back to article Yahoo! is! not! killing! Messenger! today!, just! the! desktop! client!

Yahoo! is to kill off the desktop client for its once-popular instant messaging service Messenger today. The Purple Palace said, back in June, that today would be the day when the desktop client for Messenger would be switched off. At the time of writing (morning of 5 August) Yahoo! Messenger's desktop client was working just …

  1. JASR
    Stop

    I presume Pidgin's desktop client will still be working with Yahoo...?

    https://www.pidgin.im/

    Though I've not used an IM for years!

    1. Snark

      Don't think so, release notes seemed to indicate they were closing down the 3rd party APIs. Windows desktop users will have to move to the "app" version which takes up half your screen instead.

    2. David Pollard
      Joke

      ... not used an IM for years!

      You should stay in more.

    3. SuccessCase

      Ah Yahoo! Messenger. The fun I had when it first came out. With the first desktop client, you could change font colour and embolden text. Also it had a default width, that almost nobody changed. User names were shown in the window in coloured text, which meant you could type a message, and then at natural line breaks change the colour of the text, so in one message you could construct what looked like an entire message thread. This trick could only be made to work if the user hadn't resized the window, because you had to rely on line breaks of your message recipients window being at exactly the same point as your own window. Also you had to reverse the colours of the usernames so they would match what the message recipient would see in his window. But that was fine. 90% of the time the window width was the default and the trick would work.

      You could prepare the conversation thread in advance and then when the "away" or indicator appeared, paste it into the message window.

      I played many practical jokes. Once writing out a message thread that looked something like the following.

      Younger readers, please note this was before "sick" meant "good"

      "Jack: Wow, what a night I had last night"

      "Fred: Hey tell me man, did you go out?"

      "Jack: Yep, I went to Heaven. Boy it feels good to be out the closet."

      "Fred: But what about Jane? Have you told her yet?"

      "Jack: Not yet but I will. I want to lose my butt virginity first, Just to be sure I enjoy it as much as oral"

      "Fred: Shit man. Too much information. And the kids should also know - but not that much detail (obviously)"

      "Jack: Not yet dude. Too young. Plenty of time to tell them later"

      "Fred: Hey cool Jack, I'm glad your finding yourself. You can be my pal that tells me about the best moisturiser for men. I'd like to get some but have always been too embarrassed to ask"

      [this was when the whole metrosexual thing was beginning]

      Then you just had to leave the fake conversation for a while. After a while the "active" indicator would show, and you could just imagine furious typing.

      "Jack: Fred"

      "Fred: Yes Jack"

      "Jack: That message conversation we just had. It wasn't me."

      "Fred: Hey Jack, no worries, Cool with me. Be who you want to be."

      "Jack: No you don't understand, that wasn't me"

      "Fred: Look Jack, I'm sure it takes some getting used to. It's cool man, breath. I'm here for you. Just promise me you will be straight with Jane dude (as in truthful, not not gay, as that's what she needs to know). She's a lovely gal and you owe it too her."

      Oh the fun.

  2. Dabooka
    Headmaster

    For the 2nd time in as many days

    "Meanwhile, in those parts of the world which haven't advanced, in IT terms, beyond the early 1990s, plenty of FUD about the “shutting down” of Yahoo! Messenger abounds from people who really should know better, even though that's not what is happening."

    WHO WRITES LIKE THIS?! I don't know what the fuck is going on at El Reg editorial, but FFS someone please sort it out.

    1. Ralph B

      Re: For the 2nd time in as many days

      > WHO WRITES LIKE THIS?!

      That would be Gareth Corfield, dear boy. His name is in the by-line of the article, you know?

      There's really no need to SHOUT.

      1. Dabooka

        Re: For the 2nd time in as many days

        Yes, thank you for pointing out the by-line but I believe you understood the question to be rhetorical in nature! ;-)

        Apologies for shouting (I didn't mean to wake you) but come on; this writing 'style' is becoming all too common of late. It's painful to read.

        1. Naselus

          Re: For the 2nd time in as many days

          Better that than Gav Clarke's bullet-point powerpoint notes, or Lew Page's DAILY MAIL SHOUTY RUBBISHTITS.

        2. Ralph B

          Re: For the 2nd time in as many days

          > this writing 'style' is becoming all too common of late

          Yes, I do understand what you mean. I've somewhat put The Reg "on probation" - to give them a chance to cope with recent events - before abandoning ship. I hope they get over it.

  3. Philip Storry

    Commodities & compliance...

    Having previously worked for in the financial sector supporting messaging systems, I can safely say that Yahoo! does not have any features in it that meet Compliance requirements.

    But it does allow you to use a proxy server. So the usual method is to throw a product in as a proxy, and let that do the capture. The product I have experience with is Actiance Vantage(*), which would basically act as a proxy, gather messages and group them into "conversations" based on time elapsed between responses and then export those conversations on a schedule. The export could be via email or as XML files (amongst other methods), so that you can do what you like with the data after that.

    I don't know specifically why it can't handle Skype - it could previously handle OCS/Lync, and a quick web search tells me that you can get the client to connect via a proxy. However, further searching shows that Skype encrypts traffic using TLS, which could be an issue. I suppose there might also be infrastructure complications for many banks, if they have Skype for Business on the desktop and suddenly need to open up a proxied route to the outside world. I'd bet that the networks and security teams would be delighted with such a request...

    (I would like to state now that this comment was not an endorsement of Actiance Vantage, nor a condemnation. If anything, I'm ambivalent about it - it did the job, and annoyed me no more than most other software did.)

    --------

    (*) - Actiance were formerly known as FaceTime, but then some small manufacturer of fashion trinkets decided to use the name FaceTime for one of their services without doing the proper due diligence. Actiance/FaceTime sold the name rights to that company. Imagine a parking lot full of Ferraris...

    1. CrazyOldCatMan Silver badge

      Re: Commodities & compliance...

      > can't handle Skype - it could previously handle OCS/Lync

      Skype != Lync/OCS (AKA Skype for Business. Thank you Microsoft for introducing confusion - we are doing a SfB trial at work and people are thinking that they will be able to use it to talk to their dear old mum..)

      Another sparking brand decision by the Great Master of Brand Stupidity.

  4. chivo243 Silver badge

    The Mac client

    Died on the table awhile back... Wouldn't log in... on a winbox no issues.

  5. Florida1920
    Pint

    !

    When I do a left-handed Shift-1 to type ! on my laptop, I have to hit the Shift key dead center or it doesn't shift. So sometimes I get Yahoo1 instead of Yahoo! Having to type "Yahoo!" has forced me to become more accurate when pressing Shift. Otherwise I rarely use the exclamation point character. Thank you, Yahoo1 (oops) for improving my life, even though I never used any of your services. I'm sure you'll be missed.

    TFSMIF!

  6. DonL

    Open source and distributed alternative

    Why not move to an open source and distributed alternative like matrix.org in combination with vector.im and be done with it once and for all.

    All of these locked down islands like whatsapp, yahoo messenger, facebook messenger, skype etc. are a waste of time in my opinion.

  7. ratfox

    How many Messengers?

    There's Yahoo Messenger, Facebook Messenger, Android Messenger... Can't these people have some imagination?

    1. Ole Juul

      Re: How many Messengers?

      At least you know what it does. I'm not sure the common alternative naming scheme is all that creative either. For example: YAM (yet another messenger).

  8. Tristan Young

    Goodbye Yahoo IM. I shuttered my account recently after more than a few years of inactivity. Yahoo has had a terrible security track record. Now that everyone I know has abandoned it, there was no point to keeping an account.

    One day my friends and I will sit around and laugh about the abominations that were AOL and Yahoo!. We might even throw ICQ a quick mention.

    Incidentally, my boss and his wife use yahoo for their email. I receive spam in their name, with a long list of email addresses that have been slurped from their contact list/phone book,. Had to block all their emails, and so far they have chosen to ignore the problem. Sigh.

  9. ceebee

    yahoo messenger...

    well new is NOT better... the new desktop app for Yahoo messenger is a massive backward step in functionality .. no presence settings ... no way of knowing who is online .. no video.. no file transfer no photo sharing... sorry the Purple Palace has just stuffed up AGAIN!! .. having stuffed:

    Profiles

    Calendars

    Flickr

    Groups

    now they have ruined Messenger...

    no wonder the company has ben in such a mess .. poor management for a decade or more. and stupid product decisions that drive away users...don't understand why they have consistently ignored users again and again.

  10. Gary Gleeson
    FAIL

    Still working on the 8th

    Yahoo Messenger has been the default IM client for the energy business for years. Everyone is now switching over to Thomson Eikon Messenger but I can see that Y! is still federated today even though it was meant to finish on Friday. I believe that Yahoo were offered a deal by a third party to buy messenger which they turned down, presumably they would smash their long track record of making terrible deals and no money.

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