When AIM launched in 1997, using the World Wide Web required a desktop computer with a dial-up connection that tied up the phone lines and angered brothers and sisters all over the world. Many will remember late night study sessions chatting with buddies instead of studying and illegally downloading albums by Metallica and Radiohead and sharing them via AIM. Now I know that I have some negative experiences with this program, but you will find, especially if you are in the United States, that a lot of your friends may have this program, and to keep in touch with them you will need AIM or a multi-messenger client that is compatible with the AIM network.AIM was one of the first and most successful instant messengers, widely used in the late '90s and even throughout the 2000s.

Unacceptable! This program didn't take into account that one could be popular on the Internet. Now if someone posts your screenname in a public place, you'll have over 100 people trying to chat with you the very second you come online. That being said, I still don't like this program, and it's one of those I log into when I have to reach someone that doesn't have any of the other messengers.ĪIM is very popular in the United States, and no AOL email address is required to use it - a common requirement of competing messengers.įinding a screen name for yourself that isn't taken is very hard, and because of these weird screen names, you may, for example, forget that your friend John is Jboi881111.Īnother flaw (and I don't want to do the gruntwork to know if it's been fixed in a new version) is that when someone adds you to their buddies list, you are added, and they can chat you up when you come online.

The annoyances and lack of privacy issues have been taken care of in new versions such as invisibility, tabbed chatting and the noise, oh gawd, no, the noise! I've written about AOL Instant Messenger ( AIM) before, but it seems a little out of date.

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