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AOL to Replace AIM with Triton
An anonymous reader writes "BetaNews is reporting that AOL has begun beta testing a replacement for its AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) software. Triton has an entirely new user interface that adds highly anticipated features including tabbed messaging and logging. The client will also be open to third party plug-ins." From the article: "It is no coincidence that AOL is fielding so many betas concurrently. AOL Browser, an Internet Explorer based Web browser; AOL Media Player, a standalone audio and video player; AOL search technologies and AOL's synchronization utilities are all part of what was once a unified communications client called Fanfare."
Pretty interesting stuff. Hopefully it wont suck like the latest AIM versions...
"OMG WTF?!?!?"
Sounds familiar
I'll stick with trillian...
Stuff that programs like Trillian (Windows), GAIM (windows, Linux), Fire (osx), and Dead AIM (Windows, add on) have had for years.
And then VoIP? Skype...
Nothing new to see here, move along...
adds highly anticipated features including tabbed messaging and logging
I've been using this for quite a while, though. It's called Gaim.
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
It is worth noting that this is still an early beta.
I installed it this morning and had frequent crashes so I switched back to the regular 5.9 version.
Here's a select quote from the betanews forums:
"Why is it that so many small or independent developers give us so much quality software, often without reward, and huge companies like AOL can only spit out this bloated garbage?"
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
A lot of those features touted in the headline are features that I've been using for years with alternative clients. Oh, but what's this? Support for VOIP? Address books? Plug-in architechture? Now it's sounding more interesting. I may have to start using the AIM client again.
Answering another user grievance, AOL will pair down the number of preference options in AIM, taking what it refers to as a "smarter approach." A spokesperson said that the current AIM client was heavy with preferences because, "We couldn't decide one way or another."
But they still tacked on tons of ads and annoying pop-up windows, the dumb approach. Hopefully the new version will be ad-free and user friendly. Is this possible?
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
Just as a clarification, this is *not* a new protocol. This is a new client that integrates the AIM protocol and functionality with other services.
Trion!!!
Now with bigger, more explosive ads!
features such as logging and tabbed conversations. cutting edge innovations? ha! i think not. maybe they should call it agaim or something. now they're taking stuff back.
4 80209/triton.png screenshot they are quite clearly trying to replicate MSN 6 to 'please' users. same ugly style. expect similar bloat.
looking at http://images.betanews.com/betanews/articles/1114
I think now I'll write a P2P application that runs on top of Triton called Tritonster. When AOL inevitably sues me for trademark infringement I'll claim that my daughter's nickname has been Tritonee for some time.
Sounds like a winning business plan to me!
I'm a big tall mofo.
They say they will be opening up to third party developers.
I checked the acccore.dll file, and seems to have some pretty extensive hooks. All the same, this is entirely client-side.
Recently, they have been clamping down more and more on third-party developers of services on the network. For example, a free offline messaging service, DoorManBot was forced offline for a few days recently. Hopefully, this new spirit of being open to developers will carry through.
Send offline messages on AIM with DoorManBot
I live in Canada so have never used AIM. I am, however, an avid user of Trillian and GAIM over ICQ and MSN. Now I'm not sure if it's just me, but offering tabbed chatting and logging features doesn't seem that impressive to me. Honestly, I wouldn't use a client that didn't log conversations and offer some type of window control.
I didn't RTFM, but I hope that those aren't the best features that Triton has to offer...
"Isn't AIM something only people with AOL use?"
Yeah, not very many of those people around.. </sarcasm>
Go ahead and kill the ads. Now, will you be moving?
Send offline messages on AIM with DoorManBot
With the advances in CD/DVD burning and buffer underrun protection, I've not made any coasters in a really long time.
It's like c'mon, what else can I put my cup/glass on? I don't even get the Bell sympatico CDs anymore either.
Cheap bastards. Don't they know their CDs are actually worth something to me?
it'll be like....trillian 0.9B!!
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
Triton was completely re-written from scratch using a new GUI toolkit called "Boxely", which was derived from Mozilla's XUL. As a result, this new AIM is extremely extensible, and hackable.
.box). These contain the code that drives the entire product. You can easily modify and extend AIM, just as you can write extensions for Firefox with XUL. This is no accident, AOL wants developers to build on AIM as a platform.
Poke around in C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL\AIMBeta\services and you'll find a bunch of javascript and xml files (ending in
When I worked at AOL, I developed Boxely as a fun side project. I left the company a year ago, but they kept my project alive and now seem to be building real software with it. I probably should have open sourced it from the beginning.
On my blog I've written more about Boxely and how it compares to XUL: http://www.joehewitt.com/
Just what does this client do that it needs more than a 600mhz computer?
I got the installer, which was annoying as it's not even an installer at all but an install-getter, and it immediately prompted me with the message "Your computer does not meet the minimum system requirements to download and install AIM® Beta."
The client will also be open to third party plug-ins.
Yay! More ways for spyware and viruses to take control of your computer! And propagate themselves to your friends' computers too. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
I totally get your point- being able to talk with people using different clients is from one source is handy. But I don't think Trillian is the killer app people make it out to be. I've used it, and yeah it's OK, but Trillian is basically just an IM client aggregator- it doesn't provide any messaging capabilities itself, I don't find any of its own features that useful, you still have to have an account with each service you want to use, and until recently that was kind of a pain in the ass (cue flaming arrows).
It's not like Trillian does anything super fantastic, if you look at the new features Trillian has like the bio thing, it's just AIM profiles. There's no tabbed messaging, as far as I know Trillian doesn't support VOIP (in TFA they say Triton will), and there's no plugin support (again TFA says that will be in there).
I think the plugins is going to be where it's at- look how much they've helped the popularity of Mozilla and Firefox. When you have an app and think "damn, I wish it did [THAT]" and then you can either go find it or write your own, that's fucking sweet. For me, waiting for the next release and wondering if it's in there sucks.
R(k)
I know AOL doesn't have a record of doing smart things, but if they actually make the client non-shitty, it can only help. People won't generally switch to Gaim and Trillian, because they don't know the company. People want a name brand. We see this with Linux vs. Windows and such.
So if they actually make a better client, maybe one that instantly kills noob fuxx0rs, the world will be a better place.
"It is no coincidence that AOL is fielding so many betas concurrently."
What, did they get bought by Google?
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Sounds like they were paying attention to Adium, which is webkit rather than gecko based but otherwise sounds similar.
Well, except that Adium works with just about every IM service out there.
AOL bought them a few years ago for 350 million and didnt do anything with it. ICQ had everything AIM didnt why dont they just use ICQ.
It's been a while since i used AIM(I use trillian instead), but do new windows pop up *and* give focus ?
Always hated that. You're typing in the first half of a sentence to person A, and right at that moment Person B messages you, and you accidentally end up tying the rest of the sentence to person B. '
Of course if you're shit-talking about person B, you end up with egg on your fae.
...like using pure Flash for advertisements?
I had to switch to GAIM not for any particular feature, but to get rid of the advertising.
Seemed the version of AIM I was using at the time allowed Flash advertisements with sound, and the sound completely ignored my other settings in the AIM client to turn all sounds off.
so here i am, in my quiet little room trying to get work done, and suddenly I get interrupted by a trailer for some movie coming from the one app that should have been totally silent.
I was not amused.
and AIM was off my box in seconds.
"But remember, most lynch mobs aren't this nice." (H.Simpson)
-- Joe
There's no tabbed messaging
Tabbed messaging has been in Trillian since 2.0. See here.
you still have to have an account with each service you want to use
For at least a couple of the services, you can do this right through Trillian (for the others, it loads up a web page just like the official client does). I don't see how this is any different than what you'd do with an official client.
Trillian is basically just an IM client aggregator- it doesn't provide any messaging capabilities itself
Well, being an IM client aggregator pretty much makes it a killer app in itself (yes, I know there are others, but that alone instantly puts it a rung above all "official" IM clients, as does the lack of ads).
Being nicely designed and skinnable puts it yet again a step above even most other aggregators. Trillian 3.0 is so far ahead of any other IM client in terms of clean visual presentation throughout that it's not even funny. All apps should look this good by default, and if by some remote chance you don't like it, you can just download a new skin. The entire UI is skinnable, not just the outer edges. It also supports all sorts of plugins, from RSS readers to IM forwarders to weather.
Having features like tabbed messaging and 128-bit encryption is yet another point in its favor. No other freely downloadable Windows-based IM clients have these features, that I know of.
In short, Trillian does a lot of things, does some things no other IM client does, and everything it does do, it does well. AOL is apparently copying many of the features of Trillian in Triton, which should tell you something - I don't personally know anyone who actually uses the regular AIM client anymore.
First they are copying Gaim... next well see a CLI version like Naim for the windows CMD. http://handhelds.freshmeat.net/projects/naim/
... "Triton" should read "Gaim"
Gaim, my own preferred IM client, is available as a free downloadable win32 exe. It supports just about every protocol (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, jabber, IRC, etc), has tabbed messaging, and also lacks ads.
Since it's gtk2 based, you can apply whatever themes you want to it (and it will also integrate into your desktop that way if you happen to run it under linux). And the free gaim-encryption plugin allows secure messaging as well, in an easy to setup/use interface. In addition to all these features, it's Free, unlike Trillian.
Is it me or does loading gaim screw up people's buddylist? By screwing up, I'm referring more to the order of the buddies, than actually removing buddies.
I've stayed far far away after using it several times and it always happens.
On the other hand, plugins for tabbed messaging and logging already exist. AOL just likes to "upgrade" whenever such a plugin exist and breaks the plugin. I think many of them have just given up seeing that there's a lack of motiviation recently since none of the aim patches support the latest version.
The aim patches I know about include:
* DeadAIM
* middle_man
* AIM+
HD Trailers
Yeah, I hear it even connects to multiple IM services, and will be open source.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
ICQ is still the big thing over here in germany. I have only two people that use AOL on my contact list, none use MSN, none YIM. You can add AIM-Contacts through any ICQ-Client and vice versa by simply using AIM handle or ICQ number... You can even _connect_ to the AIM Server with your ICQ data and it uses your contact list! The problem about it is your contacts show up as ICQ numbers, not names. Even regarding using AIM-Contacts over ICQ servers I still prefer a multi-protocol client so that I don't show up im AIM as 98667484 or whatever my ICQ number is.
I once tried to drop adium in favour of iChat (can do only AIM) because it's a nice software, but all my contacts showed up as numbers (as explained) and I had to enter their names manually. I switched back. It even messed up the server-side list, I sometimes use a WAP ICQ service and it started to show only numbers, too. maybe with Jabber support in Tiger I will try again.
I personally don't find the taskbar functionality lacking at all (and the "plugin" comes packaged with gaim). Almost every feature you need is included, or comes as an easy to use plugin. My blurb about gtk2 was intended to show that yes, you can do "skinning" with gaim, and as a bonus, in a way that can interoperate with other applications (which happens to be mostly irrelevant in win32). Your inability to select an appealing theme for your tastes is most certainly not the fault of gtk2 or gaim.
Your complaints make it sound like you have tried gaim in a long time. It has come a long way recently, and you should try it again, in my opinion, before blasting it so much.
And finally, Trillian may be "free", but it is not "Free", as I had posted. For some people, the ability to make changes to the source actually has some usefulness. Plus, you can redistribute it basically however you wish.
A/S/L?
I don't speak a sign language, unfortunately.