• by Ray Schultz , December 15, 2017

A watershed moment has occurred for internet users of a certain vintage: Today is the day that AOL is shutting down it’s long-running AOL Instant Messenger (AIM).

Now part of the Oath brand, AOL says it wants to focus on “building the next generation of iconic brands and life-changing products.”

The change will not affect subscriptions to AOL Mail, and email users can continue to send and receive email.

According to AOL, AIM was introduced in 1997 and was “the first chat app of its kind.” There is no replacement in the works. 

AIM users will still able to access their chat histories in certain AIM versions. But Friday morning was the cutoff for saving images and files to computers, and all AIM-related data is being deleted. Also, Buddy Lists cannot be saved or exported.