Post type: Rant

MSN network down again?

It seem that every so often MSN decides it's users don't need to talk to each other anymore and they need a time out. So they lock down their network.

This is one of the main reason's I wish my friends switched over the the ICQ network. Their protocol hasn't changed since 1998, and the reason is it doesn't need to change. Unlike MSN which most people download these days cause emoticons are just the most crucial feature to have.

And what about jabber, it's a good alternative to this MS.

ICQ back before 2000 had one major feature that made MSN more prefereable than it. ICQ stored contact lists locally, where MSN kept the contact lists on their server. This meant that alot of ICQ users upon logging on to their accounts on another computer or, after a freshly formatted computer lost their contact list.

However since then ICQ also stores their contact list server side so there should be no excuse, not to switch back right? but at this point MSN has already aquired millions of users and ICQ at the time with their much more complex client could only hold on to the more expert users. Not to mention at the time before broadband MSN being less than 1MB and ICQ bein more than 4MB was a big deal as well.

Even to this day the ICQ interface is not as good as it could be. Admittedly the new MSN interface is not much better.

Personally I'm using trillian mainly cause it's tried and true when it comes to IM and it allows me to integerate all the networks but since switching to trillian I've noticed that the MSN network goes down way more often then the ICQ network.