Although I am a big fan of ICQ, I must say that I really am impressed with Yahoo Messenger these days. I initially downloaded the chat program during it's first few trial versions and found it a bit buggy. It was mostly useful for communicating with my boyfriend over a club chatroom we had established, and I rarely used it otherwise. Lately, however, I find that I use messenger extensively and I have successfully downloaded it on both work and home computers.

Many new features make the latest version especially great for people who like to have several different communication methods at their fingertips. Of course you can do standard instant messenging, as well as establish a more direct chat "conference." Offline messaging is also an option, as it is with most chat programs. More interestingly, voice conferencing is also available, as are PC to phone calls using a Yahoo/Net2Phone-based client. That means (YAY!) another way to get some free long-distance phone time!!

Messenger also offers a custom-tailored setup that allows users to check up on stocks, weather, sports scores, or a whole host of other types of news. It can be set to automatically check yahoo email as well, which I found to be a very endearing trait until I started receiving massive loads of junk email every day. Yahoo also finally got their act together and added a file transfer feature similar to that found on ICQ, although it cannot send nearly as large of a file.

Overall, messenger is a very worthy download and a must-have for computer communication junkies and families keeping in touch over distance. It is simple to set up, fun to use, and the updated versions just keep getting better and better!




Recommended: Yes