AIM Clients

This is just a scratch page for me to send the Retro AIM Server project on supported 3rd party AIM clients I've tested

Windows testing is done on a Windows XP (32-bit) virtual machine with all updates applied

Mac testing is done on OS X 10.6.8 via Proxmox

Linux testing is done on Ubuntu 5.04 (32-bit) via Proxmox but may be augmented in future with different distros

All testing was performed on CGHMN to simplify packet captures. IP addresses do not reflect the ones used by regular RAS clients

This test isn't likely to be 100% coverage because I'm not going to test *every build* of every client. But should give users a general direction for further testing

Submissions are also welcome. Please feel free to email me or send me a message on Mastodon

TESTED WORKING

Windows

Regular AIM. Pretty much all of these up to 6.1 (at time of writing) are tested and working. 6.1 should work on everything from Windows 9x/NT 4.0 through to Windows 11

AIM 1.5 also works on Windows 3.11 with Win32s. AIM 1.7 refuses to install (requires Win95) but may also work under 3.11 with some tweaking (untested)

Mac

Adium X 1.0.6 (x86) works! (PPC untested but presumed working)

Adium 1.3.10 (x86) works! (PPC untested but presumed working)

iChat 5.0.3 on OS X 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) x86 works!

iChat on OS X Leopard (PPC or x86 unspecified) works!

AIM for OS 9 (PPC) works!

Linux

gAIM 1.1.4 (Ubuntu 5.04) works. Though users will show as offline to other client(s) for several minutes. Bug filed

TiK 0.90 (Ubuntu 5.04) works! Though needs to be run as root for some reason?

TESTED NOT WORKING

Windows

Miranda 0.10.80 - Queries slogin.oscar.aol.com (fixed) but fails to connect. No errors printed by the client. Client also corrupts its database file if exited and relaunched - Packet dump available here

Mac

Adium 1.4.5 - Queries api.screenname.aol.com (fixed) and attempts to connect over HTTPS. Fails due to no SSL support currently - Packet dump available here

Linux

Ayttm 0.4.6-26 - Fails to connect to toc.oscar.aol.com (fixed) then returns 400 bad request from Nginx(?) - Packet dump available here

Centreicq 4.13.0 - I have no goddamn idea how to use this client. But it seems to do...something? then eventually just shows [aim] disconnected - Packet dump available here

Kopete 0.10 - Attempts to connect but never completes. No errors reported from client - Packet dump available here

naim 0.11.7.2 - Seems to connect to its own TOC server toc.n.ml.org (???) (fixed) but fails to connect. Client logging enabled but did not produce any log files - Packet dump available here

UNTESTED

Adium X 0.89.1 - Fails to launch on OS X 10.6.8 (x86)

iChat v??? on OS X 10.7 (Lion) was the final client revision is currently untested as I cannot get it to successfully boot under Proxmox

Finch - Seems to be a plugin for Pidgin(?) to enable text mode chat instead of using a GUI?

Instantbird - Originally a Pidgin plugin. Later became its own stand-alone client. Development halted in 2013(?) with download servers unavailable. Downloaded final v1.5 via 3rd party FTP server but was unable to launch due to missing dependencies on Ubuntu 5.04

Jitsi - Cannot find old versions. Application seems to be more geared toward SIP and video conferencing?

Messages - Beta version was released for OS X 10.7 which I can't run under Proxmox currently

Quiet Internet Pager - Seems like possible malware? Judging by the quality of its Wikipedia page. Final version also was for PDA's instead of Windows(???)

TNT - Probably works? Last updated in 2006 and claims to support the "TOC2 protocol" (OSCAR?). But it's an Emacs client. I don't know how to use Emacs, let alone add AIM to it

VSide. Looks like a weird...SecondLife knockoff? Development halted in 2018 but it was never a messaging client. Just had AIM support attached to it