AIM Triton
Figure 1
If you want to use the AIM network in Windows, and don’t know/don’t want to know about applications like Gaim or Trillian, you’re stuck with the official client. And that would be fine, if only it didn’t completely suck and made your computer 50 times slower.
Years ago, the official AIM client from AOL was in version 5.0, it was ugly (see figure 1 on the left), but worked pretty well with a little app called DeadAIM, which removed the ads and helped customize the client to your liking. It was a good setup, and i used it for a while. But one day, AOL completely replaced it with a new client, called “AIM Triton”.
AIM Triton promises to be the best IM application out there, and while some of the features had been long expected, the application just feels wrong, it has that spyware feel. First of, you go to AIM.com and you download the IM client, you run the file, and install it. But you’ll notice you’ve not only installed the IM app, you also installed the AOL Browser, which is a joke really. Every time you want to talk to someone and launch AIM Triton, it will consequently launch the AOL Browser, and not only that, but the pages it loads by default need the Flash Player so you’re asked to install it, then when you try to close the browser, it’ll say it has more than one tab open. Ah. Let’s just say this sucks.
So i managed to disable the little browser, and AIM Triton launches alone, and for the most part it works, you can do audio and video (mac/pc even), so that’s cool, but the application is just filled with ads, it’s very hard to focus on what you’re doing. Seriously, you can’t even see your contacts unless you expand the window to the height of your screen (see figure 1 on the right). It’s sad really.
Overall, i pretty much prefer the old version for my basic chat needs. And unless you need audio or video and are fine with the mess of a user interface in Triton (again, see figure 1), go for it, otherwise, get Gaim.
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ok, first things first, Why the hell are you using windows?
jakedahn on April 21st, 2006 7:52 pm
Triton sucks. Everyone I know who uses it hates it. They want to go back to AIM 4.7
Daniel Nicolas on April 21st, 2006 7:58 pm
I completely agree with everything I read, this triton version sucks donkey balls. I love the AIM 4.7 for my mac, but i had to uninstall triton becuase it sucked so bad.
Justin on May 29th, 2006 4:16 pm
It sucks indeed.
Justin: AIM for mac? Why not use iChat or Adium?
Josue Salazar on May 29th, 2006 6:11 pm
“ok, first things first, Why the hell are you using windows?”
Maybe because he just wants to use a computer without hacking the config?
I myself use gaim. It is alot better. The only problem, is that gaim doesnt work with some uccoms and such.
Michael on September 2nd, 2006 7:35 pm