Mail.Ru Agent

Mail.Ru the Agent — the proprietary free program for fast message exchange via the Internet developed by Mail.ru company in 2003.

In addition to fast message exchange, the program supports also possibilities of the IP telephony, video calls and free sending the SMS and also notifies on the new mail which came by email. When clicking the notification the page with web mail opens. Any user of Mail.ru can load to himself the program from the official site. For an input in the program it is necessary to use an account in the domains @mail.ru, @inbox.ru, @list.ru, @bk.ru. Accounts from other domains are not supported. Free service. Functioning of the voice Agent services Mail.Ru is ensured by Sipnet.

According to the statements of Mail.ru company, Mail.Ru the Agent of 11 million users a month, the same minute online have more than 2 million people.

Starting with version 5.2, the official client supports the ICQ protocol.

In December, 2008 Mail.ru announced release of Mail.Ru the Agent for smartphones working under management operating system Symbian.

Works on adding of support of the Jabber protocol are conducted.

The internal data exchange protocol of Mail.Ru the Agent is partially open. In particular, in documentation of the protocol there is no description of VoIP-calls and games. Besides, the description of the protocol is not updated according to the current version of the protocol between the official server and client software.

Mail.Ru the Agent works under operating systems Windows 2000 Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, there is a version for Mac OS X.

2012: Mail.Ru Agent 6.0

On May 31, 2012, Moscow. There was a new version of the Agent for Windows. In it the interface is completely processed: in new design this single window of a chat and the contact list and also quick access to active dialogs. Besides, in the Agent 6.0 the quality of video calls is improved – now they work in high resolution (VGA)^[1].

The updated interface of the Agent allows to concentrate on communication, but not on management of the messenger. The contact list and dialogs are placed in a single window now, and the last interlocutors in the new version of the messenger automatically are located in a list head of contacts.

The new "engine" for a voice and video developed in own VoIP-laboratory of IM division Mail.Ru Group allowed to expand significantly functionality and to increase communication quality. In the Agent 6.0 video calls are executed in permission of VGA (640*480 pixels), with an opportunity to communicate in the full-screen mode. Besides, it is possible "on the fly", to switch without interruption of a conversation from a voice call to a video call and vice versa.

At requests of users support of skins and color schemes is added – it is possible to color with an application interface in any of 16.7 million flowers to ivybrat for it a design subject. In the near future the feature to set any image as "wall-paper" will be added.

Changes of the interface concerned practically all functions among which authorization of contacts, file transfer, multi-user conferences, integration with social networks. Besides, after optimization of the Agent interface began to work quicker – response time of key functions of the application was reduced.

Special attention was paid to the questions usability at design of version 6.0. In addition to own designers, the famous specialists in design of interfaces were involved in cooperation, and for testing of prototypes a series of tests on focus groups was carried out. As a result even the regular users of the Agent who got used to "old" design easily upgraded to the new version.

About "own engine" did not agree with the approval of Mail.ru in the Spirit company specializing in creation of products for voice transmission and video on IP channels. "In the world software industry today really seriously are engaged in development of own engines for voice transmission and video only in Microsoft, Skype, Google and we, – Alexander Samarin, the director of a product (voice and video the engine) Spirit told CNews. - It is the narrow market in which all players well know each other".

In the reference "About the program" the new messenger copyrights of two VoIP-projects of Google – Global IP Solutions (GIPS) and WebRTC are specified, Samarin pays attention. The product Mail.ru, according to him, from the first version uses the voice GIPS engine which in 2010 purchased Google. Development of this engine was conducted by 70 specialists for 10 years, and investments into it made more than $60 million, the specialist claims.

In the latests version of the Agent of Mail.ru it is used both the GIPS code, and an open part of a project code of WebRTC, add to Spirit, and to call the received result own engine, according to them, technically incorrectly. "Contrary to public statements about independently developed voice engine, Mail.ru only executed integration of the engine of Google into the product "Mail.ru Agent", - Samarin says. - According to our data and expert evaluations, Mail.ru spent about 50 man-monthes for integration of the engine of Google into own product. It is is essential less than 1% of common efforts which was required for development of the most voice engine".

In Mail.ru say that at first really licensed "engine" at GIPS, and after acquisition of this Google company agreed with developers about continuation of use of its library and in parallel began work on own engine, a basis for which the WebRTC library formed. The last is also the project of Google which code is publicly available according to the license BSD.

2015: Mail.ru Group called priority the ICQ brand, but on the technical platform of Agent of Mail.Ru

ICQ became the priority Mail.ru Group messenger,^[2] reported Vedomosti] the head of strategic PR-projects of holding Madina Tayupova^[3]. It is about "consolidation" of the ICQ brand with Agent of Mail.Ru — one more messenger in the property of holding. "Agent" will continue work and forced transfer of its users in ICQ will not be yet, however technology process of consolidation goes long ago, Tayupova explained.

In January, 2015 Mail.ru Group closed^[4]. Igor Ermakov, the head of department of Instant Messaging in Mail.ru Group holding explained that myChat was a polygon for researches and his ideas are transferred to new generation of ICQ. myChat appeared in November, 2013 in a packet of My.com and intended to the western, but not the Russian market though it could be used also for communication, including, with ICQ subscribers. In April 2014 MRG considered the benefit existence of several programs of an identical purpose: "myChat and ICQ are two separate products which will develop further, adopt each other the most successful solutions".

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