Mail.Ru Agent

Mail.Ru Agent is a proprietary free program for fast messaging through developed Internet by Mail.ru in 2003.

In addition to fast messaging, the program also supports IP telephony, video calling and free sending, SMS and also notifies you of new mail received by email. Clicking on the notification opens a webmail page. Any user can Mail.ru download the program from the official website. To enter the program, you need to use an account in the domains @ mail.ru, @ inbox.ru, @ list.ru, @ bk.ru. Accounts from other domains are not supported. The service is free. The Agent Sipnet provides the operation of Mail.Ru voice services.

According to Mail.ru, Mail.Ru Agent has 11 million users per month, more than 2 million people are online at the same minute.

As of version 5.2, the official client supports the ICQ protocol.

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

Work is underway to add support for the Jabber protocol.

Internal data exchange protocol Mail.Ru Agent is partially open. In particular, the protocol documentation does not describe VoIP calls and games. In addition, the protocol description is not updated according to the current version of the protocol between the official server and client software.

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

2024: Service closure

On August 20, 2024, the Agent Mail.ru service ceased to operate. The project website says the following:

Continue to communicate with friends in VK Messenger, and with colleagues in VK WorkSpace. The Mail.ru Agent service has terminated.

As the VK press service commented to RIA Novosti, the company plans to focus on the development of VK Messenger and solutions for corporate users based on the VK WorkSpace platform.

The Agent Mail.ru service supported calls, video calls, SMS, and sent notifications about new letters.

2012: Mail.Ru Agent 6.0

May 31, 2012, Moscow. A new version of Windows Agent has been released. It completely redesigned the interface: in the new design, it is a single chat and contact list window, as well as quick access to active dialogs. In addition, Agent 6.0 has improved the quality of video calls - now they work in high resolution (VGA)^[1].

The updated Agent interface allows you to concentrate on communication, and not on managing the messenger. The contact list and dialogs are now placed in a single window, and the last interlocutors in the new version of the messenger are automatically placed at the beginning of the contact list.

The new "engine" for voice and video, developed in the own VoIP laboratory of the IM division of Mail.Ru Group, made it possible to significantly expand the functionality and improve the quality of communication. In the Agent, 6.0 video calls are made in VGA resolution (640 * 480 pixels), with the ability to communicate in full screen mode. In addition, you can "on the fly," without interrupting the conversation, switch from a voice call to a video call and vice versa.

At the request of users, support for skins and color schemes has been added - the application interface can be painted in any of 16.7 million colors and the theme for it can be selected. In the near future, the ability to set any image as "wallpaper" will be added.

Interface changes affected almost all functions, including contact authorization, file transfer, multi-user conferences, integration with social networks. In addition, after optimizing the interface, the Agent began to work faster - the response time of the key functions of the application was reduced.

The issues of usability in the design of version 6.0 were given special attention. In addition to their own designers, well-known interface designers were involved in cooperation, and a series of focus group tests were carried out to test prototypes. As a result, even regular users of the Agent, accustomed to the "old" design, easily switched to the new version.

The Mail.ru did not agree with the statement about their "own engine" in a company Spirit specializing in creating products for voice and video transmission over IP channels. "In the global software industry, only we are really seriously engaged in the development of our own engines for voice and video transmission today, and Microsoft Skype Google we," said Alexander Samarin, Product Director (Voice and Video Engine) Spirit. "It's a narrow market where all the players know each other well."

The help "About the program" of the new messenger indicates the copyrights of two VoIP projects of Google - Global IP Solutions (GIPS) and WebRTC, Samarin draws attention. The Mail.ru product, according to him, has been using the GIPS voice engine since the first version, which Google bought in 2010. The development of this engine was carried out by 70 specialists for 10 years, and investments in it amounted to more than $60 million, the specialist claims.

In the latest versions of the Agent Mail.ru both the GIPS code and the open part of the WebRTC project code are used, added to Spirit, and it is technically incorrect to call the result as their own engine. "Contrary to public statements about a self-developed voice engine, Mail.ru only integrated the Google engine into its Mail.ru Agent product," says Samarin. - According to our information and expert estimates, the Mail.ru spent approximately 50 man-months integrating the Google engine into its own product. This is significantly less than 1% of the total effort that was required to develop the voice engine itself. "

The Mail.ru says that at first they really licensed the "engine" from GIPS, and after acquiring this company, Google agreed with the developers to continue using its library and in parallel began work on their own engine, the basis for which was the WebRTC library. The latter is also a Google project whose code is publicly available under a BSD license.

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

ICQ has become a priority messenger for the Mail.ru Group,[1] Madina Tayupova, head of strategic PR projects at the holding, told Vedomosti^[2]. We are talking about the "merger" of the ICQ brand with the "Agent Mail.Ru" - another messenger owned by the holding. The "agent" will continue to work and there will be no forced transfer of its users to ICQ yet, but the technological process of the merger has been going on for a long time, Tayupova explained.

In January 2015 Mail.ru Group closed the messenger myChat^[3]. Igor Ermakov, head of Instant Messaging at Mail.ru Group, explained that myChat was a testing ground and its ideas were transferred to the new generation of ICQ. myChat appeared in November 2013 in the My.com package and was intended for the Western, not the Russian market, although it could also be used for communication, including with ICQ subscribers. In April 2014, MRG considered the existence of several programs of the same purpose a boon: "myChat and ICQ are two separate products that will continue to develop, adopt the most successful solutions from each other."

Notes