AIM on Debian

I have the latest stable Debian installed, 2.4.27-2-386. Mozilla 1.7.8. Attempting to install AIM. Following the instructions for AIM 1.5.286 for Debian 2.1 presents a problem immediately; it attempts to save as "linker.jsp". I simply click on the link, and it displays the deb file as ASCII. If I save this and run it, terminal gives me the error saying the file was corrupted by being saved as ASCII.

I opened the location with just the last part of the link, Konqueror, and saved that, same message. I attempted sending the same link to myself in email, but Hotmail doesn't offer a direct "save as" link to it, it treats it as an attachment. I tried deleting the entry for .deb under the helper applications and clicked "always ask" in Mozilla help, it still just loads it right up as ASCII without asking.

I just downloaded ftp-ssl from .deb file brings up a window to extract control.tar.gz, data.tar.gz, and debian-binary, which are suspiciously identical to the results of every other .deb file I've tried to run. I attempt to access this .deb from root terminal and am told "access denied".

Before anyone says rtfm, I spent all day on this (and trying to access my soundcard, internet, and USB flash drive), and performed dozens of Google searches and browsed all over debian.org, whose search engine is down. The funny thing about marvelous Google is that you find hundreds of links to people asking the same questions and being told to check Google.

Can anyone tell me how to set up AIM on Debian 2.4.27? Thanks for your time.

-Chuckk