Still a popular IM client, AIM owes much of it's popularity due to the fact that every AOL member has it built into their AOL client window. chatters can choose from a wide variety of different smileys and cool 3D animated buddy icons which have sound too. For users using just the AIM client and not AOL a good site to check out is Baddass Buddy Icons, it has thousands of great looking unique buddy icons for AIM.

AIM has alot of features that are pretty handy like being able to go invisible to others on your buddy list while still being able to chat to those you choose to and the ability to have several user names running at the same time, which means you can have one for work, one for family and friends and more if you desire. It's most annoying feature is to popup a chat window to the forefront of what you're doing and stealing the cursor focus, which stops you playing a game or means you type a message intended for someone else to the new person who just messaged you.

It has the fewest smileys out of the big 3 IM clients and you are limited in what you can change them to, as mentioned earlier but it is a very stable chat program and functions well. If you are away from your computer and on a computer that does not have AIM installed, then you can try AIM Express, it's a web based AIM session that allows you to chat to your friends as long as you have web access and a supporting browser.

You can download AIM here at www.aim.com

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