Microsoft has me again
Written: Jul 05 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast easy download, easy to use.
Cons: Sometimes there are problems signing in, needs a hotmail account, limit on maximum people.
The Bottom Line: If you find ICQ to clunky and crashes your computer often get this, or even if you have ICQ get this anyway it's great.
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| superfish2000's Full Review: Microsoft MSN Messenger Service |
Another atempt from Bill Gates to try and control the world, and it seems to be working -- at least for mainly teenagers.
To have the MSN Service you must first have a hotmail account which is also free to set up, and it's also the most popular web based e-mail service. Then you download a small software client which takes under 3 minutes on a 56k modem.
Connecting can be difficult at times either because MSN is adding more servers or the service is overloaded.
The database of your contacts is stored on the Microsoft servers so if Microsoft servers lose all there data you loose all yours too. - This happened to me recently but MSN say they are working on the problem and will have it resolved soon.
The chat window is quite nice, one feature I really liked is that it allows you to see when other people are typing a message to you. This is good so you know if that person is just typing a long message or is just not talking to you.
PC to PC phone calls are OK but the quality is poor, you can always hear your voice echo on the other side and voice is hard to understand.
Sending a file is simple. So far I have only seen one virus which targets MSN which is just an annoyance which displays winks all over the chat window.
The limit on the amount of contats your allowed on your list of 75 which isn't much, but MSN say they may allow a feature for more contacts in a future release. My list is always maxed out and I have to delete people to add someone new.
MSN seems more hacker proof than ICQ -- i've never seen any I.P sniffers or hacking programs for MSN - yet. Maybe the programers are scared to get in trouble with Microsoft.
It's not a very good business tool hance the warning at the start of every converstaion - never give out your credit card number over a instant message converstaion, but it's great for personal use for friends and family.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
superfish2000
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Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 0 members
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