NINA and Escargot #announcements — August 22, 2025 at 3:59 PM (EST) [tonyshowoff]

This week is some updates and fixes, a lot to prepare for a new service (sneak peak below) we're launching probably next week, it's a smaller one but certainly a throw back, but unless you're a supporter, you'll have to wait for more details.

Speaking of supporters, we still need to raise $1,180 to meet our fundraising goal and it's important because we've really got to get it by the end of the month. So, help out if you can: https://nina.chat/donate/ rewards start at $2 and every dollar counts. If you can't then spread the word about all of our services and whatever else you like about us.

Updates:
• Community: A new and improved version of the community introduction is now on the wiki and is highly suggested reading for all new users: https://wiki.nina.chat/wiki/Introduction
• Account: You can now more easily "recruit" new users to the network. It's really easy, just add /?r=yourusername to the end of nina.chat or escargot.chat when linking to someone else, if they register later, you'll be marked as their recruiter. We'll do some cool stuff with this soon, but for now you can just see how well your promotion is going. Learn more by logging into your account and going to "Recruiting" under "Community".
• Account: Speaking of Community, we also have a rudimentary profiles with searching. We have replaced the #contacts channel with https://nina.chat/contacts/ and https://escargot.chat/contacts/. You can fill out this information by going to "Profile" under "Community" in your account. It's still in very early stages and is fairly rudimentary with more features to come soon.

Fixes:
• WebAPI: Crashing issue caused by invalid URL request now fixed (reported in detail by supporter loganh4005)
• Account: Invalid URLs on registration page fixed
• Account: Legacy password being reset during account login now fixed (reported by europa). Keep in mind if your account had this issue, it will reset one final time the next time you login, just change it back.

What about the new service: Following the post, there are 2 screenshots. The first is a partial SS of the recruiting page. The next screenshot, however, is quite the throwback...

NINA Napster was first officially announced in #supporters-general (NINA Discord) on August 12th. I've been anxiously awaiting for this moment to post about it! If you're not a Supporter yet, check their donate link above for more info!

If you have ever made an attempt to gather these yourself, you'd know there was a considerable amount of beta versions released. Referencing the NINA AIM clients wiki, there's just under 100 versions of AIM 1.0 - 5.9 for Windows (US)!

I woke up this morning with this idea bouncing around in my head like the old 3D Text and Flower Box screen savers. I figured, hey! I should make a post while I'm thinking about it. My focus today is on a specific version, 4.0. I have spent several hours over the years searching old archives for the US version of AIM 4.0. I have come very close. As close as a working download link but the source file being corrupted/incomplete. I remember a time when I had access to the AOL-Files.com FTP server that housed their clients collection... I only had a 56K connection at the time and very limited hard drive space (approx. 500 MB!), so I didn't download a backup copy... really regretting that. All I have is this text of the list:

Directory of d:\aol-files\clients.aol-files.com\public_html\aim\win

.                                 <DIR>   2001-08-10  23:52
..                                <DIR>   2001-08-10  23:52
AIM4.1.2090.jp.exe                2314536 2000-10-22  22:23
AIM1.75.574.exe                   1768973 2000-10-22  18:14
AIM1.8.924.gric.exe               1545728 2000-10-25  15:06
AIM2.0.1056.exe                   1758720 2000-10-25  12:05
AIM2.0.1475.fr.exe                1743360 2000-10-22  21:51
AIM2.0.912.exe                    1693184 2000-10-25  11:51
AIM2.0.997.exe                    1693696 2000-10-25  12:13
AIM2.01.1107.exe                  1775104 2000-10-23   1:32
AIM2.1.1236.exe                   1798144 1999-12-22   4:21
AIM2.1.1271.exe                   1943040 2000-10-23   1:33
AIM2.5.1336.exe                   2073600 2000-10-23   1:10
AIM3.5.1534.exe                   2041856 2000-10-23   2:02
AIM3.5.1598.exe                   1853440 2000-10-23   2:03
AIM3.5.1635.exe                   1873920 2000-10-23   2:02
AIM3.5.1670.exe                   1846784 2000-10-23   2:40
AIM3.5.1713.exe                   1854464 2000-10-23   2:43
AIM3.5.1808.exe                   1982464 2000-10-23   2:45
AIM3.5.1856.exe                   2019840 2000-10-23   2:46
AIM3.5.1900.exe                   2039296 2000-10-23   2:46
AIM4.0.1926.exe                   2135040 2000-10-23  12:11
AIM4.0.1904.fr.exe                2237224 2000-10-22  22:11
AIM4.0.1904.exe                   2095104 2000-10-22  20:14
AIM4.0.1957.exe                   2114048 2000-10-23  12:13
AIM4.1.2010.eln.exe               2635776 2000-10-24  14:41
AIM4.1.2050.fr.exe                2316072 2000-10-22  22:01
AIM4.1.2057.exe                   2206048 2000-10-23  12:40
AIM4.1.2074.exe                   2206560 2000-10-23  12:40
AIM4.0.2000.exe                   2275112 2000-10-23  12:14
AIM4.2.2144.exe                   2358112 2000-10-23  16:33

I have highlighted the clients not known to be found. There's quite a bit of early versions missing.

If you or anyone you know might have this or any collection of AIM clients (not already found on the NINA wiki), please contact me!

Other Missing AIM Versions Known to Have Existed

AIM 3.5.1886
AIM 4.1.2031
AIM 4.2.2107
AIM 4.2.2110
AIM 4.2.2135
AIM 4.8.2614

I have updated the Clients page with a more organized Most Wanted list!

Yep! AOL still offered dial-up internet service. I'd say I can't believe it, but I was well aware; haha. The fact the service was still being offered was what really surprised me. After 34 years, it is finally coming to an end. :( Sunset date is set for Tuesday, September 30, 2025.

https://help.aol.com/articles/dial-up-internet-to-be-discontinued

Dial-up Internet to be discontinued

AOL routinely evaluates its products and services and has decided to discontinue Dial-up Internet. This service will no longer be available in AOL plans. As a result, on September 30, 2025 this service and the associated software, the AOL Dialer software and AOL Shield browser, which are optimized for older operating systems and dial-up internet connections, will be discontinued.

This change will not affect any other benefits in your AOL plan, which you can access any time on your AOL plan dashboard. To manage or cancel your account, visit MyAccount.

For more information or if you have questions about your account, call:

    U.S. - 1-888-265-5555
    Canada - 1-888-265-4357

AOL CDs: Supposedly, you can still call that 888 number and order an AOL CD. I haven't tried, so if you do, kindly share with us if it is still free and if you were able to order one!

What's left? MSN, NetZero, Juno, and Dialup 4 Less are the largest dial-up providers left...

NINA and Escargot #announcements — July 14, 2025 at 2:45 PM (EST)

Hey @everyone, we have some small updates, but we need your help testing to make sure everything is working fine! 

Updates:
• WebAPI: Chat has returned to AIM 8, AIM Mobile and other WIM clients after complete rewrite, please report issues with it
• AIM/ICQ: Additional changes to buddies and permissions have been added, please report any (new) issues

Fixes:
• AIM: Issue where some clients could not send messages to chat rooms should be fixed.
• AIM: Bitmap buddy icon transfers (pre-5.0) should now work for all bitmap types.
• AOL: AIM to AOL chat invites now working again
• AOL: Issues with some clients breaking when signing on as "New User", "Existing User" fixed
• AOL: Clicking "Chat Now" or "Find a Chat" from the People menu now should work properly.
• ICQ: Messages containing Cyrillic unicode should no longer be corrupted

NEW! The NINA website now has downloads for Android and iOS versions of AIM! If you want to use AIM on your mobile device, check it out! https://nina.chat/download/aim/! As you can see from the screenshot, you can use chats on the mobile apps, and on AIM 8, and yes, the latest iOS App still runs on modern iOS devices. 😄

If you can, please consider supporting us and helping us develop NINA and Escargot. Every dollar counts and rewards start at $2: https://nina.chat/donate/. Help us keep the fun alive! Thank you for sticking around and more to come soon!

NINA and Escargot #announcements — July 4, 2025 at 8:21 PM (EST)

Hey buddies!

It's been a little while since our last major update, but it's because we're working on big things. In this announcement we're going to cover ICQ, Skype, AIM, and some other things.

We've been growing, a lot, we've added some more servers, and we're now testing our new multi-server protocol that will allow us to expand more easily going forward. We're in the first stage of that rollout, and during the rollout strange buddy visibility issues may occur; keep an out for future updates on this.

ICQ is now an open alpha, that is free to use with a UIN only. Open alpha means there are still some issues which will be dealt with as we roll out more fixes and updates so please stay patient. Learn more on our ICQ Connection Guide. Please remember, free to use doesn't mean it's free to run, so please support the service. 

Updates:
• ICQ: Now in open alpha, as covered above.
• AIM: TommyD is working on a client you can try out, NINA Fire Edition, more info on that is pinned in the #nina-fire-edition channel
• WebAPI: As a part of our promise to maintain and update AOL's protocols, we have added our own easy to use Chat WebAPI for your custom client or bot, read more on our wiki.
• Skype: Development is underway, primarily for Skype 6/7, more details below.
• Escargot: A preliminary patcher for Messenger for Mac 8 is available for Supporters, still bugs to fix but you can sign on and receive messages so far.
• Discord: We now have a server tag, help promote us by applying it to your username!
• TOC/WebAPI: Both TOC and WebAPI have been updated to use our internal unified communication library, this will make adding features on all our services easier and faster. TOC has been stable and tested, WebAPI is still fresh, so report any bugs!

Fixes:
• ICQ: Plain text messaging should be working better, if issues still occur please let us know exact client version
• AIM: Changing privacy settings sometimes not-properly updating should now be fixed, though visibility may randomly have issues (as mentioned above)
• WebAPI: Presence's online time is now sent properly
• WebAPI: XML event fetching should work again

That doesn't seem like a whole lot, as much effort has been going into expanding the services, implementing the new multi-server protocol, improving performance, fixing minor bugs not worth mentioning, etc. Next week's update will contain a whole lot more.

We also wanted to make it clear that when it comes to reverse engineering Skype and its protocol (an extremely complicated process) we will also going to be documenting what we come up with so others can use it to create their own servers and even clients as well. Of course we'll continue to document other protocols as well, in fact we've got a lot more OSCAR documentation that we will be putting up on the wiki very soon, things that have never been documented publicly before.

NINA and Escargot #announcements — May 5, 2025 at 10:35 PM (EST)

Hello @everyone!

We have heard from the grapevine that Skype has unfortunately shut down. Well, we don't want to let anyone down, so we might have some things planned. Skype 8? Maybe. Older versions? Perhaps. What we mean is, stick around because things are about to be even better.
For more information, please check the pinned message in #skype.

And the rumors are true, @TommyD has joined the NINA and Escargot team! Please give him a warm welcome.

If you aren't a member of the NINA/Escargot Discord server, then you heard it here first!

If you haven't noticed, I am extra motivated to get things done around holidays! What was originally going to be published around Halloween or Thanksgiving 2023 is now going to finally see the light of day! I thought today would be great because back in the day, Nemisis loved himself some cannabis and Easter & Spring are all about rebirth and revitalization!

Nemisis AIM has been revitalized to be preserved as a part of what is known (unoffically) as the AIM-Files.com Digital Museum!

If you weren't around back then, Nemisis was a well-known member of the AIM Scene. He contributed a lot and I personally was a huge fan of his website and programs!

Without further delay, you can click the screenshot below to check this "exhibit" out!

I have lost contact with Nemisis for over 20 years now! If anyone is still in contact with him, please help me get back in touch with him!

I'm also very interested in chatting with people I used to know, whether we were friends, enemies, or indifferent!

No l33t h4x0rz have found the secret hint. To be fair, if it was found, that person would already know what is coming!

Only 1 week until the big reveal!

NINA and Escargot #announcements — April 7, 2025 at 4:42 PM (EST)

Hey buddies!
This is the first in a series of major updates which are a part of our finally drive toward the launch of Escargot 2.0 very darn soon, and additional version support for AOL, among many other things we've got coming up (see the list below for details).

We're getting more and more popular, but less and less donations. We know people hate that we ask, but running this isn't free and support for the service is very important. We're still trying to raise $564 for hosting, domain renewals, etc but mostly hosting, and any contribution helps both NINA & Escargot and comes with rewards, roles, and more: https://nina.chat/donate/

Updates:
• AIM: Improved patcher, please (re-)patch your client: http://static.nina.chat/distro/NINAPatcher.exe yes, even if you already patched it!
• AIM: Classic "Talk" (audio chat) should now work properly (pre-AIM 6)
• AIM: We now use the old AIM ad service in older clients to update logos and menus hopefully creating a richer experience rather than sending actual ads.
• AIM 8: Unicode Emojis that render as images are now available and should show up properly.
• AIM 8, and mobile apps: File attachments are now supported, you can send images and files to your buddies.
• WebAPI: Member directory search is now implemented
• AIM/ICQ: Large buddy icon support added for applicable clients
• AIM/ICQ: SSL/TLS support is enabled, you can use slogin.oscar.nina.chat port 5190 on clients that support it. On AIM 6+, it'll be automatically applied for kdc.uas.nina.chat port 443.

Fixes:
• TOC: Receiving chat invites is now fixed
• AIM: Issues setting/retaining directory info should now be fixed
• AIM: File transfers over ARS would sometimes fail to connect, they should now work
• AIM: Palm OS AIM issue preventing sign on should be fixed (Reported by FairPlay)
• WebAPI: Alias/Friendly name should now be set properly
• WebAPI: OpenAuth auth tokens should now persist
• WebAPI, AIM 8: Increased default max IM size

Developers, Developers, Developers:
• OSCAR/WebAPI: Each instant message and chat message now has a UUID (TLV 0x24), later this will be used for offline messages, storage, and other features such as replies
• General: Warning level is best calculated percent = ((evil + 0x05) / 0x0A), rounded up

Coming Soon:
• Escargot 2.0 progress is going steady, investigating different patching methods for newer versions of Windows Live Messenger, and investigating Skype's protocol
• AOL: AOL 6 support is coming very soon, along with some extra goodies.
• ICQ: We have got a hold of some old ICQ Xtraz that we're going to be adding soon, you will finally be able to edit your profile on ICQ 7, and more.
• ICQ: We are also working on contact list, authorizations, et al

Fantastic news! I'm still hoping one day there will be a bug fix for sending UTF-16 characters to AIM 5.9- where it will cause the message to appear blank. Those UTF-16 left/right single/double quotes are a thorn in our sides!

If you're an AIM OG you might be able to guess this right away. If you're a l33t h4x0r you might find the another hint.

I started this post late Saturday night, and it is now technically Sunday. That means only 2 weeks until the reveal!

April Fools: The internet is full of bullsh!t today, more so than usual! Be cautious of any "news" you read. You can rest assured that the only "pranks" I have prepared are all the legitimate posts I have been making across my various websites and projects. (The joke being that I don't post as often as I would like to and I am actually making posts.)

Easter: The next holiday is Easter, which happens to fall on 4/20 this year! I've been sitting on stuff to release for over a year now. It's happening on April 20th! Expect hints and teasers. *mic drop*

What are/were Topical Chats?

To the best of my knowledge, Topical Chats were a beta feature that never made it to the main release. It started around the release of AIM 4.7. If you ever messed around with Resource Hacker and aimres.dll, you might have come across some references to it. The AIM chat window would be slightly different with the top portion loading an AIM-style (limited HTML support) web page. I do remember seeing the references in aimres.dll, but I can't remember if I ever saw this feature actually being used back in the day.

Why am I even talking about these chats?

I was going to start by saying "a few days ago", but it has been over a week already! Whoops! On Feb. 28th, Animadoria sent me an IM to show me that NINA has successfully revived them! I am not sure if this will be implemented for public usage, but it was really cool to see. I took an animated GIF screenshot (AIM 5.0.2892) to show you all!

If you have any more knowledge to contribute about Topical Chats, please contact me and share said knowledge with us!

Post Script: Do you like my custom smiley set?

That's all for now; stay tuned!

Alright! So... I waited until I was in a solid position before even bringing this up:

After 3 years of sitting dormant, I have resumed work on the xakAIM32.ocx project! What is it you ask? This is a tool aimed towards people that are new to VB6 and AIM programming via Win32 API. Weird saying that in 2025...

The Visual Basic 6.0 IDE was originally released in 1998. Microsoft ended mainstream support in 2005, and extended support ended April 8, 2008. The core Visual Basic 6.0 runtime will still be supported through the lifetime of Windows 11 which could be until 2027! The successor to VB6 is VB.NET, and it was originally launched in 2002. I do believe you can still use VB6 OCX files in the latest VB.NET release, but I only dabble here-and-there with VB.NET 2019. VB.NET is cool and all, but for my nostalgic purposes, nothing can replace VB6!

Getting back on track, this OCX file makes it ridiculously easy to crank out a classic AIM prog. I have compiled the beta xakAIM32.ocx and anyone who is interested can contact me on Discord for a pre-release copy. I'm going to need a few more days to whip up a demo app for it.

'xakAIM32.ocx
'Built from xakAIM32.bas

'Project Started: 2022-01-23
'First Alpha:     2022-01-24 (45 subs/functions)

'Sat dormant for 3 years

'Project Resumed: 2025-01-21
'First Beta:      2025-01-26 (113 subs/functions)

You can read more about it on the AIM-Files.com Discord server channel #projects!
Once I complete the demo app I will do a proper release!

NINA and Escargot #announcements — January 5, 2025 at 3:16 PM (EST)

Hello buddies,
 
We've got a fairly large update, and we suggest you read through this whole announcement to get an overview of what's been done.

Be sure to (re-)patch your AIM client, as the new and improved patcher fixes many URLs like AIM Today, news ticker, etc: NINAPatcher.exe (You may get a false positive from Windows Defender, we're looking into why, but it's a clean exe)
 
Updates:
• AIM: File transfers, direct connections, etc (aka rendezvous) now work and require port forwarding on your router/firewall, unless you have PowerTools (see https://nina.chat/donate/#rewards).
• ICQ: Improvements to older ICQ direct connect features, subject to firewall/router port forwarding, PowerTools proxying coming soon.
• ICQ: Moods and statuses in older ICQ clients should now show
• TOC: Directory search implemented
• TOC: Rendezvous support, including proposal, accepting and cancel
• General: We have the new account system up, you can check it out by logging into the NINA or Escargot websites. It's only the initial version, more features such as multi-account management, supporter status, etc coming soon!

Fixes:
• AIM/ICQ: Issue of some buddies never appearing online is now fixed
• AIM/ICQ: Sessions should persist for WebAPI connections
• MSN: If you are running Windows 11 version 24H2, and can't log in ("contact list not available"), run this patch: EscargotWin24H2.zip
• ICQ: Improved support for clients which do not support HTML messages, please report any issues (with client version)

Operations:
• The NINA logo is now officially known as Runningma'am, let's give the young lady the recognition she deserves!
• We have no new updates on the Microsoft situation as we haven't heard from them since our last update on the matter. Let's hope it stays that way, but we'll keep you updated when/if things change.

Support Us:
• Doing all this work and running this service is not cheap, so please consider supporting us. Support comes with benefits and we have many available options on how to donate, learn more here: https://nina.chat/donate/

I'll have some site news posted as early as tomorrow! That's it for now!

Aside from that I forgot to mention in a previous update that I noticed a typo stating the incorrect day of the week for my January 2024 post! It may have taken a year, but it was noticed and corrected! ;-P

I made a small tweak to the site, reducing the width of the layout by 40%. For those who weren't around back in the day, this site's layout is based on its original iteration as the AIM section of AOL-Files.com. I kept it at full width because that's how it used to be. Screen sizes and resolutions have certainly changed in the past 20 years. And not just getting bigger-than-ever, but also becoming smaller-than-ever with smart phones and other internet enabled portable devices. So what do you think about this tweak? Let us know on Discord!

The AOL/AIM revival scene has seen continued growth this past year! Off the top of my head, the largest milestone for the scene was NINA releasing their P3 (AOL 4.0) protocol support on May 6, 2024! I think getting File Transfers/Direct IMs working in December was a major AIM milestone for NINA and the scene in general as well. Many people have been requesting these features for years now!

What about Phoenix? I have personally been unsuccessful getting it to work on Phoenix, aside from a local <-> local connection. Very recently a member of the Phoenix Discord asked Wildman himself about it:

SleepyBones (ex. LazyBones) — 12/22/2024 1:21 PM
@Wildman Productions Will AIM ever support sending images and calling?

Wildman Productions — 12/22/2024 6:26 PM
i've been able to send images through direct connection before with specific versions of AIM.
the calling function we still dont know why it wont work, something undocumented in the protocol specification

SleepyBones (ex. LazyBones) — 12/22/2024 6:28 PM
Which specific versions? So I can download them

Wildman Productions — 12/22/2024 6:29 PM
i think maybe 4.7 or 5.0, later versions of 5 seem to have some undocumented additional security that needs implemented server side, because even though direct connection would initially work it would forcibly disconnect after a second or two.

Will 2025 be the year Phoenix is able to add this feature as well? Only time will tell!

I'm very excited to see what 2025 has in store for the AOL/AIM revival scene!