aim is evil

The windows AIM application now includes spyware and adware as a matter of course. Hooray for America online.

If you're running an Apple, you can use iChat. If you want multiple services, get adium. If you're on Windows, get gaim. Linux, also get gaim. Or you could try out my personal favorite aim client, called "pork" - it's kind of like irssi for aim.

If you fix people's computers, uninstall aim and install gaim. No ads, no spyware, open source. You're not only promoting an ideal, you're saving yourself future work. You will thank yourself later when they don't call back again. Adware and Malware is the bane of the tech geeks life: never ever let anyone install something if you can stop them. Swap IE for Firefox: change the icon and the name, they probably won't notice a difference.

There are a lot of things the normal computer user can, but does not, do in order to become a more safe computer user. Help them out by doing it for them.