I have had MSN explorer for a while now, and find it useful because my husband, myself, and the kids can all have separate ’’accounts’’ and thus our own favourites.
The Browser is fun to use and looks nice, with easy links at the top of the screen for Email, the MSN home Page, Favourites, Online Buddies (MSN Instant Messenger), People and Chat (MSN Communities) Money, Shopping and Music.
The download was quite quick and painless, I can’t remember exact details but you are asked if you have a Hotmail/MSN email account already, if you do then it keeps that address for your new browser, if you don’t then you create one.
The Online Buddies Icon shows how many buddies are online at the time and the small icon in the tool bar still works in the same way as it does without the MSN browser:- Right Click for the option to goto - MSN Home, My Hotmail inbox, Send instant message (which then comes up with the names of your online buddies), My Status (online, busy, out to lunch, Appear offline, etc), Sign out, Open or Exit. You cannot ’’Sign Out’’ or ’’Exit’’ whilst using the MSN Browser as it signs that out too.
The biggest problem that I have is sometimes, especially at Peak times, you cannot sign on, or the Connection to the Hotmail account cannot be made, so it isn’t always reliable.
All in all if you want something that is flexible for a large number of users, or where you can get your mail in from any PC then it is worth it but, if you need reliabilty, find something else or stick to what you have got.