DocLexus

Caught this topic while Google searching, so signed up to post this reply. Have been running AIM 5.9.6089 w/ AIM Ad Hack (to eliminate ads and other crap from AIM) and AIM Encrypt style SSL certificates (for secure IM communications) for many years. Like others in this thread, received messages about this version of AIM expiring on Mar 15, which actually lasted until Mar 23. Knowing that AIM Encrypt was never made compatible w/ newer versions of AIM (perhaps called AIM Triton), I didn't even consider upgrading to the latest AIM client. Instead, found a simplistic (and seemingly lightweight) enough IM client called Pidgin which is compatible w/ numerous IM protocols (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, GoogleTalk, ICQ, and much more). It supports plug-ins, including a separately downloadable and installable one called Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) which supports advanced encryption of IM convos. For more details on setting up the OTR plug-in, see this link. With Pidgin and the OTR plug-in, am able continue communicating via AIM, securely. P.S. I realize that this thread has been posted in a Win 9x/ME forum. I've been running AIM 5.9 on Win7 (and thus installed the latest version of Pidgin under that OS). According to this post, Pidgin 2.7.x and higher IS NOT Win 9x/ME/NT4 compatible (where the latest version, as of this writing, is 2.10.12). Older Pidgin versions can be found here, although I have no idea whether they're AIM compatible, and if so whether they support whatever protocol AIM is now enforcing.