Hi everybody!
Using Pidgin with OTR for some years, got yesterday a message that AOL will kill support and found this here: https://arstechnica.com/business/2017/02/aol-will-cut-off-third-party-app-access-to-aim/
Can anybody suggest an alternative provider for user accounts to keep using Pidgin with OTR plugin? Not that much interested in Microsoft or Google, alternatives highly appreciated!
Many thanks in advance
As the article suggested,
You can try using Trillium and keep your fingers crossed.
Cutting off OSCAR support is likely a way to force Users to use official AIM apps that push its own advertising.
Recommend you contact AIM directly (Support Forums?) for their recommendations.
TSU
…you mean Trillian?
But I want to continue use of Pidgin with the OTR plugin for encryption. So I’m looking for a new provider for accounts, not a new messenger 
I think I’ll try an XMPP provider. Anybody with some experience? Possible (easily?) to have such a server in the local network?
When I was looking at IM apps and how they worked many years ago,
I found that all plugins relied on an API provided by the IM Service.
The article you referenced says that the AIM service is disabling plugin support, when that happens nothing can be done unless someone literally runs the actual AIM app and exports the feeds after AIM fully processes the messages… Support for exporting streams appears to be cut off at the root which will affect all 3rd party apps, and there won’t be any way around that.
XMPP is not an option.
TSU
Pidgin OTR can handle XMPP. I made a few new accounts at an XMPP provider, working fine, even with OTR. 