Google finally closes its next service. This time, they decided to put under the knife the instant messaging service Google Talk (also known as GChat).

Although Google moved Talk users to Hangouts (another of its messaging platforms) in 2017, the service was still available to third-party XMPP clients such as Pidgin and Gajim. But on June 16, the company will completely stop supporting the service.

On the support page, Google indicates that it is “phasing out Google Talk” and will no longer support third-party apps, citing its original statement from 2017. Users who try to log into GChat after June 16th will see an authorization error message.

Google Talk started in 2005 as a way for users to send instant messages directly through Gmail. Later, voice and video calls, as well as group chats, appeared in it. Google discontinued Google Talk in 2017 and switched users to the Hangouts messenger. But later, the company decided to move users from Hangouts to the Meet app. Hangouts can still be used by free Google account holders, but they are shown a “Hangouts will be disabled soon” warning prompting them to switch to Google Chat.

Google encourages people who accessed Google Talk through third-party apps to switch to Google Chat.

Farewell Duo. Google to combine video chat with Meet hangouts into one voice and video calling app

Source: The Verge