Yes sir they did it again. AOL has managed to take a great concept like instant messaging and garble it up into a huge mess of advertising and only very limited features. I am talking of coarse about AIM, AOL Instant Messenger. This sorry excuse for a messaging system's only good point is the vast number of people willing to use it. Even Yahoo's Instant messenger is a huge step above this one. Do not assume that I am doing this out of my complete hatred of AOL. Instead allow me to show you why it is the worst virus to have ever been created.

The main thing that is displayed while you are logged onto AIM is a tall rectangular window of which 25% is used to advertise AOL's latest gimmick. These constantly running advertisements can slow an already slow connection down to a trickle.

Next is their nice, but hardly original layout of your "buddies". There are several default categories that you friends and other people you know can fit into. This is not really a bad feature of AIM, but it is hardly any different from the other main instant messaging services.

They have very simple to see and understand buttons for the basic tools that you will need while using it. They are always right there below the names of your contacts. The other nice feature that AIM has is the voice chat. Again they are not even close to being the only company to have voice chats with their instant messaging system. You are also not able to spam a single person on AIM because of their one unique feature. They have a small color bar below the send button that gradually turns from green to yellow and finally to red. Yellow and red do not allow you to send another message. Then slowly the bar builds back up to green. This and AIM's huge member base is the only reason I will not be giving this program a level 1 rating.

One last thing that is hardly worth mentioning about AIM is that, in a Macintosh system, it integrates itself with the top menu bar. So that just to the right of the time, also just to the left of the running applications list, it has a little icon that allows you instant access to signing on and then sending messages. You can decide for yourself if this is a good feature or a bad feature. My sister, who is the only person in my family who uses AIM, loves it. As for me I can not stand it.

Overall AIM, AOL instant messenger, is another one of AOL's advertising schemes. Try another one that does not give away your desktop space to advertisers.





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