I have an AIM account that I use regularly. Yes, you heard that right.

See, there are still ways to use good ol' AOL Instant Messenger, I'll show you how.

First, the way AIM works is that you use the client to connect to the server, like most... Things.

Now, the official AIM servers shut down on December 15th, 2017, but if you had... Say... a replacement server... you'd easily be able to use AIM's client.

Phoenix and NINA do just that.

Phoenix is a server made by Wildman Productions in hopes to let people to be able to use old messagin' clients like AIM, MSN, WLM, etc. again.

It's the one of the most active servers people use on AIM. That said, it only has 114 people online, as of typin'. There's been more people on it, due to Yahoo's awful, awful actions. Given the nature of the server, I oughta say, I dislike political polarization on both sides, and I feel there isn't much a use for addin' politics where it don't belong. Still, I am thankful for the First Amendment for lettin' us be able to say what we want on the messenger.

There's also CrossTalk, which I don't know enough about to be able to tell you any much more. Just look it up!

Now, if you want a server that's safer than others, the option you wanna go for is NINA.

NINA is a server made by Escargot which is still in beta that also hopes to let people to use AIM again.

The time that I made this page finally shows it's age. When I made this page NINA's AIM was still in beta and required a donation, but now it's out of beta and available to all. Now, NINA seems to be the most active server I can find.

Once again, the chimes of time have rung since the previous paragraph. Yahoo (which owns the AOL brand), the despicable corporate giant, issued a cease-and-desist letter to NINA, for, near as I can figure, the express purpose of ruinin' everyones fun. Now, NINA has gone underground, and their website was taken down, but basic functionality is still there. I could rant about big corporations and cease-and-desist letters for days.

Unfortunately, NINA requires you to send a 5$ or more donation first before you can use it.

But don't think that that's just because they wanna take your money, accordin' to NINA's staff, they are many dollars in the hole from server hostin' fees, even with the donations. (That last part about donations may be disputable based on newly aquired information since the shutdown. The money may have actually been for cancer treatment in disguise. If you're gonna deceive, it's a good thing they atleast did somethin' good with the money. In any case, all is forgiven, IMO.)

Even with the paywall, NINA still has used to have, at a point, 58 508 users online, but with the shutdown, the number is much smaller, and unknown. Still, I'm one of them. (If you have AIM installed, and are usin' NINA somehow, send me a message!)

If you want to use NINA but can't pay, you can always wait until after they release out of beta.

After you pick a server, you'll need a client to connect to the server. NINA's (now shut down although preserved thanks to the IA) wiki has a list of AIM Clients to download.

It should be noted that when using that list, theres a possibility that the version you want wasn't archived. :(

I use AIM version 5.0.2398, since... It's the first one I picked, it's the best for NINA, I think, and it kinda looks nice.

Once you pick your client and server, the rest varies based on what server you use. Your server's website should have a guide on how to connect to it using the client.

Well, unless you use NINA, of course. Now, this is an awful scenario in that all the information on what do to is missin', just like the island of Elugelab. But theres still hope thanks to the Internet Archive and their backups on the WayBack Machine, which, I can't stress enough, is one of the single most important resources for lost information. Period. I find it nice how the IA does this all non-profit. In case you dont want to stroll about the wreckage of what was NINA in order to find what proxy you have to use, it's login.oscar.nina.chat. One thing I should've mentioned before, is that, in order to register, you have to visit the website, which, as you know, is gone. Well, sorry for wastin' a bit of your time, but atleast the explanation was interestin'!

Oh yeah, and one more thing. You might wanna download and run AIM Tamer from Phoenix's website before startin' your AIM client, because there's a possibility that AIM may freeze your entire computer.