On Thursday, some Trillian users began reporting an inability to communicate with their Yahoo Messenger contacts. A Yahoo spokeswoman on Friday morning confirmed that Trillian users' inability to access Yahoo Messenger was the result of recent policies put in place by the Web giant.
Yahoo last week announced that it would require people who use older versions of Yahoo Messenger to upgrade to more recent versions. Coinciding with the upgrade, Yahoo said it would probably disable access to outside IM services such as Trillian. Yahoo set a deadline of Wednesday for its forced upgrade and its intention to disconnect Trillian.
"If this has affected the way in which third parties interact with our service, it is merely a byproduct of our efforts to implement preventative measures to protect our users from potential spammers," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said.
A notice posted on Trillian's Web site informed users about "an issue that may cause a crash or invalid password when trying to autoconnect to Yahoo," the site read. Trillian users who reported the problem said they were unable to view their buddy lists when connecting to Yahoo.
"We are aware of the current connectivity issues with Trillian and the Yahoo network, brought on as a result of Yahoo's recent protocol upgrade," Scott Werndorfer, co-founder of Cerulean, said in an email statement. "We are working hard on a solution and will update our Web site when more information becomes available."
Trillian software, produced by privately held, Connecticut-based Cerulean, allows people to combine various IM clients into one interface. Users can view buddy lists from various services, such as AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger, and exchange IM text messages with them.
The popularity of Trillian has risen, largely because popular IM services do not communicate with each other. As a result, people use different IM services simultaneously on their PCs to communicate with contacts who reside in different communities. These closed networks have helped incumbent leader AOL maintain its large market share while allowing rivals MSN and Yahoo to flourish alongside it.
What separates the Big Three IM services are features. AOL, MSN and Yahoo services each have distinct flavours and rely on these distinctions to maintain user loyalty. Trillian strips all clients of their differences and allows people to exchange IMs through its own look and feel.
A day after last week's Yahoo announcement, Trillian released software patches that were aimed at allowing it to continue accessing Yahoo and MSN buddy lists. But as of this week, those patches do not appear to be working.
Talkback
I love Trillian. I've been using it sense the first release was sent out, and I think it's a life saver. With Yahoo being a silly jerk about sharing with 3rd party "piggybackers", I have lost alot of respect for the site.
Basically all I have to say is "Learn to share Yahoo, the Internet is about sharing."
I think it sucks, I have buddies on both Yahoo and AIM and it was so convenient to be able to see everyone on one list! Not Have to run 2 seperate buddy lists to see everyone. Not to mention all of the people that have buddies on all of the lists
I like Yahoo, but I think they should make a patch for those of us who do want to use Trillian!
I have had no problems with spam using Trillian, I want to be able to use Trillian with Yahoo. This service is out here for us to use, then give us the choice!
Cindy
Just another company stuck in the age of being proprietary. To all those whom thought open code development would not work, ask Novell and Microsoft about Linux. Same issue here. Companies do not have to give in 100% but they do need to learn to to business with one another for customers.
This sounds to me like they are getting ready to start asking me for money... Nothing good lasts forever. I'll just go back to email or just stick with another solution (other than Yahoo).
Very disappointed.
I have been using Trillian since it first came out and intend to keep on using it. I see no need to have to load a desktop full of messengers when I can have them all in one place.
If Yahoo wants to be a jerk about this, then fine. I just won't bother with yahoo, mail or chat.I only have a few contacts on there anyway, and most of them have switched to msn or icq.
Yahoo may be big, but they don't control what I do on my machine, and they never will
Trillian Rocks! Go Trillian, fight the power!
I just found out about the freeze on Trillian by Yahoo. Its been my opinion for a while now that the IM community will soon be hit by more than inconvenience, more like fees for services. The whole IM scene is nothing more than a build up to eventually pass the church basket. Nothing is for free.....or at least not for long. Yahoo can KISS all our #@%$^ by being the first to come out and show they want to be first in line for cash. I hope trillian can overcome these obstacles or better yet.....Yahoo can become extinct. Does not seem likely though. So Trillian better get busy.
I hope everyone remembers these companies that do this, so once opensource kicks them in the teeth a little, and they start acting real nice, you don't get fooled.
Trillian BLOWS anyways...they are owned by TALIBANS!!!! You people support TERRORISM!!!! Trillian sucks cuz it messes up your buddy lists if you use multiple accounts on the same service...it combinds them so if you are trying to snoop into someone's IM account it really BLOWS! Also it doesnt have any security, saves your buddy lists and messages locally in PLAIN english (or whatever language you speak)
Wow.. how nice of Yahoo to "protect" us from spammers.. or is it to protect their income by making sure you get their ads?
man this is bulllshit!