Messenger Plus!
Encyclopedia
Messenger Plus! is a freeware
add-on
for Windows Live Messenger
. The software provides additional functionality to Microsoft's Instant messaging
client Windows Live Messenger by adding its own controls to the main interface. These controls affect Messenger's behaviour and appearance, often through additional dialog boxes.
The add-on was first released in May 2001 under the name "The Messenger Plus! Extension" for MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger
. It later changed its name to "Messenger Plus!" and then, for the release of the new Windows Live Messenger client, "Messenger Plus! Live" was chosen. In 2011 the name was changed back to "Messenger Plus!" again. It has become one of the most widely used add-ons for Microsoft's IM clients, citing over 62 million users as of February 2010.
Volunteers from the Messenger Plus! community around the world develop skins and scripts for submission into the database of the website for the software.
2009 (9.0) and 2011. Notable features include:
"Patchou". He was born in France and currently resides in Canada. He started developing Plus! as a hobby next to his day job as developer, but soon maintaining the Messenger Plus! software became a full-time job.
In Q4 of 2009 Paciullo announced he is no longer in full control of the product and Messenger Plus! is now owned by Yuna Software Limited.
In Q1 of 2011 Paciullo officially declared he had left the company and that this chapter of his professional life was closed.
Financial details or names of the people behind the new company are not disclosed. Yuna Software has offices in several places in the world and has an office in Montreal, also known as Kimahri Software, where a development team continues to develop Messenger Plus!.
software developed by Circle Development Ltd.
's (known as Microsoft AntiSpyware at the time) detection of the Messenger Plus! executable
as spyware
and subsequent warning that Messenger Plus! would attempt to install spyware at runtime (post-installation), rather than the setup program itself that contained the installer for the threat detected.
The petition, which had 401,683 signatures and was 10,137 pages long in total, was sent to Redmond
on September 20, 2005 stating that Messenger Plus! should not be labeled as being a threat.
On the 23rd of September 2005, just 3 days after the petition was mailed to Redmond from Canada, Microsoft released new definitions for Windows Defender that fixed the false threat detection affecting the Messenger Plus! executable together with other detection improvements. Recent versions of Windows Defender also stopped detecting the Messenger Plus! installer as being potentially dangerous.
software, was misleading because it looked like a standard EULA, and was only available in English. The user does get the option to not install the 'sponsor' program, however, even if slightly unorthodoxly.
Since Messenger Plus! 3.60 was released (on the 27th of September 2005), the setup includes a separate sponsor license agreement in addition to a traditional EULA. Both agreements have also been translated in several languages. A separate adware uninstallation program was provided by Circle Development Ltd. which appears when users attempt to uninstall the sponsor program of Messenger Plus!.
Yuna Software currently uses more conventional methods. Messenger Plus! bundles an optional toolbar, custom search page and custom home page all branded as the Messenger Plus! Network. Yuna Software also launched sites in 2010 affiliated with Messenger Plus!, including Plus! Games, Plus! Sports, Plus! Image and Plus! Network.
Links on the old website to earlier Messenger Plus! versions caused sites such as McAfee
SiteAdvisor to warn that the website www.msgpluslive.net was linked with adware
Adware-Lop/Swizzor.
However, SiteAdvisor has tested the current website www.msgplus.net and found downloads to be free of adware, spyware, and other potentially unwanted programs. Other sites have already found the site safe. For example, Norton Safe Web has found no issues with this site, stating 0 computer threats, 0 identity threats and 0 annoyance factors.
, in 2006 new versions of Messenger Plus! were called Messenger Plus! Live. It was rebuilt from the ground up and included a new user interface design which was intended to blend more with the user interface of Windows Live Messenger
.
Since 2011 versions 5.0 and later are called Messenger Plus! again. Messenger Plus! 5 is completely compatible with Windows Live Messenger 2011.
However, the last version of Messenger Plus! (version 3.63, before it was renamed to Messenger Plus! Live) will still be available for download on the official website. This version supports MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger 4.7, 5, 6 and 7.
Additionally the last version of Messenger Plus! Live (version 4.90.392, before the name was changed back again) is also still available from the official website. This version supports Windows Live Messenger 8.0 up to 14.0 (2009).
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
add-on
Add-on
Add-on might mean:* Plug-in , a piece of software which enhances another software application and usually cannot be run independently** Browser extension, which modifies the interface and/or behavior of web browsers...
for Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
. The software provides additional functionality to Microsoft's Instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
client Windows Live Messenger by adding its own controls to the main interface. These controls affect Messenger's behaviour and appearance, often through additional dialog boxes.
The add-on was first released in May 2001 under the name "The Messenger Plus! Extension" for MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger
Windows Messenger
Windows Messenger is a client by Microsoft that is included in the Windows XP operating system. Designed for use by corporate users as well as home users, it was originally created as a streamlined and integrated version of MSN Messenger...
. It later changed its name to "Messenger Plus!" and then, for the release of the new Windows Live Messenger client, "Messenger Plus! Live" was chosen. In 2011 the name was changed back to "Messenger Plus!" again. It has become one of the most widely used add-ons for Microsoft's IM clients, citing over 62 million users as of February 2010.
Volunteers from the Messenger Plus! community around the world develop skins and scripts for submission into the database of the website for the software.
Features
Messenger Plus! generally expands the features of Windows Live MessengerWindows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
2009 (9.0) and 2011. Notable features include:
- A set of text formatting codes similar to BBCodeBBCodeBBCode or Bulletin Board Code is a lightweight markup language used to format posts in many message boards. The available tags are usually indicated by square brackets surrounding a keyword, and they are parsed by the message board system before being translated into a markup language that web...
(people who don't use Messenger Plus! will see the BBcode among the formatted text). - Custom status tags.
- Running multiple instances of Windows Live Messenger with different accounts.
- Event logging and chat logging in either plain text or HTML with optional encryption.
- Chat log viewer. For browsing and searching all saved logs.
- Contacts on desktop. Small windows always on top which show a specific contact.
- Auto-reply messages, usually activated when away from keyboard.
- Emotion sounds. Custom sounds which can be send to other Messenger Plus! users.
- Tabbed chatting (all the conversations in the same window). This feature existed in Messenger Plus! before Windows Live Messenger 2011 added native support for tabbed chatting.
- Messenger locking (Boss Mode).
- Contact list clean-up. Showing statistics about the user's contacts and allowing him to remove people who removed him or he never talks to.
- SkinningSkin (computing)In computing, a skin is a custom graphical appearance achieved by the use of a graphical user interface that can be applied to specific software and websites to suit the purpose, topic, or tastes of different users....
Windows Live Messenger without the user having to physically edit the program's resource files. - JScriptJScriptJScript is a scripting language based on the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.JScript is implemented as a Windows Script engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to any application that supports Windows Script, such as Internet Explorer, Active Server Pages,...
scripting allowing users to add their own functionality.
Languages
Messenger Plus! is available in 21 languages:- ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
- Chinese Simplified
- Chinese Traditional
- DanishDanish languageDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
- DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
- EnglishEnglish languageEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
- EstonianEstonian languageEstonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
- FinnishFinnish languageFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
- FrenchFrench languageFrench is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
- GermanGerman languageGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
- HebrewHebrew languageHebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
- HungarianHungarian languageHungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
- ItalianItalian languageItalian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
- JapaneseJapanese languageis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
- NorwegianNorwegian languageNorwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
- PortuguesePortuguese languagePortuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
- RussianRussian languageRussian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
- SpanishSpanish languageSpanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
- SwedishSwedish languageSwedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
- ThaiThai languageThai , also known as Central Thai and Siamese, is the national and official language of Thailand and the native language of the Thai people, Thailand's dominant ethnic group. Thai is a member of the Tai group of the Tai–Kadai language family. Historical linguists have been unable to definitively...
- TurkishTurkish languageTurkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
Creator
Messenger Plus! was originally created in 2001 by Cyril Paciullo, who is better known by the pseudonymPseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
"Patchou". He was born in France and currently resides in Canada. He started developing Plus! as a hobby next to his day job as developer, but soon maintaining the Messenger Plus! software became a full-time job.
In Q4 of 2009 Paciullo announced he is no longer in full control of the product and Messenger Plus! is now owned by Yuna Software Limited.
In Q1 of 2011 Paciullo officially declared he had left the company and that this chapter of his professional life was closed.
Financial details or names of the people behind the new company are not disclosed. Yuna Software has offices in several places in the world and has an office in Montreal, also known as Kimahri Software, where a development team continues to develop Messenger Plus!.
Adware
When developing Messenger Plus! became a full-time job a form of revenue was added to keep the software free. Formerly, the software came bundled with optional adwareAdware
Adware, or advertising-supported software, is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer. These advertisements can be in the form of a pop-up. They may also be in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the user during...
software developed by Circle Development Ltd.
Issues with Windows Defender
As of the 17th of August 2005, the Messenger Plus! website contained a petition to Microsoft's anti-spyware division regarding Windows DefenderWindows Defender
Windows Defender, formerly known as Microsoft AntiSpyware, is a software product from Microsoft to prevent, remove, and quarantine spyware in Microsoft Windows...
's (known as Microsoft AntiSpyware at the time) detection of the Messenger Plus! executable
Executable
In computing, an executable file causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instructions," as opposed to a data file that must be parsed by a program to be meaningful. These instructions are traditionally machine code instructions for a physical CPU...
as spyware
Spyware
Spyware is a type of malware that can be installed on computers, and which collects small pieces of information about users without their knowledge. The presence of spyware is typically hidden from the user, and can be difficult to detect. Typically, spyware is secretly installed on the user's...
and subsequent warning that Messenger Plus! would attempt to install spyware at runtime (post-installation), rather than the setup program itself that contained the installer for the threat detected.
The petition, which had 401,683 signatures and was 10,137 pages long in total, was sent to Redmond
Redmond, Washington
Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located east of Seattle. The population was 54,144 at the 2010 census,up from 45,256 in 2000....
on September 20, 2005 stating that Messenger Plus! should not be labeled as being a threat.
On the 23rd of September 2005, just 3 days after the petition was mailed to Redmond from Canada, Microsoft released new definitions for Windows Defender that fixed the false threat detection affecting the Messenger Plus! executable together with other detection improvements. Recent versions of Windows Defender also stopped detecting the Messenger Plus! installer as being potentially dangerous.
Sponsorship agreement criticism
Some software review websites criticized the user agreement, stating that the 'sponsorship agreement', which authorized the installation of the optional adwareAdware
Adware, or advertising-supported software, is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer. These advertisements can be in the form of a pop-up. They may also be in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the user during...
software, was misleading because it looked like a standard EULA, and was only available in English. The user does get the option to not install the 'sponsor' program, however, even if slightly unorthodoxly.
Since Messenger Plus! 3.60 was released (on the 27th of September 2005), the setup includes a separate sponsor license agreement in addition to a traditional EULA. Both agreements have also been translated in several languages. A separate adware uninstallation program was provided by Circle Development Ltd. which appears when users attempt to uninstall the sponsor program of Messenger Plus!.
Discontinuation of the Circle Development package
As of early 2010, Messenger Plus! versions 4.84 and later no longer contain the sponsor program from Circle Development Ltd.Yuna Software currently uses more conventional methods. Messenger Plus! bundles an optional toolbar, custom search page and custom home page all branded as the Messenger Plus! Network. Yuna Software also launched sites in 2010 affiliated with Messenger Plus!, including Plus! Games, Plus! Sports, Plus! Image and Plus! Network.
Links on the old website to earlier Messenger Plus! versions caused sites such as McAfee
McAfee
McAfee, Inc. is a computer security company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. It markets software and services to home users, businesses and the public sector. On August 19, 2010, electronics company Intel agreed to purchase McAfee for $7.68 billion...
SiteAdvisor to warn that the website www.msgpluslive.net was linked with adware
Adware
Adware, or advertising-supported software, is any software package which automatically plays, displays, or downloads advertisements to a computer. These advertisements can be in the form of a pop-up. They may also be in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the user during...
Adware-Lop/Swizzor.
However, SiteAdvisor has tested the current website www.msgplus.net and found downloads to be free of adware, spyware, and other potentially unwanted programs. Other sites have already found the site safe. For example, Norton Safe Web has found no issues with this site, stating 0 computer threats, 0 identity threats and 0 annoyance factors.
Renaming
To coincide with the newly branded Windows Live MessengerWindows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
, in 2006 new versions of Messenger Plus! were called Messenger Plus! Live. It was rebuilt from the ground up and included a new user interface design which was intended to blend more with the user interface of Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is an instant messaging client created by Microsoft that is currently designed to work with Windows XP , Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Xbox 360, Blackberry OS, iOS, Java ME, S60 on Symbian OS 9.x and Zune HD...
.
Since 2011 versions 5.0 and later are called Messenger Plus! again. Messenger Plus! 5 is completely compatible with Windows Live Messenger 2011.
Backwards compatibility
The latest version of Messenger Plus! no longer supports any Messenger version older than 2009. Older Messenger Plus! versions are no longer officially supported.However, the last version of Messenger Plus! (version 3.63, before it was renamed to Messenger Plus! Live) will still be available for download on the official website. This version supports MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger 4.7, 5, 6 and 7.
Additionally the last version of Messenger Plus! Live (version 4.90.392, before the name was changed back again) is also still available from the official website. This version supports Windows Live Messenger 8.0 up to 14.0 (2009).