Yahoo has decided to bid good-bye to its messenger service and say hi to Squirrel. Yahoo Messenger, its instant messaging service was introduced in 1998. It was a popular chat service for almost a decade till smart phones, and the subsequent spread of applications like Whatsapp and Snapchat, replaced it.
At the turn of the century when people worked on desktops and laptops Yahoo topped the instant messaging via the internet with file sharing making it one of the most widely used services at that time. The browser based version was pulled down in 2016 and now the app will also be discontinued in July.
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Though Yahoo has not specified any reason shutting down the service two decades after it was launched, the fact is that the usage has plummeted due competition from social media apps like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp messenger.
On July 17 the Yahoo Messenger will shut down according to an announcement by Oath Inc. The users will be migrated to the new messenger app, Squirrel. The existing users can continue to use the app till next month.
Squirrel is a new group messaging app but is run on a private beta version. Users who want to test the new messenger can request beta access.
The Yahoo id of users will not be affected and can be used for yahoo products like Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Fantasy, etc. The servers will be made available till six months so that the users can download their chat history.
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