AOL Instant Messenger (
AIM) is an
instant messaging and
presence computer program which uses the
proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the
TOC protocol to allow registered users
to communicate in real time. It was released by
AOL in May 1997. Stand-alone official AIM client
software includes advertisements and is available for
Microsoft Windows,
Mac
OS,
Mac OS X, and
Linux.
The software, maintained by AOL, LLC, has the
largest share of the instant messaging market in North America,
especially in the United
States
(with 52% of the total reported as of 2006).
This does not include other instant messaging software related to
or developed by AOL, such as
ICQ and
iChat.
History
In September 1995, the "Buddy List" precursor to AIM was launched
internally to AOL employees. The standalone AIM became available to
non-subscribers May 1997. The release of AIM came over a decade
after AOL's previous
QuantumLink
incarnation had offered "On-Line Messages" (OLMs) to its
subscribers.
Since version 2.0, AIM has included person-to-person instant
messaging, chatroom messaging, and the ability to share files
Peer-to-peer with one's buddies.
Version 4.3 introduced the storing of one's contact list on AOL's
servers and allowed for a maximum of 200 buddies to be stored. In
addition, in the 4.x versions, the AIM client for
Microsoft Windows added the ability to
play games against one another using the
Wild Tangent engine. The first version released
with
WildTangent did not warn the user
that it was going to be installed. Newer versions do, due to the
fact that many spyware scanners flag the WildTangent software as
spyware.
AIM
version 5.5 allowed Windows users to video conference with each other and with
users of Apple,
Inc.
's previously released iChat. Later updates led the version of AIM to
version 5.9.
The successor to AIM version 5.9 was originally named AIM Triton.
Compared with version 5.9, Triton's programming code was
rewritten and featured a brand new UI
engine called
Boxely. The
first
beta version of
Triton (0.1.12) supported only
Windows XP
upon its release. For the first time in the development of a new
version of AIM, these preliminary versions were made publicly
available on the AIM home page for any user to test and provide
feedback.
On September 29, 2006, Triton was renamed to AIM 6.0 and a new beta
version was made available. This version slightly changed the UI .
The
final
stable version
of AIM 6.0 was released on December 15; new features included
connection to
AIM Pages, additional
customization, and compatibility with
address book programs and sites through a
"Universal Address Book" powered by
Plaxo.
Additionally, the upgrade unified away messages and general user
updates into
RSS feeds and added the
ability to send messages to offline users. Certain features that
were missing from the previous version were also re-added, such as
global font customization and a smaller cache usage, although the
Get File function has yet to return. Also new in this release was
the
opening of
AIM to developers, which allowed anyone to create plug-ins or
custom AIM clients for Windows, Macintosh, or Linux.
The next version, 6.1, added Buddy List docking, support for
inserting images into Buddy Info, the ability to change the
highlight colors of the UI, improvements to the displaying of
Linked Screen Names, several bug fixes, and improved
Windows Vista support.
Version 6.5.11.1 supports status messages (similar to away
messages), and has improved cell phone integration.
Protocol
The standard protocol that AIM clients use to communicate is called
OSCAR. Most AOL-produced versions of
AIM and popular third party AIM clients use this protocol. However,
AOL also created a simpler protocol called
TOC that lacks many of OSCAR's features but is
sometimes used for clients that only require basic chat
functionality. The TOC/TOC2 protocol specifications were made
available by AOL, while OSCAR is a closed protocol that third
parties have had to reverse-engineer.
In January 2008, AOL introduced
XMPP support for
AIM, allowing AIM users to communicate using the standardized,
open-source
Extensible Messaging
and Presence Protocol. However, in March 2008 this service was
discontinued.
Terminology
AIM and AOL use several terms for elements of their instant
messaging, which are different from other messengers. These
include:
- Away
message: A function of some instant messaging
applications whereby a user may post a message that appears
automatically to other users if they attempt to make contact when
the user is unavailable. It is analogous to the voice message on an
answering machine or voice mail system.
- Block: An AIM user may block a specific screen
name on their buddy list. The blocked user cannot contact or see
the status of the blocker. Both users in this case will always see
each other as offline until the blocker "unblocks" them.
- Buddy Info: Information about the user that
may be edited by the user. The user's buddies are able to view the
information as a pop-up. There is a character limit that cannot be
exceeded.
- Buddy List: The centerpiece of AIM, a list
containing the status of up to 1000 buddies stored on an AIM server
so the user can access this list from any instance of AIM. The
status of the buddies can be seen as 'online', 'away', 'idle',
'mobile', or 'offline'.
- Direct connection: AIM users can, instead of
relaying messages through the AIM server, connect to each other's
computers directly via this method and send various forms of
media.
- Screen
name: Term for user name with
AOL origins. These are available for free with registration at the
AIM website.
- Rate limiting, which prevents a user from
sending too many messages in a short amount of time. Once a user is
rate limited, they are unable to send messages for 20– 30 seconds,
but may still receive messages during this time period.
- Warning: If a user feels a received instant
message is inappropriate, the recipient can "warn" the sender,
which increases the sender's warning level. Warning levels reduce
the rate at which users can send messages and can eventually cause
a given screen name to be unable to sign-on for a period of time.
Since it was often abused, the feature is no longer supported in
AIM Triton or AIM 6, although warnings have not been disabled
server, meaning that older AIM
clients, third-party clients, or user-written add-ons may still
allow users to bypass the "soft" removal of warning
capabilities.
- An AIM Closed List, Allow
Only, Buddies Only, or
Privacy refers to the option on the AOL Instant
Messenger client to allow only users on a user's buddy list to
contact them. This is to prevent harassment or spamming and is also a secure way to
chat.
- Icon: A small, personalized picture that a
user can set up to appear whenever they message another user. Also
referred to as an avatar.
Privacy
AIM is different from other clients such as
Yahoo Messenger in that it does not require
approval from one buddy to be added to another's buddy list. As a
result, it is possible for users to keep other unsuspecting users
on their buddy list to see when they are online, read their status
and away messages, and read their profiles. However, one can block
another user from communicating and also enhance privacy by
selecting a menu option allowing communication only with those on
one's buddy list.
Bots
AOL and various other companies supply robots on AIM that can
receive messages and send a response based on the bot's purpose.
For example, bots can help with studying, like StudyBuddy. Some are
made to relate to children and teenagers, like
Spleak, others give advice, and others are for more
general purposes, such as
SmarterChild.
Prior to the inclusions of such bots, the bots DoorManBot and
AIMOffline provided features that are provided today by AOL for
those who needed it.
ZolaOnAOL and
ZoeOnAOL were short lived bots that
ultimately retired their features in favor of SmarterChild.
URI scheme
AOL Instant Messenger's installation process automatically installs
an extra
URI scheme ("protocol") handler
into some web browsers, so URIs beginning "
aim:" can open
a new AIM window with specified parameters. This is similar in
function to the
mailto: URI scheme, which creates a new
e-mail message using the system's default mail program. For
instance, a web page might include a link like the following in its
HTML source to open a window for sending a message to the AIM user
notarealuser:
<a href="aim:goim?screenname=notarealuser">Send Message</a>
To specify a message body, the
message parameter is
used, so the link location might look like this:
aim:goim?screenname=notarealuser&message=This+is+my+message
To specify an away message, the message parameter is used, so the
link location might look like this:
aim:goaway?message=Hello,+my+name+is+Bill
When placing this inside a URL link, an AIM user could click on the
URL link and the away message "Hello, my name is Bill" would
instantly become their away message.
To add a buddy, the addbuddy message is used, with the screenname
parameter
aim:addbuddy?screenname=notarealuser
This type of link is commonly found on forum profiles, for easy
adding of contacts
Vulnerabilities
AIM is known for security weaknesses that have enabled
exploits to be created that use
third-party software to perform malicious acts on users' computers.
Although most are relatively harmless, such as being kicked off the
AIM service, others perform potentially dangerous actions such as
harvesting
IP Addresses and the sending
of
viruses. Some of these exploits
rely on
social
engineering to spread by automatically sending instant messages
that contain a
URL
accompanied by text suggesting the receiving user click on it, an
action which leads to infection. These messages can easily be
mistaken as coming from a friend and contain a link to a web
address that installs software on the user's computer to restart
the cycle.
Extra Features
iPhone Application
On March
6, 2008, during Apple
Inc.
's iPhone SDK event, AOL
announced that they would be releasing an AIM application for
iPhone and iPod
Touch users. The application is available for free from
the App Store, but the company also provides a paid version which
displays no advertisements. Both are available from the
App Store. The AIM client for
iPhone and
iPod Touch
supports standard
AIM accounts as well as
MobileMe accounts. (MobileMe is a service
which Apple offers. It costs a $99 fee per year and provides
e-mail, calendar, contacts, web hosting, cloud storage and syncing.
The email also functions as an IM account.) There is also an
express version of AIM accessible through the
Safari browser on the
iPhone
and
iPod Touch.
AIM Express
AIM Express runs in a pop-up browser window. It is intended for use
by people who are unwilling or unable to install a standalone
application or those at computers that lack the AIM application.
AIM Express supports many of the standard features included in the
stand-alone client, but does not provide advanced features like
file transfer, audio chat, video conferencing, or buddy info. It is
implemented in
DHTML. It is an upgrade to the
previous AOL Quick Buddy, which was later available for older
systems that cannot handle Express before being discontinued.
Express and Quick Buddy are similar to
MSN Web Messenger and
Yahoo! Web Messenger.
AIM Pages
AIM Pages was released in May 2006,
allowing the 63 million AIM users to create an online, dynamic
profile. The buddy list serves as the basis for the AIM Page
social network. An AIM Page is built
using modules following the ModuleT
microformat.
AIM for Mac
AOL released an all-new AIM for the
Macintosh on September 29, 2008 and the final
build on December 15, 2008. The redesigned AIM for Mac is a full
universal binary Cocoa API application that supports both Tiger and
Leopard -
Mac OS X 10.4.8 (and above) or
Mac OS X 10.5.3 (and above). On October 1,
2009, AOL released AIM 2.0 for Mac.
Merge with Bebo
On February 25, 2009, AOL Instant Messenger merged with
Bebo, another instant messenger community. A note
appeared for all users stating "Changes are coming to your profile
experience!"
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