MSN Messenger

At first I resisted using MSN Messenger. I had been reading literally hundreds of articles about the dangers of the Microsoft passport system, and those issues made me very cautious. These articles all (without a single exception) slammed this passport system as so extremely dangerous to privacy that it would simply be insane to even consider using it.

This, I avoided it like the plague ... until, one day, I noticed that my wife was using MSN Messenger to have online discussions with her friends. The last time I looked she was using Yahoo Messenger, and before that ICQ. Now why on earth had she switched to MSN?

The answer was very simple: MSN Messenger is by far the easiest instant messenging system to use. At least, that is the opinion of my lovely wife.

I decided to give it a try, as my wife is extremely intelligent and usually knows a good thing when she see's it (she married me, after all). 

I ran into a problem right away - I had some minor difficulty figuring out how to get the program installed on my computer in the first place. I would have thought MSN Messenger would be advertised right on the front page of MSN, but I was wrong. It's just a small link to another page, and a link from that to the program download. 

From there, it was a quick download and install, and within a few minutes I was up and running.

I created the passport account, which is indeed a requirement to use MSN Messenger. Obviously, though, you don't need to use the passport for anything else.

Now it was time to do a test. I tried "talking" with the wife, and within seconds she was online. We had a brief conversation and I was impressed with the speed and ease of use. In fact, my wife was correct - MSN Messenger was indeed better than the other alternatives.

You see, ICQ is incredibly full-featured. The people who created ICQ must love gadgets with buttons and blinking lights, because ICQ sure has a lot of dazzling features. It is also one of the most difficult programs to use. Even the simple things seem to require dozens of steps, and there are more menus that I can count. That's why I stopped using ICQ - it was just too complicated for me (and I've written operating systems code).

I have come to greatly despise anything related to Yahoo, and their messenging program is no exception. What's the problem? The biggest annoyance is the constant need for a password. Hardly a day goes by when Yahoo Messenger (and all other Yahoo functions) requires the entry of a password. There does not seem to be any way to make the program remember the password - and thus, I have stopped using the thing.

IRC is very good, but, like ICQ, is a little obscure for most people. I also have grave concerns about IRC security, and thus do not use it very often.

I must admit that I've got some concerns about the security of both passport and MSN Messenger. However, these concerns are common to ALL instant messenging programs. 

Thus, to summarize, MSN Messenger's clean interface, speed and ease-of-use won me over. This is the program I now typically use to communicate online.