I love MSN (Microsoft MSN Messenger Service)

Member Name: jennikitten

Product:	Microsoft MSN Messenger Service
Date:	16/10/08 (123 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: User friendly, good to talk to people

Disadvantages: Not always reliable

MSN is probably the most popular messenger service out there. What is it? Well basically, it's a chat client that allows you to add people to your contact list and, when they come online (on MSN specifically), you can double click their name and chat to them.

MSN comes in two main versions - Windows Messenger, the basic version, which comes with any Windows PC or laptop, and Windows Live, which you have to download (it's free), and comes with a bigger range of options - and more adverts. Both ultimately do the same thing, but with Live you can play games with your friends, change the colour of your name, and several other optional things. It really depends on how much space and RAM you want to take up, with what you use.

On both versions, you can have an icon (kind of like the icon you can have next to your name on dooyoo) to personalise it further. One thing that makes it stand out from other messengers such as AIM, Yahoo etc., is the ability to have a personal message under your username. A lot of people like to describe their mood, a favourite song lyric, or whatever. You also have the choice of showing people what song you're currently listening to instead - it links to any music player on your computer.

You can also have different statuses - 'Away',' Busy', 'On the phone', and you can also appear offline if you don't want people to see you're online.

One great feature is that you can organise your contacts by groups, for example you might want to separate old friends from school and friends from work, or friends from different places.

Your MSN account is also linked to your hotmail email account for easy reading. You will also get notifications when you get a new email, which is also very useful.

Overall, messenger is great. Just go to hotmail.com and sign up for a free yourname@hotmail.co.uk, then just log into messenger and you're ready to go...well - except that you need the MSN addresses of some of your friends first!

Summary: A very popular client

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