okay, I’m sorry. But I’m, an out-of-it, uncool, stick-in-the-mud, closer-to- retirement-than-to-graduation-aged old fart…
So I have some simple questions about instant messaging, (and I don’t want to ask the household expert, who’s 13 years old.)
I have a couple reservations about signing up for MSN’s Windows Live Messenger. Are my concerns real?
Viruses.
I’ve heard that IM’s are much more vulnerable than regular emails, and not as easily found by anti-virus programs (I use a freebee version of AVAST anti-virus.
Privacy.
I don’t want the whole world to know that I’m at home and on line every time I logon. There is supposedly a way to configure the MSN buddy list so that only your friends will know you on online. But sometimes I’d prefer that even my friends don’t really know what I am doing at 8:00 pm on Wednesday nite.
Is there an easy way to turn off the IM before anybody sees me on line?
Suppose I put a friend from work on my buddy list. And then 3 months later when I make up an excuse not to go to an office-sponsored retirement party because I “have to go to a cousin’s wedding out of town” , but it turns out the friend saw I was logged on that night. Seems like IM could cause some embarrassing moments.
So are my fears justified?
Never had a virus or trojan through an IM in over 8 years of using them. Most IM clients allow you to elect to only receive IMs from those on your buddy or friends list. I don’t use that option; still never had an issue.
You can set up the latest version of Live Messenger to sign in as invisible to everyone. Yahoo! Messenger has had that feature for some time now.
As far as the first question is concerned, I’d have to say that I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter. I’ve never heard much about this at all
As for the second one, yeah, it can be a bit of a privacy problem. You certainly have the tools to keep certain people from knowing you’re online, that’s true, but on the other hand it’s a bit of a pain to use them. If you don’t want Bill to see you, you can simply block him for however long you want to and he won’t be the wiser because he’ll simply see you as offline. However, if you’re talking to Ted, and he mentions to Bill that you’re online, Bill will know that you have him blocked. I have checked my blocked list before (people who had me blocked or deleted) and it was kind of humbling. In the end, though, you can always pretend it’s your son on the computer and forgot to log out…That works in an emergency for sure.
People will only know you’re online if you have Live Messenger running while you’re using your computer. If you don’t launch the application, they can’t see you. So, in addition to configuring it so when you launch the application you “appear offline,” you can just not launch it except for when you feel like chatting.
Now you’ve got me confused–do you mean that if I block someone, they will know about it? Then what’s the point of blocking? You might as well just wait till they IM you and then answer “F*ck off, I’ve decided to block you today, you pig.”
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This sounds like a better idea than blocking. I didnt know that the IM program can be turned off.