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Cons
Spam. No Facebook IM. Social updates limited to your Yahoo confirmed contacts
Yahoo has long trailed AIM (Free,
) and Windows Live Messenger (Free, 
) when it comes to the size of its IM user base, but the company nevertheless keeps beefing up its client software with unique features, like plugins and calling to outside phones. Yahoo benefits from its dominant webmail position, as you can chat with Yahoo contacts using Messenger from within the e-mail page. Yahoo! Messenger 10 (free) client is a force to be reckoned with—as long the people you want to chat with are on it. Installation
When you install Yahoo! Messenger (it's a 22MB download), a large dialog box presents you pre-checked options for setting Yahoo as your browser home page, search engine, and installing Yahoo BrowserPlus, which lets you drag and drop files onto Flickr (Free,
) and Yahoo! Mail (Free, 
). The Yahoo Toolbar can't even be deselected unless you click the Custom Install link! I'd prefer a less baggage-laden installer. AIM 7.3 is more up front, giving you the option not to install the junk from the main wizard.Next, you get an option that lets you import contacts from AOL, Gmail, Hotmail, Orkut, Outlook, Yahoo Mail, and others (including cable addresses like Comcast and Optimum). Noticeably missing are Facebook (Free,
) and MySpace (Free, ). Unlike AIM 7.3, Digsby, and soon Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger 10 doesn't work directly with Facebook IM. It doesn't talk with Google Talk either, which mostly lives inside Gmail. It does, however connect with Windows Live Messenger contacts, but you won't get advanced features like audio and video chat.The Buddy List
Yahoo does a decent job of combining contacts and social updates in a standard narrow buddy window. You can choose a compact or detailed view with buddy images—it's better than AIM 7.3's one-size-fits-all approach but doesn't afford as much control as Windows Live Messenger. But, unlike the buddy list of just about every other IM client on earth, Yahoo by default shows all your contacts whether they're online or offline; others hide the latter. Yahoo! Messenger lets you sign in as invisible, a nice privacy touch not available in third-party clients.
Another difference: Yahoo doesn't pop out a contact card whenever you hover over a contact entry—instead, the buddy icon glows and shows an arrow you can click to pop out the contact card, which is less distracting than other IM software. From the card, you can start audio or video chats with a buddy, send an SMS, and even call his phone.
Like the new AIM 7.3 buddy list, Yahoo! Messenger 10 has a separate tab showing social network updates, though Yahoo gets by with just two tabs rather than AIM's three. While you can link to all the usual social network suspects, you'll only see updates from Yahoo contacts who have mutually agreed to share updates and have accounts with the social networks. I prefer how the other IM clients let you see all your updates from all your Facebook friends.
Yahoo's Stealth Settings offer the most flexibility in terms of letting you choose how you want to appear online. A simple right click lets you permanently hide from a contact or just for the current session. AIM lets you block buddies, but sometimes that's overkill. In another privacy protection, you can't just start chatting with someone simply because you know their username; you have to send an invitation that your target chatter must accept. This is designed to prevent unwanted messages, but I still get more spam chat requests from Yahoo than other services.
Yahoo's buddy list has another unique ability; it can incorporate plug-ins. These add Yahoo services such as Music, Weather, Calendar, Finance, and an eBay watcher. The widgets can collapse at the bottom of the slim buddy window, so they don't take up lots of space. You can also hide them completely. If you really like a plug-in, you can send it to friends. Thirteen plug-in choices were built into my installation, and dozens more are available on the Yahoo Messenger website.
Download: http://messenger.yahoo.com/download/
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