Staff Reporter

If you’ve used AOL’s Instant Messenger client for any length of time you may have been struck by some of its inadequacies. With advertisements above your buddy list, cumbersome menus, and some expected features lacking, AOL’s client leaves users with something to be desired.

Luckily, many alternatives and add-ons to AOL’s client have much to offer in the way of improvements and additional features. Software publishers looking to offer a better chatting experience have developed into two groups: those that modify and improve AOL’s existent client and those that choose to create an entirely new client compatible with AOL’s protocol. Both approaches have inherent benefits and drawbacks, but neither is universally superior.

Add-on programs, or plug-ins, for AIM are more abundant than alternative stand-alone clients. They serve to enhance and augment AIM’s capabilities, without entirely replacing AOL’s familiar client. Commonly, they feature IM/chat logging, ad removal, screen name aliasing, and tabbed message windows. The add-ons currently available vary only slightly from one another. Most offer a very similar and expected set of features and integrate themselves as submenus of the “My AIM” menu.

Of the plug-ins offered by various software publishers online a few stand out thanks to their completeness and usability. DeadAIM (http://www.jdennis.net), previously my favorite of the group, works very smoothly and integrates well; however, it’ll cost you $5.

Palfun (http://www.palfun.com), which happens not to be very well known, offers a couple of fun skins in addition to a wealth of features for free; however, this software is a little buggy with the current version of AIM. Of all of these, I currently consider a plug-in called middle_man (http://www.middleman.krunchsoftware.com) the best of the bunch. It is available for free and offers well-organized options and many useful features. Middle_man is being actively developed and works smoothly with the latest versions of AIM. One thing that it lacks is the ability to group all IM windows into one tabbed window. Otherwise, it is a near perfect accessory to AIM that is easy to use and installs (and uninstalls) cleanly.

However, plug-ins are fairly limited in the features that they can offer. They are bounded by the limitations of AOL’s client. Additionally, as AOL releases new versions of its client, old add-ons become less stable and eventually become nearly useless if they are not updated for the new versions. If you are looking for a more drastic change to your AIM experience I would recommend a replacement client.

There are few full-featured alternative clients available, of which only two are worth considering. Gaim, an open-source multi-platform multi-protocol instant messaging solution is an exciting option. Alternatively, Trillian offers a very smooth interface and some really unique features. The two are very different but they both offer access to all of your buddies on AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, ICQ, and IRC.

Gaim (http://www.gaim.sourceforge.net) offers many expected features as well as a few plug-ins and themes. A creative feature allows grouping contacts with more than one account name under “identities” that conveniently expand and contract. Gaim is an open-source project that is frequently updated and improved. Unlike most other clients, it can run on multiple operating systems: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Trillian (http://www.trillian.cc), on the other hand, is Windows-only software. It is addictively good-looking, very slick, and offers a few innovative features: Trillian provides encyclopedia-like information relevant to chats, and will remind you of previous conversations you’ve had with the people you talk to. It is definitely worth a try. The basic version, which has all you’ll likely need, is available for free. An enhanced ‘pro’ version, costing $25, is also offered.

AOL, however, is not thrilled by the prospect of losing potential advertising revenue to alternative software that can come to compete with its product. AOL had long ago released an open-source protocol, called TOC, specifically designed for third-party developers; however, it has limited functionality, allowing only basic message sending and receiving. Clients that use TOC cannot offer access to away messages, profiles, buddy icons, and file transfers, all of which are handled by AOL’s closed protocol called OSCAR (Open System for Communication in Realtime).

Many replacement clients, however, are using OSCAR successfully despite AOL’s decision to keep their protocol private. All of the information currently known about how OSCAR works was derived through reverse engineering. This means that if AOL made a fundamental change to OSCAR, they could immobilize any alternative client that depended on it. Additionally, AOL could choose not to allow alternative clients access to their system. However, none of this has seemed to be a problem in the past several years that these clients have existed.