Microsoft’s Windows Live Messenger has become a necessary evil for online communication over the past few years, although Europe and the US seem to be holding on to AIM/ICQ as long as they can. The problem in MSN (Live is a stupid branding scheme; your Xbox gaming is no way related to my PC IM or web searching) is that it pushes advertisements on all users. The app also manages to bypass the Windows HOSTS file (c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) so you can’t redirect requests to their ad server to localhost in order to disable the ads. On the screen it also throws many buttons and options that power users will never touch.
Now as an alternative, these powers users tend to pursue third party applications compatible with the protocol, such as Trillian, Pidgin (formerly Gaim), and Miranda IM, which allow more customization. But let’s face it, they’re all ugly and bloated to some extent. Luckily, there’s A-Patch, which modifies Microsoft’s executable to scrap away the excess user interface fat. Pretty much anything shown on the screen can be hidden. I now have my contact list and messaging window stripped down to only 4 or 5 widgets; basically the bare essentials. No web cam, voice chat, advertisements, Windows Live search, Microsoft My Spaces (a little late in the social networking game, huh?), or any of the fluff that makes computing any more cumbersome than it already is. You can also install a Winamp plug-in for updating the song currently playing to your MSN personal message, similar to Windows Media Player’s functionality. Personally, I don’t use that feature because I think Last.FM is bad enough for advertising the shite music I consume.
My XP machine has windows messenger on it (not live, not MSN) but it crashes if you try to connect. Strangely, gaim does too. I cannot figure it out. However, gaim works fine in linux. Weird.
I find it interesting that Microsoft has adopted the same naming scheme as is used for yogurts.