Yahoo walls out Trillian

Yahoo has begun blocking Cerulean Studios' Trillian software from communicating with its own instant messaging software as part of its plan to limit third parties from piggybacking on its service.

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 likely 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 e-mail 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 flavors 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.

[Waffa]

Deam yahoo! :(

ye we know that it's better 4 yahoo service to block 3'd party clients, etc, but there is nothing what would make me download yahoo messenger, I use my Trillian Pro 2 latest version, & if Trillian patch doesn’t work, then just I must say astalavista whit Yahoo IM. I haven’t look into new Yahoo IM, but the last ones was bad enough that I would newer want to install this crap to my PC.
... Actually I believe it's just matter of time when working patch coming out, hackers : get 2 w0rk! :o)

[mylostamulet]

script errors prevent use of Yahoo

I loved yahoo until their recent update caused it to stop working properly. Now, due to script errors I am not able to see my messages or interact with my buddies unless I go to a third party to access my account.

[exordguy]

This is just the incentive I need to remove all contact with yahoo and go to a different service that will 'play nice with the other kids'. I don't want to have to open several chat clients in order to be able to communicate with both work associates and friends at the same time. Trillian was the solution that cleaned up my cluttered desktop and taskbar. Too bad Yahoo misses the point. That point of course is keeping their advertisement readers happy and in contact with their other online services outside of chat.

[ozonehead]

Good by to Yahoo. I have been using it for years, mail, chat, web ... I am not going to leave a web page open all the time I am online so I can do an chat once in a while. I will just move to one of the other choices. Bye Bye BOOHOO

[EJBIV]

Proprietary stinks! Shame on Yahoo for putting us in this situation.

"...merely a byproduct of our efforts to implement preventative measures to protect our users from potential spammers," Yahoo spokeswoman Mary Osako said.

Do you think we really are going to buy this? If this were true you could provide the correct protocol so our service would not be disrupted.

[CrawDadUSA]

I am thoroughly flabbergasted that Yahoo & MSN both think we NEED THEM so much that we will stop using TRILLIAN or our preferred MIMP (Multi-Instant Messenger Program) program because they isolate themselves on the islands of disbelief and arrogance.

I have so much crap going on that it would be a ridiculous waste of my time to focus on any one of their products. Wake up YAHOO and you MAY get our attention and friendships back in time...

~CrawDad

[Zeeta99]

I agree, bye bye Yahoo. There are soooooo many other choices.

[mdgeidel]

I am switching my status on yahoo to BECAUSE YAHOO SUCKS AND ARE BLOCKING 3RD PARTY MESSENGERS I AM NO LONGER USING THEM. IF YOU HAVE (alternate messenger) ADD ME THERE AT XXXXXXX.com!!!!!!

Just gonna leave that up for the day and not use their messenger. Then I am gonna dump their sorry a$$. Didnt they learn ANYTHING from AOL?

nope! i am never installing yahoo messenger on my comp! i say, too bad! hope yahoo comes to its senses and signs some sort of deal with cerulean ...

[steveable]

I'm sorry to say that Yahoo will have lost and IM user. The dream of companies working together to provide user satisfaction on the internet seems to be going by the way due to the greed of companies wanting to be the "Only" solution. Looks like I will advise all my Yahoo IM friends to switch to another service.

Hopefully Yahoo will get the "Message" and open their service back up to clients that need to be able to manage multiple IM accounts.

[wrene12]

You can use Trillian to access YM. You just need to download the latest version of Trillian (4.0). If you go to their website you may do so and then your YM will once again work via Trillian.

Check out www.trillian.im for the latest download.