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.

In case you'd like to download the latest Yahoo Messenger 9 release, you can find it on Softpedia using this link.