BETA: Yahoo! Messenger

Fans of the popular Yahoo! Messenger, great news! Yahoo! has released the beta version of the new Y! Messenger


Yahoo! Messenger 9.0

October 29 - Yahoo! has released a new version of Yahoo! Messenger, the Yahoo! Messenger 9.0. It is still in beta state, meaning the program is bound to have bugs or glitches that will be fixed on the final release of the product.

The new Y! Messenger, version 9.0, now supports better-looking skins. These new skins allows you to customize not only the color of the window, but also the title bar of the window, with cool designs. Default skins are available, ranging from wood to icy blue.

The interface is sleeker and cleaner than the previous version, reducing the visual clutter.

Along with the new additions is the 'friend-happy' contact list. The list is now expanded, so that you can view the image of your contacts. It also gives more room for the status of each contact. But sometimes this wastes so much space, instead of displaying more contacts. That makes you scroll through the list unnecessarily. However, you have the option to revert back to the former list view. By the way, you can now use Emoticons for your status messages.

Also, a new contact group has been added - your Address Book list. That way, you can easily IM or text message your friends in your Y! Mail address book.

The photo sharing features of Y! Messenger has been improved, integrating photos from Flickr. Plus a cool new integrated Media player has been added. Just include a link from a video site, such as YouTube, and Messenger allows you to play the video right inside the chat window.

Yahoo! Messenger also features some protection against malicious attacks like viruses and malwares, but I haven't tested them yet.

The chat window is changed, too. The toolbar now only contains IMvironment, Plugins, and Photos, along with the Call button. The rest are moved to the lower portion of the window, right above the text box.

No new options are available in the Preference window, and the Skins section has been moved to the top of the title bar.

It's a working program, but it is still in beta state. There's no guarantee that it will work properly. Expect some glitches and crashes here and there. And any features described here will eventually change and additional features may be available in the future. If you decide to try and install the new version, you can download one here: http://beta.messenger.yahoo.com/

While in the subject of instant messengers, why not try Trillian by Cerulean Studios. This allows you to connect to multiple instant messenger accounts, like Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, ICQ, AIM, IRQ, Bonjour, Jabber, Skype and others. Plus, it also allows you to log in to multiple accounts at the same time. So you can be online on both of your Yahoo! IDs and another for Windows Live messenger. Cool, huh? It's free, by the way. Download the software here: http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

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