Recap: Most have likely already moved on but for those who used the program during its heyday, it's sad to see it go. You'll still be able to download your chat history for the next six months, however, by visiting the downloader request site.
Another early relic of the Internet era will soon be put to pasture. Yahoo on Friday announced it will be discontinuing its Yahoo Messenger application next month at which time you'll no longer be able to access chats and the service will cease to work.
Originally launched as Yahoo Pager in 1998 at the dawn of the Internet boom, Yahoo Messenger was one of several early instant messaging clients. Alongside others like AOL's Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger and ICQ, Yahoo Messenger allowed Internet users to easily communicate with each other via text-based chat.
Such programs were incredibly popular in the late 1990s and through much of the 2000s but eventually fell out of favor as the mobile revolution took root. Think of them as the WhatsApp, Snapchat and Facebook Messenger of an earlier generation.
With Yahoo Messenger now on the chopping block (it's scheduled for sunset on July 17), only ICQ persists. MSN Messenger was shut down in 2014 and AOL pulled the plug on AIM last December. Yahoo refreshed Messenger by adding some modern touches in 2015 but even then, the writing was on the wall and it was only a matter of time before the app would be laid to rest.