Yahoo! Messenger is a great instant message program, with a few minor problems. First the positive things:

There are a ton of members using this service. Chances are so are your long lost friends or the love of your life. For those of you who do not know what an instant message program is, you can download this program and send messages live to people who are also online. The program allows you to see if the friends who you have added to your list are online and send them real time messages.

Yahoo! Messenger is more fun than other programs such as ICQ. There are cool faces you can use to express opinions or just have fun. But unlike other services, Yahoo! allows you to use faces from smiles to monkey faces to pig faces to even sending a rose to your friend. For a complete list of faces and how to create them, go to http://www.wackyb.co.nz/yahoo.html

The IMVironments make the background of the chat session look cool. There are backgrounds that include Monsters Inc, snow, falling hearts, Dilbert, aquarium, and my favorite karate fighter where you can karate fight your friend.

Yahoo! Messenger is great because it is just an extension of the Yahoo! portal. That is, if you are on Messenger, you will be notified when you receive Yahoo! mail. It even tells you who sent it and the subject of the mail. People can also see you online and instant message you if they are in Yahoo! Chat instead of messenger. Yahoo! Messenger works in conjunction with many other Yahoo! services.

While this program may seem perfect, there are some negatives.

Sometimes Yahoo! Messenger will crash or will kick you out (boot you). Re-opening the program will get you back in, but it is a hassle.

Sometimes (at least on my computer) a message pops up saying that Messenger isn't installed on this computer..even when it is. I'm not sure how to solve this problem, but the program seems to work fine without reinstalling it.

Sometimes you can send a message or someone will send you a message and you never receive it. It's almost as if you aren't online. I am also not sure how to solve this problem, but it is rare.

Sometimes the IMVironments freeze up (the karate one especially). Changing the screen to another IMVironment and going back to karate sometimes fixes this problem.

Other than that, I have been completely satisfied with this program.

As for privacy issues, you can turn off showing whether you are online or not under your Yahoo! profile (and I think in messenger as well). You can log in as Invisible in Messenger to avoid being messaged by people. You can turn off the mail notification if it gets annoying. You can refuse someone from adding you to their list. You can IGNORE people who message you and you will never receive a message from them again.

Overall, this is a wonderful instant message service that I would recommend to anyone who wants to meet new people or stay in touch with friends and family.

Recommended: Yes