escargot
escargot
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:
Fixes:
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.
We're currently at $310 of our $2,500 fundraising goal. Membership and activity has massively increased, but donations have gone way down. So, please support the services so we can keep expanding, and so we can keep the past alive and growing. We aren't backed by some big company, we don't sell your information, and we don't have ads, so we rely on donations. Donations come with benefits, early access, and more, see our donation page. If you don't want to donate or can't, please promote us, but at the end of the day keep in mind it's only getting more expensive and I can't really overstate how much we need your support.
Happy 4th of July and also Canada Day since we missed that one, sorry Canadians!
Hello 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 and any contribution helps both NINA & Escargot and comes with rewards, roles, and more: learn more.
Updates:
Fixes:
Developers, Developers, Developers:
Coming Soon:
Support Us:
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: http://static.nina.chat/distro/NINAPatcher.exe (You may get a false positive from Windows Defender, we're looking into why, but it's a clean exe)
Updates:
Fixes:
Operations:
Support Us:
Hello buddies, we've got big news!
It's chilly and cloudy here at the NINA & Escargot HQ in Kansas, which is a great day to stay in and bask in the wonders of AIM, now free and publicly available.
We support all versions of AIM, and all features are functional, however client-to-client features such as talk (voice chat), video, file transfers, direct connections (image sharing), etc won't be finalized until the next update. Additionally, some features in much later versions of AIM such as 7.5, 8.0 such as Lifestream and image sharing have not yet launched as we're still ironing out the details and they'll be coming soon, but overall these clients are functional.
We'll be releasing a server update soon with bug and feature fixes which have come up since the public launch.
This update has been a long time coming, thousands of hours of development, research, and testing and now AIM is ready for primetime. We made it publicly available in a soft launch late last week, however now it's time to get the word out and get more people chatting.
If you've got an Escargot account or just want to get on AIM right now, all you need to do is follow the instructions here.
I'm glad we could finally bring this to the community, which for me personally is the best Internet community I have ever been a part of. It's wonderful to see so many people enjoying our projects, contributing help to others, and just having laid back conversations with each other about whatever comes to mind. I also want to say that these have been the best developers I've ever had the pleasure of working with.
While AIM may be public, ICQ however is still in gamma as some features are still incomplete, there's still some development that needs to be done however it is available for anyone who donates (or has donated) at least $2 USD. Once ICQ is ready for primetime, then it too will be public, and we don't have an ETA on that since ICQ's protocol and scope of functionality is massive compared to AIM, but we are making progress.
We're also making progress on Escargot 2.0 and getting classic AOL support from the alpha phase to the beta phase. For those who paid $2 for early access to AIM you have been given access to PowerTools, which is basically our version of Discord Nitro, for now it only allows you to speak in the last-call chat directly from Discord, however in the near future it will open up additional features and access within AIM, ICQ, etc. Of course all gamma tier and higher donors also have PowerTools so if you've donated before, you're already in the butter zone, baby.
Now that AIM is freely available, running it is not free, so we still need your support. You can support us via: a one time or recurring donation, both of which come with rewards and Discord roles, learn more here.
If you can't donate, don't tell us, instead you can still help by telling others about us via tweets, toots, videos, or whatever else you can think of.
Hello buddies,
Well it's an unusually hot day here in Kansas -- a perfect day for updates. The
gap between the last update and now is primarily because of our focus on
finalizing AIM/ICQ and preparing for Escargot 2.0. There will also be an update
next week for things which didn't make it into this release.
AIM and ICQ early access is now $2, however that does not come with any special supporter channel access, priority support, behind the scenes info, or early access to anything else which comes up in gamma, so the cool kids club still is $5.
We really need your help, we're still looking to expand in preparation for Escargot 2.0 and this month we've got several domain renewals, and aside from our wonderfully dedicated Patrons and Boosters there have been only a couple of smaller donations. So if you want to help and are able to, see the bottom of this announcement for links.
Now, on to the actual updates:
If you don't see your issue here or just want to be sure we know about it (we may not since some bugs go unreported because people believe we don't know or don't care) please let us know. If we already know of the issue, we still appreciate the reporting.
Donating to keep projects you love alive is important, and we do need your help to keep things running and development going. We don't sell your data or bombard you with ads, so money is always very low, but if you can help and want special benefits.
You can make a one time donation via:
If you wish to support us more long term though you can subscribe via an option below (comes with even more rewards), and it will help keep us going into the future.
Hello buddies,
A few more AOL/AIM/ICQ service updates and fixes for you!
Not as many updates this time, that's because we're focusing on a few things:
Needless to say, these will require upgrades and more server space so please consider donating (details below and on the donation page) so we can move along with this stuff much faster. As it stands right now, for example, we are $96 behind in hosting and we need your help to expand. We aren't at risk of things going down, other than by the limitations of our current environment, so fear not.
Now, on to the actual updates:
If you don't see your issue here or just want to be sure we know about it (we may not since some bugs go unreported because people believe we don't know or don't care) please let us know. If we already know of the issue, we still appreciate the reporting.
Save the date. webEscargot is out December 18th for everyone.
(Out for beta testers now: check the donate page to get into beta-testing and using webEscargot right now.)
Hey everyone! webEscargot, a web-based client for Escargot, is officially in it's alpha testing stage, if you want to test it out, donate and join the Alpha Team - click here to know more.
Currently it supports MSNP18, sending / receiving messages and nudges, emoticons (Windows Live Messenger styled emoticons!), receiving ink (doodles), receiving display pictures, and more to come in the future. New updates are coming every few days for alpha testers.
Donating helps us keep developing and hosting Escargot 😄 And we need your feedback too, so if you're interested, please consider donating.
Here's some sneak peeks of the UI. Huge thanks to vl1 for the UI theme. Yes, we have dark mode too.
Happy Halloween everyone! As a spooky surprise we've decided to add a special theme to our website (for a limited time only, obviously).
Look out for spooky stuff! And look out for scary skeletons... They're too spooky.
Modernization is over. If your account does not end in @escargot.chat, you have missed your opportunity to modernize -- and so if you missed the final window to modernize, we're sorry.
You can register again at any time, but you will have to find your contacts again.
We have had notices for three months, we have given alerts, sent IMs, even sent emails to the most active accounts, but for some reason despite all this, some people simply never modernized even when bothered by an IM every 30 seconds telling them to do so. Therefore, if you didn't modernize and you have signed on to MSN in the last three months, you really have no one to blame but yourself.
The good news is, this opens the door for many more opportunities now that we have a lot of stuff cleaned out of our databases. Keep an eye out for more things coming soon, such as @escargot.live addresses and email forwarding for people who donate -- and we still need donations to keep things running.
If you're wondering about why modernization happened, you can read the old Modernize yourself! news article.
You may also now login with your Escargot username to Yahoo! 6 as well.
More to come very soon!