Google is retiring Google Talk for good, also shutting down several Gmail Labs
(Android Police)

Before there was Allo and Duo, before Hangouts was unveiled, there was Google Talk. In some ways, it was better than the Hangouts platform that replaced it. Talk had a real desktop app, and if you didn`t like it, you could use any XMPP client to communicate. You could even send messages to users on other XMPP-powered services - a huge difference from today`s proprietary messaging services. Google Talk was ultimately updated to Hangouts in 2013, but some of Google Talk`s services still remained active. Today, Google announced in a blog post that the remains of Talk is being completely shut down. Read MoreGoogle is retiring Google Talk for good, also shutting down several Gmail Labs was written by the awesome team at Android Police.