Instant messaging is one of the most appreciated services offered by the Internet. People all over the world immediately discovered the advantages of this communication method transforming it into a must for the daily life. There are a lot of messaging clients available, but no one can surpass the two leaders (maybe three in the near future after the introduction of Google Talk): Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger (formally known as MSN). To see how much the two competitors want to absorb as many users as they can, is enough to evaluate their latest decision to interconnect, which means that Yahoo users can talk with Windows Live Messenger (the new MSN messenger) users and vice versa. This couldn't be possible a few years ago but with the nowadays conditions, rivalries can turn into alliances which will bring money and money is everything.

Enough with the introduction! In this article I want to focus on additional software which can enrich your Yahoo Messenger experience. Here are some useful and interesting applications:

Belkasoft Yahoo! Messenger History Extractor

It is said that the written word is more valuable than the spoken one. Any written material is evidence, you can support on it in case you have a conflict of interests. That's why your Yahoo Messenger Archive is very important. Message archive was an important advantage of the Yahoo Messenger during the battle with the former MSN messenger which didn't offer this feature so loved by the instant messaging users. So, when you need to revise a past conversation, you launch yahoo messenger, connect with your user and then check the message archive.

Simple, but what happens when the Internet connection is down? No access to your user means no access to the message archive...Well, it isn't so dramatic because there are message archive extractors. With such a program you can read again your past messages without being required to login on Yahoo Messenger. I recommend you Belkasoft Yahoo! Messenger History Extractor. It is a trusty application that is able to extract your send/received messages and export them into a plain text, html or xml file permitting you to read conversations with Notepad or other text viewer.








Integrate additional emoticons with Yahoo! Friend

The evolution of the internet chat includes an important chapter that is growing daily: funny faces or Emoticons. Any conversation is accompanied by these funny faces offering help when trying to describe feelings, situations or moods. Yahoo Messenger is offering more and more emoticons and also starting with the latest versions a new category of emoticons - the Audibles - which, besides acting on your screen, are able to produce sounds. Though, users have become more and more pretentious being hungry of new faces. Because of this starvation, applications that add additional faces to yahoo messenger emerge more often. One of these applications is Yahoo! Friend.

After the installation of this little program it will place a small rose icon in your system tray and will enrich your yahoo messenger with a lot of new faces. In the message text box you will notice an additional emoticon category. Click on it and you will be amazed by the look and diversity of the new emoticons available.




Encrypt Yahoo Messenger conversations

To be sure that nobody will read your messages sent trough Yahoo Messenger I recommend you to use an encryption application to secure your chats. One software application designed specially for Yahoo Messenger is SimpLite-Yahoo created from Secway. Using an encryption key your conversations will become safer from the curious eyes! It provides the options to block unencrypted messages and to create your personal key. Just configure the program with the desired key and it will monitor and encrypt your messages for your safty.