It was the only third-party e-mail client licensed to directly access AOL e-mail.
The first third-party client was called "DClite", which never fully supported the file sharing aspects of the protocol.
Additionally, these third-party clients and others can access the Messenger service:
It's interesting because some of the more advanced third-party clients now include the ability to filter.
People who use third-party clients, which access the back-end database to the site, are not affected, because the code is disabled by the programs.
While Twitter itself was not affected, some third-party clients could no longer access recent tweets.
Also, because attackers were restricted to using third-party clients when carrying out attacks, it was not possible to use built-in Windows applications, like Net.
For instance, promoted tweets will be opened out to third-party clients - who wish to host them - in exchange for a 50-50 revenue share.
If using AIM is truly an oppressive experience for you, the radical step can be made to use a third-party client.
However, Areae had stated that they would actively encourage the development of third-party clients, which would allow for 3d functionality.