MSN Messenger - is it evil?

[m155g0ld]

First ever post so please be gentle with me!

I am well aware of all the security threats that msn messenger and other IM software can present with regards to file sharing, clicking links that may invite viruses in and the possibility of hackers reading your conversations. However, I am under the impression that as long as you are careful and have protected your computer with adequate firewalls and virus software that msn messenger is safe to use and will not affect the day to day running of your machine.

My boyfriend on the other hand has banned the use of msn messenger on our laptop at home because he is convinced that just having the software installed on the machine affects the way it runs. He swears that it increases the CPU usage to 100% slowing everything down and causes many other problems. He is also convinced that there is no way of stopping it from running in the background even when it has been shut down completely and is set to only ever start up when you specifically choose to use it.

Please could someone tell me if this is possible? Could messenger really be the root of all our computer problems? We have recently completely wiped and reformatted the hard drive, reinstalled everything and know for certain that it is virus free and all our security software is up to date.

Thanks in advance for any advice you may have.

 

[edifier]

There can be security risks with alot of software. Look no farther the Windows itself. But i for one don't and will not lessen the computer experience because of security/malware risks. And you don't have too. I feel msn messenger is safer than Yahoo, Aim, etc. Since you just did a re-install, i would do this.

Invest in a External Drive and backup and/or recovery software. That way if anything happens, your up and running again in 5-10 minutes.

 

[dragon2309]

My boyfriend on the other hand has banned the use of msn messenger on our laptop at home because he is convinced that just having the software installed on the machine affects the way it runs. He swears that it increases the CPU usage to 100% slowing everything down and causes many other problems. He is also convinced that there is no way of stopping it from running in the background even when it has been shut down completely and is set to only ever start up when you specifically choose to use it.

Your boyfriend is talking rubbish, sorry. Unless your laptop is over 10 years old MSN messenger will NOT bump your CPU usage up to 100%, even if your signed in and chatting.

Just having it installed is perfectly harmless, nothing runs or attatches itself to sysmtem resources when its only installed, if you dont click on it it uses absolutely NO resources whatsoever...

Shutting it down and the closing the tray icon aswell completely removes MSN Messenger from the running proceses list, if you want proof hit CRL + ALT + DELETE and find a proces named "msnmsgr.exe", see its running, now close MSN and exit the tray icon, boom its gone...

Maybe your boyfriend has insecurity issues.... maybe hes jsut generally mis-informed, either way he is COMPLETELY wrong.

dragon

P.S - oh and MSN messenger isnt that much of a security risk as long as you dont go around accepting and inviting random people you dont know, if you do that you probably deserve it.... meh

dragon

 

[computerhakk]

No, messenger is not evil. If you aren't one of those people who blatently give you your address in chatrooms and such, but rather look and see who is adding you or who you are allowing to, then you are pretty safe. For the most part, you just need to look out for replies to you from MSN such as:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photos/050307/050307_messenger_hmed_5p.hmedium.jpg

Or anything along those lines. If you are unsure, just ask the person and they'll tell you if they did or not. Additionally, there are tools that help protect your IM security such as ZoneAlarms suite and many other programs that you can look into also.