With a wink and a smile (Battle of the Instant Messengers)

Member Name: triplecthegame

Product:	Battle of the Instant Messengers
Date:	31/08/01 (400 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: plenty of options to talk to friends

Disadvantages: so many different programs

I'm a talker me, honest I am, ever since I've got online I've always had at least one messenger program installed on my hard-drive, they've always been there for me whenever I needed someone to talk to, but theres so many out there - which ones should we be choosing?

Well as I mentioned earlier I have a platitude of messengers installed on my hard drive (5 in fact), so down there where theres all that typing, you lucky, lucky dooyoosers are going to get to hear my views on each of them and hopefully I'll be able to point you to the right program for you.

1. MSN (www.msn.com)

Microsoft eh?, the company you love to hate aren't they?, well yes but there is a few things you can get from them for free, one of them being MSN instant messenger, a small download what it does is add a little icon to your tool bar that looks like a grey fat bloke, now from this icon you can access a world of information, well your online friends anyway.

So what do you need to do then?, well go to msn.com and get yourself a 'passport', now don't panic this isn't one of those incidents where you end up taking a photo of yourself that looks like you're drunk, its actually a sign up for MSN services, what you need to do is give them a valid e-mail address (not necessarily a hotmail address) and your selected password, then a quick download and bobs your uncle (unless he had a sex-change and changed his name to fanny - then he'd be your aunt), you're ready to set up your MSN - basically you then have to choose things such as what font you'd like to type in and also choose a screen-name, then you're ready to add a friend.

Adding a friend couldn't be easier, get the e-mail address they've signed up with and a couple of clicks later you've got a friend to talk to. So then whats the advantages and disadvantages of opting for MSN?, well first off theres file transfers, it doesn't mat
ter what size the file is, if you've got a song that your friend wants to hear then MSN is the one for you, even if it takes a long time, its the only messenger thats going to get the song sent for you. Now then do you want to be daft and fun on your Messenger?, then MSN is a good option, you get a tonne of emoticons to play around with, and again MSN is the winner. On top of this unlike some messengers I'll mention later you don't get people who you don't know messaging you, finally you don't have to stick to the one screen-name, feel like changing?, then be my guest as its easy to do. Whoops, I lied, according to rumours in time you will soon be able to send and recieve text messages via your MSN, which would be very handy.

However there are a couple of downsides to MSN too, and they are all connected to one thing - appearing/being offline, first off theres no way of logging on automatically in Invisible mode, so people have to know that you're online even if you appear offline straight away, so you can end up in a conversation you didn't want to get involved in, second when you are offline, forget doing anything as it won't let you say anything to anyone until you're appearing online, so again you could find yourself speaking to somebody you never wanted to speak to in the first place. Last downer, is offline messages, there are times when you don't want to be sending an e-mail as they're a bit too long so of course an offline message would be best but alas theres no options to do this with MSN.

Yahoo Messenger (messenger.yahoo.com)

The second 'big' name, and the main rival to MSN - however this time theres a few differences, first and biggest is the signing up, this time you need to get a Yahoo id, which is easy enough to do before having a hefty(-ish) download its all set up and ready for you to play with. Adding friends is pretty much the same as MSN, just find out their user id and
away you go.

Now then advantages, first and foremost is appearing offline, you can sign on straight away and be offline, which is very handy for the person with a large Circle of Friends, on top of this you can still send and recieve messages whilst appearing offline, so if you ever only want to talk to one person (which I often do with a certain special someone), you can appear offline and still speak to him/her hence being able to avoid conversations with people who although you class them as your friends, you simply don't want to speak to. Slightly connected to that is the ability to leave offline messages, handy when you've only got a few words to say. Next advantage is gaming, say you're playing one of Yahoos many games (games.yahoo.com), and also have messenger turned on, if a friend of yours wants to join in in your game all they have to do is click on your name a couple of times and they'll be redirected to whichever game you're playing. Following closely on that is the chance to interact with the Yahoo site in itself, a couple of links away are all the services Yahoo offer, all very handy when you need to get there quickly. But what if you want to customize it?, well you can't change your nickname but you can change the sounds you get for every different action to any midi file you want, but then thats just big boys toys isn't it?

Oh but of course there are disadvantages as well, mainly being that anybody can come through to you on messenger, whether they know you or not, and believe me they do, you'll get 'hot young teens who just have to speak to you via their webcam', offers of get-rich-quick schemes, and plenty of other boring things, but then as with all messengers theres always the block facility. Final downside is the fact that theres a limit to how large a file you can send using Yahoo, and to be honest forget sending any files like MP3s over it, however for smaller files its ideal.

><br><br>AIM (www.aol.com)

Now you know those tea-coasters you keep getting in the post?, they do have a handy thing on them - AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), to be honest its a program that I rarely use, but its still there so I'll give it my best shot. This time adding friends is just a Screen-name away, all you have to do is find it out and add them to yor Friends list.

Advantages, well you can talk on it, apart from that well then you do get links to the main AOL site and all their services, finally theres games, the basic 2 player games are all available to play with your online friends, without any hefty downloads or long waits just do a couple of clicks and away you go. Next theres the length of time someones been online, hover your mouse over their name, and you'll find out how long they've been on, doesn't sound handy?, well if you know how long your friend usually stays online then you can find out if you've just got on as they might be leaving and avoid bugging someone who doesn't want to speak to you.

Disadvantages, well theres quite a few, first off if you're using AOL as an ISP, there is no chance of appearing offline, you can leave a message after your screen-name that says what you're really doing, but its still showing that you're online, next problem is offline messages once again you can't do it, so of course the old problems of having to send an e-mail if you want to tell your online friend anything when they're actually offline.

ICQ (www.icq.com)

The original messenger, and a hefty download again, this time its not actually affiliated to any sites, more its actually just millions of people worldwide connected to the ICQ server.

Advantages, well theres a few, first off you can try and find new friends by similar interests, on top of this theres the chance to set up a public profile which everyone can see, hence they can also search for you by com
mon interest, once again theres a chance to swap files over ICQ as well which is just the same as MSNs file transfer service, no pick up in speed or added features to that. Next up is the fact that the SMS service is already up and running, get your ICQ number and give it to your friends, then watch how they can send you SMS straight from their Mobile phone to your computer.

Disadvantages, well theres one big one, spam - believe me you'll get a bit of it, people who've never spoken to you before offering hot steamy encounters, but once again theres always the chance to block these people, next, exery time you log on it will automatically bring up a pop-up page offering you links to different articles, now as every web-user knows pop-ups are the bane of the Internet, and well this one is just plain annoying.

trillian (www.trillian.cc)

Not exactly a messenger program as something that makes using all your messengers easier, if you use it it'll take all your chat-programs and put them in one window, so Yahoo, AOL, MSN, ICQ and even if you have a registered Mirc nickname, all of these can be bundled into one program.

Advantages, simple really, the main advantage is that you don't have 4 or 5 different windows open at once, its all there on one screen.

Disadvantages, your friends list can get a bit confusing as it shows every single friend you have on your messenger lists, at the minute in total I have nearly 60 people on all my messenger programs put together and they're all on one screen, fair enough they're broken into each messengers list, but scrolling down may take a while. Next up is that you lose some of the extra features, all you have is the stripped down chat windows with a few of the emoticons to play around with.

So there you go, thats the main 5 messenger programs on the market at the minute, which one do I prefer?, well its a draw between MSN and Yahoo, they're both too close
to call for which ones best, but that doesn't mean to say the others don't have their advantages, basically try them all, you'll soon find the one that you like. But one last disadvantage with messenger programs in general, with that many on the market, theres often the situation that the person you want to add to your friends list doesn't use the same program as you, hence the advantage of having a couple of different programs installed, just in case, and hey if you do download any of these - I may see you there!

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