Whee! AOL is back in the business of blocking renegade clients from using the AOL Instant Messenger network protocol. The victim this time is Trillian, which is superior in almost every way to AOL’s bloated client. Plenty of Trillian users are hopping mad, seeing as this is the second time in 36 hours that AOL has kicked them off the network. It would seem that AOL has every right to protect their interests, but I’m not so sure what they are protecting. I guess it’s the “Instant Messenger” brand, and the ability to push a lame mini-portal (AOL Today) and irrelevant banner ads — many of them advertising AOL services — to the unwashed masses.

Trillian has committed to fighting the good fight on this one. Godspeed! In the meantime, everyone using AOL Instant Messenger should kick them to the curb, get a Yahoo! Account, and then use Trillian to connect. If my recommendation isn’t good enough, read CNET’s glowing review on Trillian, where it won the Editor’s Choice award for best instant messenger software.