The Internet has become an important part and parcel of our lives and enables in making new friends and keeping in touch with near and dear ones. While the good old e-mail is readily available for sending mails, the thrill of chatting “live” with someone is an experience by itself. The commonly used Messengers these days are Yahoo! Messenger, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ. I’ve been a “Yahooligan” right from its D-Days (Donkey Days) and though I’ve tried MSN and ICQ briefly, I’ve never been quite as comfortable with them as I’m with yahoo! Here are 5 reasons why I prefer Yahoo! over others (figures in brackets are my ratings for the features)
What’s Yahoo! Messenger?
Yahoo! Messenger is small software developed by Yahoo and allows users to communicate with each other seamlessly. It is freely available for download/use (from the yahoo website) and includes text and voice-based messaging operations. That apart, it also allows users to track their favourite stocks, the local weather and the latest news headlines.
1. Downloading & Installation - (5/5)
The software (Version 5.0 is the latest) can be downloaded (free!) from the Yahoo website and the setup file “weighing” around 2.4 MB takes about 5-10 minutes to download, depending on the speed of the Internet connection. Once the setup file has been downloaded, one only needs to double click on it and the auto installation feature takes over and the job is done in half a minute or so. An icon/link is created in the “Start” Menu in order to facilitate fast access. (Sheesh! Do I sound like I’m teaching elementary maths? Ok, I’ll shift gears)
2. Features and usage (4/5)
Chat – This enables a user to add the Yahoo ID’s of friends (they need to have Yahoo ID’s too) and shows their status as being online or offline. The latest version enables organizing people into various groups or categories and there’s also a feature by which only those “buddies” who are online can be made visible. Thankfully, there’s also a “Search” feature by which one can search for buddies either by their names or by their Yahoo mail ID’s. “Voice chat” is another new feature added but I haven’t tried it in the absence of the required infrastructure at my workplace.
Conference – This enables multi-person chatting by putting them into the same “chat room”. The latest additions to chat and conferencing are the “Webcam” compatibility and the “Imvironments”. I’ve never tried the webcam feature and I really don’t know if it works well in India (given the unpredictability of our Internet connections). IMvironments are colourful background themes and have been added in the latest version. There are about 4-5 standard IM’s pre-installed and the others (new ones are added from time to time) may be downloaded from the Yahoo site.
Stock Alerts, Weather Forecasts and News – These are common features used by most people very often and are available at the single click of a button. The use of these features was limited in the previous versions, in that they could not be customized irrespective of which side of the earth I was on. That has been taken care of now and I can now keep track of the price movements of my favourite stocks (on BSE/NSE) from the comfort of my desktop. The news, too can now be customized to a particular country and I use the Yahoo! Finance news a lot.
3. Other Attractions - (5/5)
Emoticons are cute little icons like the smiley faces that can be easily inserted into the chatboard to convey various emotions. Another useful (and easily missed) feature is the display of the typing status of the other user. Various status messages are available (Not in Office, Busy, On the phone, etc.) and this save a lot of trouble to the users on the other side who may be misled into thinking that I’m intentionally avoiding or cold shouldering them.
4. Interface and Ease of Use - (4/5)
The interface is designed well and once a person explores the various options available a few times, it’s a relatively simple task to maneuver and use them thereafter. The menus are well organized under different categories (unlike ICQ). There’s also an online help feature available in case of any problem with the features. For those bored of the dull and drab background, different skins ands themes can be downloaded from various websites to make the interface look more attractive (window dressing).
5. Security Concerns - (4/5)
Security could be a problem at times if one opts for the “Remember my ID and Password” feature. If you’re accessing YM from the work place and opt for this, some colleague with less than bonafide intentions could wreak havoc in your absence.
Cheeky’s Opinion…
The Yahoo! Messenger has a great deal to offer for anyone looking for a chat client with something more than just Instant Messaging capabilities. Yahoo has continually shown the foresight to upgrade it from time to time (without complicating things) and incorporating new features (like voice chat and webcam viewing) to keep pace with the new technologies.
Another important feature which Yahoo has but that which is absent in the others is access through a proxy server. My company has a 64 Kbps lease line connection and I access the net through the same. This enables me to connect to the net even if I don’t have a direct modem connection. If it was not for this feature, I would never be able to keep in daily touch with my scores of pals on MS!
Yahoo! Messenger is freeware, has cool features, integrates well with other Yahoo services (like Yahoo! Mail and My Yahoo!) and is an excellent tool for chatting (which is its main purpose). On the flipside, it tends to be sluggish at times and I end up getting offline messages one or two days later (sometimes). The only other disadvantage I can think of is that it lacks direct integration with Yahoo chat rooms (wishful thinking?).
Overall, I’d give it a Thumbs Up!