Yahoo will put to rest its instant messaging app Yahoo Messenger from July 17. The messaging service will be redirected to a new group messaging app Squirrel and Messenger users have six months to download their chat history.

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Since the last month, Yahoo has been beta testing Squirrel and it will be open to the public when Yahoo Messenger shuts down. Those who want to try out squirrel may request for a beta access. Introduced in 1998, the chat service had gained immense popularity among Indian users. There was a decline in the user base in the old version due to the new services rising to fore, including Facebook and Whatsapp. Yahoo also tried to revive the service with the updating of its Android and iOS app apart from the Web counterpart in December last year.

Its new version was launched in December 2015 which then phased out the original messenger app in August in the following year. The update did bring new features which allowed the users to undo sending messages. However, it could not make a mark in the market with platforms like iMessage, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.