The beta version of Yahoo Messenger 9 has been released yesterday and can be downloaded from the official Yahoo Messenger Beta website. The new Instant Messenger supports Windows XP and Windows Vista only and should be more or less bug free. Changing to the new version is only advised if you know what you are doing, a backup of the settings would be advised as well.

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Instantbird plans to be for Instant Messengers what Firefox is for web browsers. The first version with the number 0.1 does show a lot of promise but naturally lacks the stability of a software that has been developed for years. It uses the Mozilla rendering engine to render IMs and the Pidgin libpurple to connect to the various networks.

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I never got used to install and run Instant Messaging clients, maybe because I always had other ways to chat with friends and contacts. Instead of using Instant Messengers I used Internet Relay Chat, Skype, Teamspeak or forums. Still, a lot of users do use IMs heavily and those that use Pidgin, which is a client that connects to many networks, can now encrypt their messages with Pidgin Encryption.

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Web Messengers that allow you to connect to Instant Messenger networks are becoming extremely popular because they make it possible to connect to those networks and chat with your buddies and contacts from computers that where it is not possible to install Instant Messenger software. Meebo was one of the first Web Messengers that I wrote about and Koolim is a comparable service which has the advantage that it is not that popular yet.

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