Mumbai, June 9: Yahoo! Messenger is about to shut its services down permanently from July 17, 2018, and we can only rue about the decision! Given the fact that how popular the instant messenger service was in the 90s used this provided by Yahoo!, its termination will only make us nostalgic. However, if you are looking for its replacement, the company has advised using ‘Squirrel’.

Almost twenty years later after it first broke into the scene, Yahoo! Messenger’s will not be functional anymore. The first release (as Yahoo! Pager) of the instant messaging service was made available way back in the year 1998 (on March 9 that year, to be precise). The later version was called Yahoo! Messenger and it was released on June 21, 1999.

The company’s statement on its official website’s FAQ section read, “We know we have many loyal fans who have used Yahoo! Messenger since its beginning as one of the first chat apps of its kind.”

If you are a current user you can download your chat history, anytime in the next 6 months. After making a download request, the chats will also be emailed to you. The services will be terminated after July 17 and any user will not be able to log in their accounts, post the deadline.

Last year, another similar chat application AOL Instant Messenger was shut down on December 15. Four years ago it was Orkut, a popular social media platform at that time, which was shut down by Google on June 30.

Yahoo, in its statement, said, “As the communications landscape continues to change over, we're focusing on building and introducing new, exciting communications tools that better fit consumer needs.”

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 09, 2018 02:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).