AOL Intsant Messanger concerns....

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:17 pm

So last year our PC started to slow down quite a bit-to the point where my Dad had this tech support lady from his office come and look at the PC. At the time, I was using AIM, and she said that whatever was slowing our PC down (I forget what she said it was) was coming through AIM. She fixed the problem, but recommended that I uninstall AIM, so I did and quit using it.

I don't understand what could've come through AIM to mess up our PC so bad, because my Dad does some work at home, on the weekends, through MS Outlook and a program called Remote Desktop, and we've had no problems from that.

I'd really love to start using AIM again, but I really don't want to screw up our PC. We do have Adaware, Spybot, and Norton Antivirus, and I do check for updates on these.

moozooh · Post by **moozooh** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:20 pm

Use a third-party client that supports AIM protocol. I use Miranda for that purpose.

Using a third-party client for instant messaging needs is always a good choice, since all the first-party ones are either utter crap, or even worse.

junkeR · Post by **junkeR** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:29 pm

Pidgin
http://pidgin.im/

indstr · Post by **indstr** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:35 pm

i can also vouch for pidgin. it's great. it also connects to icq, msn, yahoo, and maybe some other networks too. used to be called "Gaim" but they had to change the name due to trademark issues i guess

Ozymandiaz1260 · Post by **Ozymandiaz1260** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 9:48 pm

I use trillian.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:08 pm

Ok, so once I download something like this, how do I put it in AIM, so to speak-or do you just download and install it, and then use AIM?

crithit5000 · Post by **crithit5000** » Mon Apr 14, 2008 11:17 pm

All-in-ones like like Pidgin or Trillian don't require AIM at all, they just connect to AIM's (or MSN's or Yahoo!'s or whatever) ports and let you yap away.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:40 am

crithit5000 wrote:All-in-ones like like Pidgin or Trillian don't require AIM at all, they just connect to AIM's (or MSN's or Yahoo!'s or whatever) ports and let you yap away.

Very cool, I'll have to give it a go then-thanks for the information!

themachinist · Post by **themachinist** » Tue Apr 15, 2008 2:06 am

I also use pidgin and haven't had any problems.
If you're wary of software, you could always use meebo.com
Meebo has the major chat clients and opens up in the browser only.

dave4shmups · Post by **dave4shmups** » Wed Apr 16, 2008 12:13 am

Cool! I wonder if I'll have to create a new username and password; I can't remember what my old one's were.