Yahoo Messenger 9.0 Has Skins!

Yahoo Messenger 9.0 is still available as a beta testing software application but even so, it recorded millions of downloads straight from the first days of availability. But what's more important is that this new version of the instant messaging client comes with several new features supposed to improve the functionality of the program.

A blog post published on the official Yahoo Messenger Blog reminded me of one of the most requested functions for Yahoo Messenger: skin support. In fact, Yahoo Messenger 9.0 comes with skin support, but you're only allowed to choose from up to seven pre-defined skins which are actually different color themes: graffiti, green, violet, blue and others.

"When you choose a new skin it changes the design of the headers of your contact list as well as your IM conversation window (and adds some accents in other areas)," Sarah Bacon, Product Manager, explained in the blog post.

The Yahoo Messenger 9.0 skin can be easily changed straight from the titlebar of the application by pressing the gold icon located near the three window-control buttons. However, it's interesting to see that such a popular application like Yahoo Messenger does not allow its users to design and apply their own skins as I'm sure that the community would be able to do great eye-candy interfaces.

Besides the limited skin support, the new Yahoo Messenger also provides some other features meant to change the appearance of the program. For instance, there's the contact list interface which can be viewed in compact or detailed modes. In addition, there are a few options which were also implemented in the previous releases of Yahoo Messenger, such as fonts and colors.

Article source: Softpedia

There's a New Yahoo Messenger Infection in Town

Security company Sophos has published an advisory concerning one of the most popular instant messaging clients on the web, namely Yahoo Messenger. According to the security notification, there's a new worm spotted in the wild which only targets Yahoo Messenger users and attempts to propagate by sending links of a victim's contacts. W32/VB-DZE has several aliases, as it follows: IM-Worm.Win32.VB.ev, W32/Autorun.worm.h, Win32/VB.NJO worm and WORM_VB.MAB. The worm only affects the Windows operating system as it tries to install itself in the registry of the OS.

Once you get your computer infected with the worm, it attempts to spread its files by sending a link to a copy of it to all the contacts placed in the Yahoo Messenger contact list, Sophos explains. Just like many other Windows infections, the worm tries to modify certain registry entries in order to be sure it is executed once the operating system is fully loaded.

Taking into account that Yahoo Messenger is quite a popular instant messaging client, extra care is recommended when chatting with unknown persons. Moreover, you're advised to ignore messages coming from not trusted sources and avoid clicking on links that look suspicious.

Just like usual, you're advised to keep your antivirus and other security solutions up-to-date with the latest virus definitions and to install the latest patches in order to be sure that none of these infections manage to infiltrate in your system.

Sophos has already integrated protection for this threat into its security software and I guess the other companies will do the same thing anytime soon, if they haven't already done that. However, by applying the security measures mentioned above you do nothing more than to assure that you data remain secure and inaccessible to other people.

Article source: Softpedia