Yahoo! Messenger

For more than 14 years now Yahoo! Messenger has been out there making it easy for users to stay in touch with friends halfway around the globe. Offered free of charge by Yahoo!, company that needs no introduction or presentation, this is a properly good IM (instant messaging) client. You can use it to send instant messages to your friends, make audio and video calls to other Yahoo! Messenger users, make phone calls and send text messages to mobile phones, share files, read the news, listen to music, and even play games. When they coined the saying “feature rich” they must have had Yahoo! Messenger in mind.

To get started with Yahoo! Messenger on your Windows-powered machine (there are also versions for Mac OS X, iOS, and Android; the Linux version is no longer supported), you will have to get a 414KB installation file on your machine. Pay attention to the instructions presented by the setup wizard, as Yahoo! will basically try to take over your computer – it will want to change your homepage and search provider, it will want to install a browser add-on and toolbar, and it will want to create desktop and Quick Launch shortcuts. I suggest you go with the Custom Install and uncheck the features you do not want. The fun part is that during the installation process you are presented with info on what Yahoo! Messenger can do.

To start using Yahoo! Messenger you will have to log in. If you already have a Yahoo! account, use your username and password to log in. If you don’t have an account, you can easily create one. There’s a “Get a new Yahoo! ID" in the bottom part of Yahoo! Messenger’s interface – click it to be directed to the webpage where you can create an account.

Once you access Yahoo! Messenger, the interface should not pose any problems. At the top you have the file menu, your status bar, the games link, the Yahoo! Mail link, the Yahoo! Insider link, and so on. The main pane presents your list of contacts. Underneath it there’s the Plug-ins window, and at the bottom there are ads.

To start talking to someone you must add that someone to your list. Double click a contact in the list and the conversation window will show up. You can type in plain text, add some smileys, perhaps an audible, or if you want to spice things up, use an IMvironment. Besides sending instant messages, you can also place audio or video calls, send files to a contact, share photos, send a snapshot of your screen, and play games with a contact. Your conversation history is automatically saved to the cloud by Yahoo! Messenger, meaning that you can access it from Yahoo! Mail or from Yahoo! Messenger installed on another machine.

Alternatively, you can join a chat room and talk with people who share your interests, or you can sign in with your Facebook account and chat with your Facebook friends.

Putting the spotlight on the visual, the first thing that must be said is that you can change the way Yahoo! Messenger looks by using skins. You can view them by clicking the dedicated button in the upper right hand corner of the interface, or from the Preferences menu. You can choose an image to be displayed in the conversation window and you can change the font type, size and color of your text.

It’s nice to have some music playing in the background while you’re talking to someone - Yahoo! Messenger has that. The application comes with several plug-ins, including a Yahoo! Music plug-in. You can choose one of several stations and listen to music while chatting with your friends.

When you don’t want to be disturbed, you can set your status to Invisible. Or if you don’t want certain people to disturb you, you can choose to be invisible just for them. You can also create a group of contacts and set it so you’re always invisible towards that group. And if someone spams you, you can add that someone to the ignore list. Fun fact: add yourself to the ignore list and you will be presented with a prompt that says you cannot ignore yourself.

Overall, Yahoo! Messenger is a great application for Windows. There are a few nuisances though. One of them is the fact that the IM client displays ads in its interface. Another one is the fact that if you click on a smiley from the smiley menu, whatever you have in the notepad will be overwritten. So if you copy an important piece of text, then click on a smiley from Yahoo! Messenger’s smiley menu, your piece of text will be replaced with the combination for that smiley. This can be annoying. Another downside is that Yahoo! Messenger does not automatically update itself. To make sure you’re on the latest version, you should regularly go to Help -> Check for Updates. Last but not least, the conversation history that’s saved online, well sometimes an error prevents you from accessing it.

Yahoo! Messenger is a feature rich, good looking and fun instant messaging client. Use it to stay in touch and have fun with your friends.