AIM does not require AOL
Anyone may download and use AIM, and register a screen name of their choice (if not already taken).
I have AIM, Yahoo, MSN and ICQ running simultaneously.
I find Yahoo email to be the most pleasant to use. I used ICQ 6 years ago, and it was more prone to hacking then. I went for several years without using it. I started using it again 6 months ago. I have AVG antivirus and Pestpatrol and one other antivirus running, and have not experienced problems related to the messengers. Where I do catch an occasional trojan is from some website. I once searched on a very obscure scholarly topic (e.g. not porn or cracks or warez, which are invested with trojans), and when I visited the site, it tried to load a trojan on my system.
6 years ago, I could use ICQ search engine to bring up users on line in a given city, such as Chennai or Mumbai, and message them and make some new friends who share my interests. Once, in this random activity, I actually succeeded in messaging a minor rock and roll star in India. He was astounded, thinking I am a fan who had hunted him down. I explained that I am an elderly man in America with hearing loss who never listens to any music, and would not know a rock star from this country, if they mugged me, much less a rock star from overseas. (I explained myself in different and more cordial terms, but the above expresses the bottom line.)
The same search engine is still available in ICQ, but greetings to 100 people will be lucky to yield one response.
I like yahoo the best for my purposes, because of the chat rooms, and the buddy list, and good email. Oh, by the way, you can not visit your email for a year, and it shall still be there. Other hosts will delete you if you do not visit every month.
I spent one year in IRC, in undernet #philosophy mostly , to have discourse on topics that interest me. But IRC seemed a wasteland, with only a few active interesting chat rooms. A retired teacher named Skept was founder of #philosophy. He and his crew of moderators ran a tight ship. They were kind of a good ole boy club of exclusivity, and they would boot or ban at the drop of a hat. They hated anything religious. Once, I mentioned St. Pauls verse on "Fear and Trembling" (hey, it is Kierkegaards topic, which IS part of philosophy and existentialism)... well skept booted my hiney. When I private message him, he said they have no need for comments such as mine. Oh well. IRC was excellent for certain programming support like PHP. But again, the good ole boys could be cliquish and harsh to newbies, who had to sometimes humbly beg for an answer to something which they deemed obvious.
Of course, I am recommending yahoo because of my particular interests in meeting people for discussions. I know that online-literature.com/forums uses MSN once a month to have a group conference on their book of the month club reading club.
All the messengers offer conferencing.
I will say that ICQ seems the most cold and distant. No one ever seems to contact you out of the blue. I often get cold calls on AOL and Yahoo, from people who have read a post somewhere and take an interest. Once or twice, during the past 8 years, an author contacted me through hotmail and MSN.
I am fascinated by the info on Trillion. Although, since I already run 4 messengers, then the "if it aint broke, dont fix it" wisdom kicks in.
Last week a woman in Italy recommended skypes to me for free phone around the world over the internet. Two hours later a business man I know in Tampa (elderly) started raving about it. I have downloaded but not yet installed. I get the impression that skypes also has a messenger capability, and a way to locate and meet people with similar interests.
Darren said:
I was thinking about getting an online messenger service.
Which one is the best and safest?
ICQ
Yahoo IM
MSN Messenger
I'm not with AOL, so I suppose AIM is out.