I am curious. Can your chats be recovered even if you have selected not to archive. If so, is there software that really removes them or does not archive them? I was chatting with somebody who said that a program with a name like Yazuka (?) was the only one that really did not leave a recoverable history.

If you do not have the archiving function selected, then your own computer does not save the chat. The person you are talking to could be saving, though; you can't over-ride that.

Yahoo's servers do not store chat's either, at least not all, but of course, if they wanted, they could save any/all chats of any user they choose, I suppose.

Gigatribe chat, or any other chat that is purely P2P, which does not use a central, 'home' server like Yahoo, would be the kind you want if you truly want no 3rd party to have a chance at recovering your chats.