AIM Triton Beta — Download Information and Brief Review

Contributed by AlexTheBeast May 4, 2005  
Tagged: Instant messaging

The new version of AIM is in beta. Here is the quick information I have about it.

I love playing with beta software. Triton is AOL’s new version of AIM that is currently in beta testing.

Here’s the download link:
http://beta.aol.com/projects/tritonbeta/

In playing with it briefly, it is obvious that it has a much better appearance. The menus slide and fade, etc.

However, after the first few moments of loading it hit me with 30 seconds of audio/video commerical for a hardware store. Yuck. The silent commercials/ads cycle through the top constantly.

The program can not be safely killed either. When it is in your system tray, you can easily disconnect, but the program will remain in your system tray until you use the taskmanager to kill it. I hope they decide to change this in the future.

Currently there is a frequent bug that prevents the main window from showing as well. Once you close the main window… there is no way to get it back. It’s a beta, it’s a bug… things like that are expected.

The mechanism of the program is driven through many “services.” These components appear to be XML driven and can be found in this directory:
C:\program files\Common Files\AOL\AIMBeta\services

Currently, it’s better eye candy with less function… and invasive ads. It’s very, very early… I’m not trading in my trillan anytime soon.

Considering the nature of this beast, it does appear to be easily hackable. Hopefully, you guys will enjoy playing with this new code… leave your thoughts below.