AOL Instant Messenger 7.3 (AIM) provides a quick and easy way to locate and exchange text chat with friends, family or colleagues, either one-on-one or in groups.

Surprisingly, you don't need an AIM account to use the program - just sign in with your Facebook login details and you can chat with your Facebook friends, whether they have AIM or not.

And that's just the start. Take a few moments to set up the new Lifestream feature (all very easy, wizards do the hard work) and you'll be able to update your Facebook, MySpace and Twitter statuses, all from within AOL Instant Messenger.

Need more? AIM can be extended in many different ways. Just take a look at the bots, for instance, screen names you can add as contacts that will perform useful actions. There are free bots to search the web, perform translations, display news headlines, find bargains online, and the list goes on.

And if you just want an entertaining chat experience then there are plenty of ways to customise the program, with a wide range of emoticons, wallpapers, icons, sounds and more all available for free.

Note that the Mac version is included here, but is still at v2.x.