They apparantely are, otherwise, why would they try to make money out of their instant messaging service? A quick look at the profiles of the regulars of this forum revealed many of you have "MSN" accounts. From older discussions, I remember many of you are using 'third-party clients', though. So what will you do? Ditch "MSN" or use Microsoft's client, which is probably another security hell, bloated and will most likely contain ads? Knowing the lemming attitude of the common computer user, I'd assume most people will go with the second option.

I'm confident that some third-party clients will offer a workaround for this. Although I would prefer being able to ditch MSN, that would mean losing more than half of my contacts. I too have received the e-mails, plus a message from messenger.net everytime I sign in to my MSN account; but reportedly the new Trillian 2.0 Pro Beta 3 already stops the constant bitching. I've yet to see this with my own eyes, but I'm curious to see how it will behave on October 15.

You are aware Trillian Pro is pay software? Better tell your friends to switch to another client/protocol.

I'm using the free version of Trillian, and for the past few days I've been spammed by Microsoft telling me that it's unsafe and I should switch to MSN. The hell will freeze over before I do so. Currently all my MSN contacts are using Trillian as well, and they either use AIM on Trillian already or said they would switch to AIM once MSN doesn't work there anymore.

This is even worse than I thought then. One of the reasons Microsoft has given was the amount of spam on 'their' network as I've heard by the way

Once an hour or so I'm getting this spam, and so far I was unable to block it.

That alone should be enough reason to drop this crap.

Go to trillian's website, there's a new msn.dll file for trillian 0.74d that's supposed to fix the msn issue. It's also possible to get a pirated version of trill pro v2, but we won't talk about that.

The only time I get the nagging messages about upgrading is each time I frist log on. It's pretty fucked up that the msn "service" provides no way to prevent contacts from sending you unwanted messages (blocking them just prevents them from knowing when you're online, they can still message you), but with trillian you can simply hide the message window instead of closing it, thus preventing it from jumping up in your face all the time.

Thanks; I'm checking the site right now.

I'm considering switching to MirandaIM... Will try it later tonight, hope it works.

Exactly as I assumed: The 'geek elite' (as represented by members of this forum) will rather use illegal and/or hacked versions instead of just dropping the software they don't like. Sigh...

I guess that rules me out from being "geek elite"...

No, you're scum by any standards

It's not about the software, it's about the contacts who use that software and only that software. There are many people who refuse to switch from their fav IM (whether it be msn or aim or icq or whatever) or even to add another IM (use msn and icq or whatever), which means that you either have to find some way to keep using msn or quit talking to those friends.

Yes, I'm one of those people. My point is just: If anyone wants to contact me, he/she/it can do it, but I'm only 'offering' a limited number of ways to do so. Why should I be the one who takes a step towards them (i.e. those who use another, and only that one, protocol)?`I have my reasons to have chosen ICQ over AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, and whatever others, and my reasons are related to the comfort and the options of that system, not the number of people on that network. That is why I'm better than all this other scum you're talking about (read: MSN users)

Again, it's the idleness of the masses.

Let me guess: you are one of the last five people in Germany who don't have a cell phone

I'm not sure about that number, but yes, I don't have such a phone, because I don't see the need of having one

All well and good regarding new contacts, but what about existing ones? Ones that you gained while testing other IMs, or ones that you gained before a particular IM became complete crap?
Also, I find the number/quality of people on an IM to be more importnat than the IM itself (up to a point). What's the point in having a fantastic IM if you can't actually use it because there's no one else who uses it? Don't get me wrong, I do prefer the functions/features of some IMs over others, and I do get very aggravated with some IMs, but the people (usually) outweigh such issues. This current msn situation however is debateable, and I may wind up ditching msn if I can't find a decent solutuion to the problem. (I only have a few msn contacts anyway.

Bill Gates has been selling lots of stock lately. Somewhere around 45 million USD a day.