Well I noticed that all the reviews for AIM have been positive so far so I decided to put a different spin on this review - and show the negative side of Aim. I really had to nit-pick AIM for some of these but I figure somebody has to do a review which actually talks about the negative features:


To register a name, or not to?

Well one of the hardest things to do in AIM (actually probably the only hard part) is registering a user name. Unless you have a VERY original name you might as well forget anything else - movie star names, show names, or anything else which might be common household language will be taken. Sometimes the registering server is down so it just keeps telling you the name has been taken, which become quite irritating.

Put a few buddies on there

You'll also quickly notice that when you want to add or subtract a buddy from your buddy list you'll have to painstakingly search through the entire list which is arranged in no particular order. People have been complaining about this for ages but the list is still randomly displayed.

Punters

It seems like with every new release of AIM a few experienced hackers release a new "punter" - a device which allows AIM users to kick other AIM users. It becomes VERY ANNOYING when one of your buddies decides to "punt" you just for laughs. By the way, did I mention you can get a punter by typing "AIM punter" in on any search site? Once again this has been an age old problem with AIM (I used a punter once a few years back, but it got annoying), and AOL has taken little to no action.

Offline Messages

So say one of your buddies isn't on but you want to send him a message to recieve later, much like ICQ does. Well that's just too bad says AOL. They've managed to create voice chat, games, buddy sounds, and just about every other gadget under to sun for aim but they can't do an offline message tool?

Go away AIM!

Well it seems AIM automatically launches everytime you start your computer - but that's easy to turn off right? Unless you know what menus to look under that too can be a challenge; no it's not impossible but I'm nit-picking here. Additionally, it launches an annoying AIM news bar everytime, but that's easy to exit out of. Finally, it's a shame you can't have a priority level for aim which would cause it to not pop up when you're in the middle of the game.


Well please don't give me a negative comment for this: I'm just trying to show the other side of AIM because the positive side has obviously been reviewed enough. Feel free to leave positive comments which would help me out.

Recommended: Yes