Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger | |
Yahoo! Messenger 9 Beta for Windows displaying Contact List |
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Developer: | Yahoo! |
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Latest release: | 9.0.0.797 Beta (Windows) / 3.0b2 (Mac) / October 29, 2007/ September 06, 2007 |
OS: | Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Unix |
Genre: | VoIP/Instant messaging client |
License: | Proprietary freeware |
Website: | messenger.yahoo.com |
Yahoo! Messenger is a popular advertisement-supported instant messaging client and associated protocol provided by Yahoo!. Yahoo! Messenger is provided free of charge and can be downloaded and used with a generic "Yahoo! ID" which also allows access to other Yahoo! services, such as Yahoo! Mail, where users can be automatically notified when they receive new email. Yahoo! also offers PC-PC, PC-Phone and Phone-to-PC service, file transfers, webcam hosting, text messaging service, and chat rooms in various categories.
In addition to instant messaging features similar to those offered by ICQ, it also offers (on Microsoft Windows) features such as: IMVironments (customizing the look of Instant Message windows, some of which include authorized themes of famous cartoons such as Garfield or Dilbert), address-book integration and Custom Status Messages. It was also the first major IM client to feature BUZZing and music-status. Another recently added feature is customized avatars.
Yahoo! Messenger 2.5.3 for Mac, released in 2003, is the current stable version for Mac OS X. It has far fewer features than the current Windows release and has been reported to be quite buggy. In June of 2006 Messenger for Mac 3.0b1 was released as a beta, and remains in beta more than a year later. This beta has a more modern interface than 2.5.3 and includes avatars,display image viewing, BUZZ facility, and some other features comparable to those on the Windows version. However, it is still lacking the more advanced features contained in the Windows version, such as PC-to-PC calling, photo sharing, an address book and chat room access. The latest beta version (rc4 released in May 2007) also contains bugs, including a java bug when Safari 3 is installed that causes new messages to pop to the top of the window causing the user to repeatedly scroll to the bottom of the window as new messages arrive.
On October 29, 2007, Yahoo! Messenger announces the release of Yahoo! Messenger 9 Beta on the Yahoo! Messenger Team Blog. It features a new and improved interface, new emoticons, the integration with Flickr account and a new in-line media player which enables the user to view maps, photos and videos from sites like Yahoo! Video and YouTube right in the IM window.[1]
Yahoo! has announced a partnership with Microsoft to join their instant messaging networks. This would make Yahoo! Messenger compatible with Microsoft's .NET Messenger Service. It also made Microsoft's Windows Live Messenger compatible with Yahoo!'s Network. This change has taken effect as of 2006-07-13, - Yahoo! Messenger has integrated instant messaging with Windows Live Messenger users, and is fully functional.
British Telecommunications' BT Communicator software is based on Yahoo! Messenger. BT Communicator was withdrawn on 2006-12-31.[2]
Yahoo! Messenger was originally launched under the name Yahoo! Pager on 1998-03-09.
Contents |
Features
Yahoo! Voice
Yahoo! Voice is a Voice over IP PC-PC, PC-Phone and Phone-to-PC service [3], [4] provided by Yahoo! via its Yahoo! Messenger instant messaging application. It is only available for the Windows platform.
Voicemail and file sharing
Yahoo! added voicemail and file sending capabilities to their client. File-sharing of sizes up to 1GB was added.
Plug-ins
As of 8.0, Yahoo! Messenger has added the ability for users to create plug-ins (via the use of the freely available Yahoo! Messenger Plug-in SDK), which are then hosted and showcased on the Yahoo! Plug-in gallery.
Yahoo! Mail integration
On July 2, 2007, Yahoo! plans to integrate Yahoo! Mail Beta and Yahoo! Messenger [1]. Conversations will eventually be archived and stored in the same manner as emails. This allows users to search within their chat logs easily, and to have them centrally stored no matter what computer is used to have conversations.
Chat
All versions of Yahoo! Messenger have included the ability to access Yahoo! Chat rooms.
On June 19, 2005, with no advance warning, Yahoo! disabled users' ability to create their own chat rooms. The move came after KPRC-TV in Houston, Texas reported that many of the user-created rooms were geared toward pedophilia. Many regulars in these rooms used the rooms to set up meetings to have sex with children and trade lewd pictures. While it was thought this move came as a result of several advertisers pulling their ads from Yahoo!, a more likely cause was a $10 million lawsuit filed by watchdog groups of internet portals on behalf of a 12-year-old victim of molestation.
Yahoo! has since closed down the chat.yahoo.com site (which is now a redirect to a section of the Yahoo! Messenger page) because the great majority of chat users accessed it through Messenger. In August of 2007, it began requiring word verification in order to use Yahoo! Chat. Officially, this is to guard against spammers and automated bots, which had been a source of frustration for many chatters. However, as this also logs users' IP addresses, this feature could presumably be used to monitor against the type of behavior that prevailed in the pedophilia-oriented rooms. The company is still working on a way to allow users to create their own rooms while providing safeguards against abuse.
URI scheme
Yahoo! Messenger's installation process automatically installs an extra URI scheme ("protocol") handler into some web browsers, so that URIs beginning "ymsgr:" can open a new Yahoo! Messenger window with specified parameters. This is similar in function to the mailto: URI scheme, which creates a new e-mail message using the system's default mail program. For instance, a web page might include a link like the following in its HTML source to open a window for sending a message to the YIM user notarealuser:
<a href="ymsgr:sendim?notarealuser">Send Message</a>
To specify a message body, the m
parameter is used, so that the link location might look like this:
ymsgr:sendim?notarealuser&m=This+is+my+message
Offline Messaging
Offline messaging, a feature long offered by Yahoo!, allows online users to send messages to their contacts, even if said contacts are not signed in at the time. The sender's offline contacts will receive these messages when they next go online.
Interoperability with Windows Live Messenger
On October 13, 2005, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced plans to introduce interoperability between their two messengers, creating the second largest instant messenger userbase worldwide: 40 percent of all users (AIM currently holds 56 percent). The announcement comes after years of 3rd party interoperability success (most notably, Trillian, Pidgin) and criticisms that the major instant messengers were locking their networks. Microsoft has also had talks with AOL in an attempt to introduce further interoperability, but so far, AOL seems unwilling to participate.
Interoperability between Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger was launched July 12, 2006. This allows, for Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger users to chat to each other without the need to create an account on the other service, provided both contacts use the latest versions of the clients. For now, it's impossible to talk using the voice service among both messengers.
Games
There are various games and applications available that can be accessed via the conversation window by clicking the games icon and challenging your current contact.
yahoomessenger.exe (previously ypager.exe)
yahoomessenger.exe is the main process belonging to the Yahoo! Instant Messenger application, an Internet messaging program. The name of the Yahoo! instance messaging client changed from ypager.exe to yahoomessenger.exe since version 7.5.0 Beta.
Note that this applies to the Windows version of Yahoo! Messenger.
Upcoming releases
Yahoo! will soon unveil a completely re-hauled [5] version for Windows Vista. It has been designed to exploit the new design elements of Vista's Windows Presentation Foundation.
The Mac OS X client version 3.0 Beta 2 has been released: file transfers have been re-enabled as have group conferences.
The Windows client version 9.0 Beta has been released. It supports both Windows XP and Vista. It features an improved interface and several new features.
Latest releases
- Windows - 9.0.0.797 / October 29, 2007
- Mac OS X - 3.0b2 / September 06, 2007
- Several third-party clients exist that can connect to the Yahoo! Messenger network, such as, Fire, Adium and Proteus. Adium can access the chat rooms, the others cannot - they are for instant messaging only. Given Yahoo!'s apparent lack of interest in updating Messenger for Macintosh, many of these third-party clients actually have more features and are less buggy than Yahoo!'s product.
- Unix - 1.0.4 / September 2003
- The Unix version looks different from the Windows version.
- Version 1.0.6.1 is available for Gentoo Linux (masked as ~x86).[citation needed]
- Version 1.0.6 can be downloaded from the Unix Beta page: http://public.yahoo.com/~mmk/
Feature & release history
Windows
There are many versions between those listed here and prior to last version listed here. These are "major releases". See one of several sites listed in external links to find other, older versions of the product.
- 1.0 March 9, 1998
- 3.0 August 17, 2000
- 7.0.0.426 — August 8, 2005
- Renamed to "Yahoo! Messenger with Voice"
- Drag-and-drop photo sharing
- Drag-and-drop file sharing
- PC-to-PC calling
- Voicemail
- Ringtones
- Yahoo! 360° integration
- Pop-up Contact Cards
- Spam Reporting
- New tabs
- New emoticons
- Archive updates
- LiveWords (Beta)
- 7.0.0.437 — August 30, 2005
- 8.0.0.505 — June 20, 2006
- Plugins possible
- 8.0.0.508 — July 13, 2006
- Interoperability between Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger contacts
- 8.0.0.701 — August 10, 2006
- The release date signifies the release of a beta version. This is not clearly documented on the Yahoo site.
- 8.0.0.716 — September 29, 2006
- No Information Available
- 8.1.0.195 — October 25, 2006
- Renamed to "Yahoo! Messenger"
- Ability to check for updates from the help menu
- 8.1.0.209 — December 4, 2006
- 8.1.0.239 — January 19, 2007
- Improvements in voice quality and sign-in, fixes for minor bugs with Windows Vista
- 8.1.0.244 - March 14, 2007
- 8.1.0.249 - March 28, 2007
- Patches a security flaw
- 8.1.0.401 - June 8, 2007
- Fixes a vulnerability with the Webcam ActiveX control
- 8.1.0.402 - June 15, 2007
- Fixes a buffer overflow in an ActiveX control
- 8.1.0.413 - July 17, 2007
- Unknown
- 8.1.0.416 - August 22, 2007
- Changes to voice library for better Vista support. (Users can get voice in Windows Vista without using a proxy app anymore, provided they still install codec themselves)
- Fix to two Cam exploits
- 8.1.0.419 - August 29, 2007
- Two more security patches
- 8.1.0.421 - September 6, 2007
- Unknown
- 9.0.0.797 - October 29, 2007
- New beta release of Yahoo! Messenger. It provides an improved user interface.
Mac
- 2.5.3 - September 24, 2003
- Chat
- Webcam
- Conference chat
- 3.0 beta 1 - June 28, 2006
- New UI
- Display Images
- Avatars Support
- Stealth Settings
- Interoperability between Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger contacts
- YMSG14
- Prior Releases - Undocumented
- 3.0 beta 1 revision 2 - July 13, 2006
- Auto Reconnect
- YMSG14 related bug fixes.
- 3.0 beta 2 [6] - September 06, 2007
- Tabbed IM windows
- Chat rooms
- Improved stability for webcam and file transfer
- More emoticons
- Message archiving
- YMSG15
- No voice calling
Malware
Yahoo! Messenger (along with other networks such as Windows Live Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger) is often used as a conduit or "vector" for delivering malicious software such as spyware, viruses, worms, and trojans to unsuspecting computer users. The two methods used by hackers to deliver malware over the IM vector are (1) sending a file transfer with a virus-infected file, and (2) delivering a message with socially engineered content containing a web address (URL) containing active malicious code. Viruses and worms with colorful names such as W32.Yalove or W32/Spybot-MQ have been identified as targeting users of the Yahoo! Messenger network over the past few years.
The threat of infection by these two methods is substantial and growing. The IM Security Center, a collaboration between security companies and corporations, has tracked attacks over IM since 2003 and shows well over 1000 distinct attacks over the public IM networks. The first half of 2007 saw an 84% increase in IM attacks over the first half of 2006. While IM-specific attacks remain a small percentage of overall virus and malware threats, the continued growth in usage of IM, along with the rapid adoption of IM in the workplace (See Instant Messaging) make IM an attractive vector for hackers, and both individuals and companies must take precautions to avoid infection.
The most common method of delivering a malicious payload is the use of social engineering to construct a message that appears to be coming from a contact on the recipient's contact list. A socially engineered message is one that is written in a friendly, informal manner, that could easily be mistaken as coming from a friend. The message usually will say something like "Click here to see pics of me from vacation!" or "Is this you?" with a web address -- known as a "poison URL" -- for the recipient to click. Upon clicking the web address, the recipient is connected to a website containing active content, which is immediately downloaded to the recipient's computer. In most cases, the payload contains an installer, a number of hidden files containing text, and code which causes the same socially engineered message with poison URL to be sent to every contact on the contact list. When the message is sent to all contacts, the cycle starts again, as each contact believes they are receiving a message from a trusted friend. In this manner, IM-borne malware is capable of propagating very rapidly through company and external networks.
Worms and viruses are discovered on a regular basis by security companies, particularly by the three companies with IM-specific security products, Akonix Systems, FaceTime Communications, and Symantec. According to IM security researchers at Akonix, the number of new threats identified each month is 30 to 35, with a high of 88 in October, 2006.
Compatible software
- Adium
- Agile Messenger
- Akonix L7 Enterprise (for security and archiving of Yahoo! Messenger in corporate use)
- BitlBee
- Centericq
- Fire
- imeem
- IM+ Messenger
- IMVU
- Jabberwocky
- Kopete
- MECA Messenger
- meebo
- Meetro
- Miranda IM
- Paltalk
- Pidgin (formerly Gaim)
- Proteus
- Qnext
- SIM
- Trillian
- Trillian Pro
- Trillian Astra
- Windows Live Messenger
References
- ^ - Yahoo! Messenger Team announces Yahoo! Messenger 9 Beta
- ^ BT.com - Withdrawal of BT Communicator
- ^ Yahoo! Delivers Phone Out and Phone In Voice Services in the U.S.
- ^ Yahoo's 'Voice Over IM' Targets Skype
- ^ http://messenger.yahoo.com/windowsvista.php
- ^ http://blog.messenger.yahoo.com/blog/2007/09/06/new-mac-version-beta-2/
See also
- Comparison of instant messaging clients
- Comparison of instant messaging protocols
- Comparison of IRC clients
- Instant Messaging
External links
- Yahoo! Messenger
- Yahoo! Messenger For the Web Beta
- Yahoo! Messenger Blog
- Yahoo! Messenger Plug-ins
- Yahoo! Messenger SDK/Developer Network
- WackyB Instant Messenger ramblings (Yahoo Pages)
- Current Yahoo! Messenger Versions
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