Yahoo Messenger 6.0

CNET editors' rating: 4.0 stars Excellent
Detailed editors' rating
Overall score: 8.0 (4.0 stars)
• Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 28 reviews
• See all user reviews

Product summary

CNET Editors' ChoiceAug 04

CNET editors' review

• Reviewed by: Stephen Bigelow
• Edited by: Robert Vamosi
• Reviewed on: 08/24/2004
• Released on: 05/24/2004

Because of its many built-in features, Yahoo Messenger 6.0 is known as the Swiss Army Knife of free IM clients for Windows. To name a few, Yahoo Messenger serves up a radio, games, a stock tracker, weather, and a calendar/day planner along with regular IM, chat, e-mail, and user-management functions. If you want a lot of bells and whistles to go along with your IM and chat app, choose Yahoo Messenger. That said, it ultimately requires 11.66MB of your hard disk, more than any other IM client we reviewed. You can download Yahoo Messenger 6.0 from Download.com.

In just a few minutes, the Yahoo Messenger installer walked us through the free account registration process and also set up a toolbar button within Internet Explorer for easy access. The sleek, attractive Yahoo Messenger 6.0 interface itself is somewhat larger than those of other clients we looked at but much cleaner and better organized than AIM's. The interface is customizable with a variety of color schemes, making it much more like ICQ.

Like AIM, whenever you log in to Yahoo Messenger, whether at home or from a cafe, it will display your contact list, so you always stay in touch with friends and colleagues. Unfortunately, Yahoo Messenger accounts won't work within other IM clients, but you can use software such as Trillian to mix messengers. You can format Yahoo Messenger text messages with a wide range of font styles and emoticons, as well as audible cues to personalize your specific message; a selection of themed backgrounds, called IMVironments, lets you further customize your messages.

When you receive a message, Yahoo Messenger displays a system tray notification with the name of the sender, so a quick look will help you decide whether to respond immediately (by clicking the tray notification) or wait till later. Free conference chat lets you converse with multiple users within the same message window. Yahoo Messenger also lets you select a photo or an avatar to represent you in messages. Plus, if text isn't your thing, Yahoo Messenger supports voice chat (through the PC's microphone and speaker) and one-on-one Web video (if your PC has a Webcam). Yahoo also offers chat rooms for public and private conversations.

We were disappointed to find Yahoo Messenger's support weak, despite Yahoo's market preeminence. A help Web page does provide explanation and guidance for Yahoo Messenger's main features, but depending on your issue, you may have to dig a few levels down to find what you're really looking for. Luckily, the support site is searchable; however, we couldn't find any links to live or e-mail support within Yahoo Messenger itself.

Download Yahoo Messenger 6.0

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User reviews

• Average user rating: 3.5 stars out of 28 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars Write review

• Showing 5 of 28 user reviewsSee all 28 user reviews

• 4.5 stars

  4 out of 4 people found this review helpful

  "Excellent Voice and Video Conferencing capabilities."

  by tomf_182 on June 22, 2005

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• 4.0 stars

  4 out of 4 people found this review helpful

  "Its practically the only choice really for instant messaging but support is non-existent"

  by clayidus on March 8, 2005

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• 4.5 stars

  3 out of 3 people found this review helpful

  "I couldn't have said it better"

  by journeys_ on April 25, 2005

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• 4.0 stars

  2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

  "I have tried all IMs and Yahoo! Messenger is the best!"

  by psychicpigeon on May 12, 2005

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• 4.0 stars

  2 out of 2 people found this review helpful

  "I like it and use it"

  by trekker75 on May 10, 2005

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• See all 28 user reviews Write review

Where to buy Yahoo Messenger 6.0

Download for free from CNET Download.com.