillian's yahoo AND MSN fixes are already out. And there is a free version as well as a paid version. It's just like the old shareware-- if you feel like helping out the authors of a product you like, you pay them.

And what monthly costs are you referring to? Even Trillian Pro is a one-time fee.

Re:Which article did you read?

[OneBarG]

Trillian doesn't charge for the connection to the networks, the free version does this. They charge for the extra features that go along with the Pro version (plugins, Metacontacts, tech support, etc.). Ironically, the only connection it could be said they charge for is Jabber (which is a plugin that only Pro users can use).

Gaim from CVS works just fine

[Eye of the Frog]

I grabbed the latest Gaim files from CVS after the 24th, and I was back up and running with no problem at all. Thank you to all the Gaim developers for their hard work!

Re:Gaim from CVS works just fine

[soloport]

How can this be?

From the site:
You may have noticed that Yahoo has ceased working. The fix in 0.69 (of which (slightly broken) source packages are currently available) was not adaquate. We're working on the new authentication method now; hopefully it will be cracked soon.

Dated: September 26th, 2003 - 1:55PM EDT

Re:Gaim from CVS works just fine

[john_is_war]

I use trillian and I first noticed yahoo crapping out on Thursday the 25th. You sure you just didn't get a patch to fix the change in protocol which Trillian patched a week prior?

Re:Gaim from CVS works just fine

[zoloto]

CVS = Concurrent Version System (i think)

this means that changes are made regularly and often, however they are not stable not should they be considered so.

Re:Gaim from CVS works just fine

[Eye of the Frog]

I'm not sure I understand your statement. I wrote that I installed Gaim from CVS. I'm sure they did make changes to the protocol in the latest files. Those latest files aren't in an official package, last I checked. But the compile and work with Yahoo's new protocol just fine.

Re:Gaim from CVS works just fine

[Eye of the Frog]

I can only comment on what I see, which is all my Yahoo contacts and the ability to chat with them.:) Maybe there's some more advanced protocol changes that need to be tweeked, but for just chatting, everything seems fine from my end.

ICQ and IRC

[LentoMan]

Another one down, sure the protocol will probably be reverse engineered sooner or later but it's no fun being forced into using a specific client. I hope this doesn't happen to icq, I know it can't happen to IRC so if ICQ gets shut down I guess then only IRC remains for me. Oh well...

Re:Who actually uses Yahoo and MSN instant msgr?

[efextra]

Planet Earth to Planet US> Welcome to Earth!

Re:Who actually uses Yahoo and MSN instant msgr?

[ummmmm]

Interesting question/assertion. I'd love to see real numbers of active users and demographics. In my case, almost everyone I know who uses AIM are teenagers. All my tech friends from work use either Yahoo or MSN (with a few who still also use ICQ). That, or a Trillian-enabled combination.

Re:Trillian patch for yahoo now available (paid on

[base3]

It's not really a fix--just instructions on how to edit the INI file to turn off auto connect to Yahoo. Otherwise Trillian will crash on startup when it tries to connect.

Re:Freeloaders?

[darien]

My guess is that they concluded that, since Linux has such a tiny market share on the desktop, it probably wasn't worth marketing - which allowed them to write a simpler IM client. But while they can afford to let this 2% or whatever (probably an immense overestimate) of their users use the network for free, third party Windows clients have the potential to make far, far larger inroads into their revenue. So... well, you see where I'm going with this.

Trillan 2.0 Supports Jabber

[Bruha]

I dont know how many people actually have paid for Trillan (I have) and god I wish I can get it to work on Linux (Kopete/Gaim are just not as good) but it does support Jabber as a downloadable plugin.

Re:Trillan 2.0 Supports Jabber

[JazzyJ]

Trillian -will- work under linux with the crossover plugin from codeweavers. In fact, it is a supported program!

or you could roll your own wine install.

or....

[_randy_64]

or you'll realize that noone really _wants_ to be in contact with you!

Why don't these services interconnect?

[GRW]

I can pick up my telephone and call any other telephone on the planet, if I know the number, including those on competing telephone services. In Canada, the wireless phone services signed an agreement to allow their subscribers to access to all wireless internet hot spots no matter which provider owns it. The value of a communications service is proportional to the number of people you can communicate with. Why can't these competing IM services interconnect with one another like the telephone services do?

Re:Why don't these services interconnect?

[ajensen]

If this were the case -- that is, they were interconnected -- I think that they would have a hard time advertising for their other services. For example, when a Yahoo! IM user logs on, Yahoo! has many opportunities to advertise their other services, such as searching, and so on.

The same goes for MSN and AOL. If they were interconnected, they would lose that leverage and lose the ability to draw people to their other (read: more profitable) internet services. People could pick any client they wanted to and still be able to talk to their friends and family. IM by itself is probably not a big money-making venture, so they will want to draw as much from it as possible while investing as little as possible.

As an open-source and standards advocate, I would love to see such an integrated network. However, I look at the business-related consequences for the existing networks, and I sigh... for I doubt we'll see it.

hmmm

[ShadowRage]

use jabber.
I'm going to start my own jabber server eventually.
I'm surprised AOL hasnt started a move like this yet, I mean, they're the type who would probably pull this, well, we can safely assume that they're next to pull a major change.

Re: imunified.org

[GRW]

The news article that you linked to has a link to imunified.org. Clicking on it gets this: The registration for IMUNIFIED.ORG has expired.

Finding the real killer

[yerricde]

I'm guessing that if Mr. Simpson's private investigators find the real killers, he can appeal the civil judgment against him on grounds of new evidence.

Re:Finding the real killer

[loucura!]

He could do the same if the LAPD found the real killers... again, I see no reason for him to be responsible for finding them.

Re:Finding the real killer

[Jaysyn]

The LAPD is one of the biggest jokes in California. If Gray Davis had fucked up as much as they have, he'd be imprisoned instead of just recalled.

Jaysyn

Magic: Remove the Y! button from Trillian

[ChozSun]

D:\Program Files\Trillian> rename yahoo.dll yahoo.bak

Now I don't have to worry about connecting to Y! any longer.

At least the new YIM WORKS on RH9

[BFedRec]

I've HAD to use gaim for my YIM needs on my Red Hat 9 machine because for some reason it wouldn't work right (font freakout). Now that they finally updated it though it does work so I'm not totally without YIM, though now I have to have both up to use AIM and YIM at the same time.

CharlesP

Re:ohh yeh...

[Doctor Faustus]

You'd have a point with ICQ, but Yahoo Messenger doesn't display ads.

"By Product" my ass

[nurb432]

Its not a by product of their 'upgrading services'.

This IS an effort to block all 'non revenue' clients.

While it IS their network, and they can block whom ever they choose, I can also can choose to boycott all of yahoo! services due to them being a prick, and get everyone i know to also do so.

If they publish the new protocol, then they still get my business. Unlike another IM network who's parent wont be publishing and will work hard to force out all non native clients

Re:Who actually uses Yahoo and MSN instant msgr?

[sboss]

I am in the US and I have 4+ Yahoo IM accounts and only 1 AOL account. Problem is everyone I know uses something besides AOL. Everyone has been bruned by them in the past. Out of the hundreds of contacts for work (and play) I have 1 aol buddy, and the rest yahoo. So it is not an US vs rest of the planet thing. it just depends on who you are friends with.

Scott

That's all well and good...

[Svartalf]

...so long as they support my chosen OS. Since the messanger client they offer is so hopelessly old and won't work right at all on a modern Linux distribution, I was relying on GAIM to handle that aspect, since I chat with people on ICQ AND Yahoo!.

Now, I'm QUITE pissed at them. Not sure what I'm going to do about it, but you're right- it's their network, they can do with it what they want. But not without some consequences for their actions.

Trillian Pro 2.0 DOES work with Y! now

[e03179]

Patch was released to Pro users.

Uh, I **AM** a Yahoo! customer, thank you...

[Svartalf]

They don't support my OS (Linux) properly with their IM client- the one they offer is so ancient it's pathetic. I DO , however, use their other services quite a lot. I don't think it's a lot to ask them to either support the OS in question or work with some people on our side to provide the same.

Jabber addresses this...

[TrentC]

...with the concept of "presence".

Basically, if you subscribe to my presence notification (and I allow it -- Jabber gives you control over who can receive your presence information), then when I log in, my jabber server sends you and everyone else on my presence list a "jelmore@jabber.org has signed in"-type message. Presence information is handled by the jabber server, which provides some of the "centralization" you're looking for.

Programming Jabber from O'Reilly does a good job of explaining how Jabber works.

Jay

You can block Yahoo IM spam

[TrentC]

Apparently you don't use the Yahoo! IM service. It's to the point I keep the client on a hidden virtual desktop since I don't like my boss walking by and seeing an IM from S3XXEEmama69 inviting me to view her webcam for $3.99/minute.

I do, and I never see those ads. That's because I installed Yahoo's crappy client long enough to check the "Ignore anyone who is not on my Friend list"; I believe that info is stored server-side, because I never seem them whem I am (er, was) using Gaim.

Jay (=

who cares?

[crhylove]

as an avid IM guy, and using all the major protocols (aim, msn, icq, yahoo, jabber, irc), i think it's hillarious that any fuss is made about yahoo. NOBODY uses it, on my long list of contacts. Still, i'd like to see a common standards based protocol rule the roost. who knew?

rhY

New patch released. It *does* work.

[raygundan]

Pay attention. Follow the link. Trillian Pro is patched, and works with yahoo, and no longer needs the "disable autoconnect" workaround from yesterday. (Which was just a stopgap to keep you from crashing while they banged out this new patch.)

Really?

[TrentC]

Well, let's test that theory. I'll install Exodus on my wife's Windows PC sitting next to me.

1. Download the current version
2. Start the installer; it asks you to read and "I Agree" to the GPL, then takes you to a "what do you want to install?" page. (Exodus does not install SSL support by default, but it's not essential.)
3. It asks you which folder you want it stored in, do you want shortcuts on the desktop, blah blah bkah -- basically the same install as 99% of the other crap that people install on Windows every day. It seems to me if people can get KaZaa installed, they can install Exodus.
4. When you launch Exodus for the first time, it asks you for a username. It pre-selects "jabber.org" as your jabber server, asks you to enter a password, and has a checkbox to save your password.
5. I fill in the username "TrentCtest" and my password, check the "save password" box, and try to connect.
6. Exodus tells me there is no account by that name, and asks if I would like to register it.
7. I Click "OK", and it tells me my new Jabber account is registered, and asks if I would like to fill out additional registration information. I decline.

Gee, connecting to Jabber doesn't seem to be any more difficult than connecting to Yahoo and MSN Messenger, and people seem to install those every day as well.

Jay (=

Why?

[pingus]

Why on earth would instant messaging providrs attempt to block third-party clients? I can understand the marketing implications, but inevitably someone is going to reverse-engineer the official client and document their findings. I think this plan is quite silly. If anything Yahoo! and AOL should be happy people are using their service and not the competitors (although I bet they aren't because you aren't seeing the ads they provide.) Perhaps I need to get on making an easy to use protocol like jabber but compatible with official clients from AOL and their ilk...

Jabber Jabber Jabber

[JohnnyGTO]

Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber screw MSN Jabber Jabber screw Yahoo! Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber screw ICQ Jabber Jabber Jabber Jabber..... Do It Yourself with jabber.org

Really?

[fm6]

Was Yahoo not one of the founding members of the IMUnified group, whose sole purpose was to unify with goliaths such as MSFT [yahoo.com] to fight the tyranny of AOL? Aforementioned tyranny being comprised of AOL blocking [com.com] outise clients from accessing their users.

You mean a major corporation has acted hypocritically? Rick, I shocked, shocked!

Move towards business products?

[Random Truth]

Maybe this is part of their move to fee-based IM for businesses. Companies all across the world are statrting to standardize on IM products from companies like Yahoo!, Microsoft and Jabber Inc., much like they standardized on email in the 80's.

My company recently purchased Yahoo!'s corporate IM product and it's pretty cool. It has encryption, I get to use my email ID for my screen name (with domain), it does single sign-on to our LDAP, and it even auto-generates a directory of the people in our company on IM to make it easy to add people to your buddy list. I also heard that they have a version with WebEx in it coming out and my company uses WebEx often.

Re:Trillian patch for yahoo now available (paid on

[base3]

Thanks--grabbed it!

Logging into ICQ started crashing gaim the sameday

[redog]

yahoo banned my client.

Re:Who actually uses Yahoo and MSN instant msgr?

[arkane1234]

I use Yahoo... and so do all of the people I talk to on Yahoo!
That must mean that no one uses AOL!

Re:Trillian patch for yahoo now available (paid on

[catbutt]

Actually, it seems to be a fix. I got their patch for the pay version and I am connected to yahoo now. Trillian rocks.

(btw, i didn't really pay them for it either, I sent them a $5 donation before they came out with the $25 pay version, and they were nice enough to remember me and have given me the pay version along with updates since)

At least Yahoo! is decent with multiple platforms

[MysteriousMystery]

It's Yahoo's chat network and system and I don't see the big deal if they lock out third party clients provided people are still able to use their service. With the Unix versions of Yahoo! Messenger continuing to be updated and ported to various platforms they aren't leaving many users behind. If people want to use Yahoo's chat services there is a version of the client available for nearly everyplatform or at least a way you can use the source file and try to make one, for the Unix clients they even have a "Yahoo! Group" to discuss the development of the client. My issue is with Microsoft who only produces Windows and Mac versions of their messenger client, by locking out third party clients they effectively lock out everyone not using recent versions of their (or Apple who they have a stake in) proprietary OS from their network. I use GAIM but only for MSN messenger since I primarily use Linux as a desktop. With Yahoo! at least they provide a client for nearly every platform and have a fairly open forum in their Ymessenger Yahoo! group to discuss development or make requests, with Microsoft that isn't at all the case.

This is slashdot...

[Jennifer E. Elaan]

... where even the girls can't get dates.

Thank goodness for finger :P

Yahoo patch for Trillian Pro

[Sparks23]

Trillian Pro 2.0 users can download a patch already for Yahoo from the members section. It's been running fine for me and for other Trillian Pro users since it was released. It shouldn't be too long before the older versions of Trillian also have patches.

I expect Gaim, the Jabber Yahoo transports, and other systems will be up and running again within about 24 hours, too. :)

Re:Trillian patch for yahoo now available (paid on

[base3]

I paid $10 back in the day, renewed because they were very nice about fixing up my account when I lost the free email service I had used to register initially. I abhor subscription software, but since paying gives me perpetual right to use, I just think of it as "upgrade insurance," a happy medium between a subscription and outright purchase.