AOL Will Discontinue AIM on December 15, 2017 (after 20 years)

[LASER_oneXM]

AOL will be shutting down AIM after 20 years of existence, on December 15, 2017, the company announced today.

The company said users will be able to use the service until the cut-off date and they will be able to download and install copies of the application until a few days before its end-of-life date.

AOL IDs, emails not affect
AOL said it plans to discontinue the instant messenger's infrastructure only. AOL email addresses (@aol.com) will continue to work as normal after December 15.

Data associated with AIM, such as files and past conversation logs, will also be deleted. AOL has advised users to save any files before the cut-off date.

The company left clues that it was planning to shut down AIM since earlier this year when it cut down access to AIM data to third-party apps.

AOL does not plan to offer a replacement instant messaging client for users.

End of an era after 20 years
The America Online Instant Messaging client, later rebranded as AIM, was the first major IM client to catch with the masses and was soon followed by MSN Messenger, ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, and the recent wave of mobile IM clients such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Signal, and others.

The AIM client was never popular outside the US, and it didn't age too well either.

 

[insanity]

Today I learned there is an IM client made by AOL! . Sure it's not going to be missed.

 

[LASER_oneXM]

AOL is one of the pioneers of the internet: back in the early 90's the IM client from AOL was my first messenger. I have been using it for a quite long period of time over my first dial up connection (i guess the bandwith was: 64 kb/s) to the internet...

 

[Danielx64]

Never used it but I remember reading all about in the 90s.

 

[Antimalware18]

I used AIM heavily from 2005-2009. Met alot of current friends through it as well

wow, this is like a shot to the heart.

 

[arslan ejaz]

Ahhh what was those times. Surely time fly. AIM will be missed. Brings backs a lot of memories.