that canadian girl

I’ve been using MSN 7 Beta at home since what… Christmas? But last night, someone pointed out v.7 was officially out. I just got it and I must say I like the “What I’m listening to” option.

Instead of my usual Vero [thatcanadiangirl] with the bracketed bit changing according to my mood, I can now have it as Vero – current track I’m listening to. Only hic about it is that it then links to MSN Music. I’m not so happy about that but for the time being, I’ll leave it as being used because it’s a funky feature.

MSN 7 has a few fun little features like the winks and the nudges, as well as the dynamically changing “What I’m listening to” nickname. Must say the Muggins are cute as well: icons that change according to what you type (such as smileys and certain key words.

Certainly the most popular messaging system these days, I guess having the most recent version and using patches to block out the obnoxiously aggressive functions seems to be the best compromise.

What’s sketchy is that MSN now censors messages:

Censorship in MSN Messenger: Microsoft is jamming your messages!
dwergs says:
Not only is Microsoft acting like a pure-bred Big Brother with regard to file transfers, but a new form of censorship has been brought to light, directly affecting your IM conversations! You see, messages that include .pif just never get through. Just pif without the dot works, as do all other blocked file extensions.

The filtering of messages containing .pif, a resolution sprung from last week’s security testing, addresses the spreading of disguised MSN Messenger worms. One could wonder why other common worm extensions, like .scr and .exe, are left alone? Timothy gave me one acceptable answer, namely that .pif files are often mistaken for .gif files and therefor more imprudently clicked. But the point is Microsoft has moved into censoring Instant Messages and that’s awfully disturbing!

So even though I’m not keen on this kind of odd censorship, I’m unlikely to stop using MSN really… For ways to block ads, tabs and other annoyingly Microsoft-like feature, take a peak at the patches on Mess.Be.