Recently I managed to completely destroy my hard drive, and am now in the process of reconstructing my OS, etc. (which, since I am an idiot, likely will eventually translate to me paying someone competent to do it for me. Huzzah!). I have a Yahoo! account, and have gotten accustomed to keeping in touch with people via Yahoo! Messenger. However, since my older program was annihilated in the general holocaust, it was necessary for me to download Yahoo!'s newest incarnation, Messenger 8.
Lo and behold, the updated version now has a continuously animated advert window at the bottom, featuring cheerful little brightly colored smilies bouncing around, exhorting me to try out some of Messenger 8’s awesomely keen new features. This is insanely annoying and makes me want to kill myself and others. Therefore I dearly wish to go back to the earlier version of Messenger that I was using before I accidentally obliterated it.
As far as I can tell, Yahoo! currently offers only Messenger 8. There appear to be a few independent websites out there which claim to offer the older Yahoo! Messenger for download; however, I am too ignorant to discern whether these sites are appropriate to use, or if they will permanently seize control of my computer, steal my identity and auction off my organs online. Any advice in this matter would be hugely appreciated.
To the best of my recollection, this is the first computer-related question I’ve ever posted to the SDMB; I figure there’s at least an 85% chance that it might be one of those “sweet Jesus, this inquiry violates every copyright law in the history of creation, you loathsome swine! This thread must be locked and erased immediately, and you should burn yourself alive and sow your own grave with salt right now” type deals. Please be gentle.