Confessions Of a Gtalk Addict

This withdrawal symptom refuses to go.

For me it used to be the first ritual after logging on to the computer. A small chat box with my username as default used to pop on the right side of the monitor and all I needed to do was type the password.

In addition to all those green dots denoting 'available' and orange ones conveying 'idle', it used to provide a sneak peek about the new mails that landed in my Gmail inbox, since my last login. It helped me separate wheat from the chaff (Linked-In, Wayn friends' requests, credit card discount offers and of late mail from Prime Minister's Office and other central ministries). It used to help me decide whether there was any mail compelling enough to suffer the toil of clicking the Firefox or Chrome icon.

All this changed one fine morning. When I tried to login to Gtalk I got message 'wrong password', then I tried again and this time with more caution checking each key stroke, but to no avail. A dreadful thought crossed my mind, 'has my mail account been hacked'. Somewhat panicky I double clicked Firefox and tried to log in to my Gmail account. It opened without a hitch, but there was a mail stating that Gtalk services are no longer 'supported' by Google and one must download Google Hangouts instead to enjoy the service.

Then I remembered about a fortnight ago when I had logged in to Gtalk, I had received a message from Google team stating that they were going to scrap the service sometime in February last. But somehow I totally forgot about it. So the day of reckoning finally arrived and I was totally ill-prepared.

Had vaguely heard about Hangouts, but never bothered to check as both my fingers and eyes have very low mobile internet compatibility and are easily vulnerable to the guile of Auto-correct. Hence was wary of even trying it.

Later through some site I came to know how to upgrade to Hangout inside my Gmail inbox, but no stand-alone messenger box for those wanting to stay put with browsing on desktops and laptops, a rapidly depleting market segment. For them as a consolation prize Google was offering access via third-party applications like Jitsi, Psi, Instantbird, Miranda IM and others (the very names sound dubious) with a ominous caveat, "Please bear in mind that these aren't Google products, so exercise caution when signing in with your Google account."

In an oblique manner Google was telling technology laggards like me  that better become smartphone savvy, or else ... Meanwhile my Gmail inbox already has quite a pile (and still counting) of entries  with subject line 'Google Talk for Windows is no longer supported’ a tell-tale reminder of the number of absent-minded attempts I made to log on to good old Gtalk!

Also Read: Bangalore Beat