Since Yahoo rolled out Yahoo Messenger 9.0 Beta, the Sunnyvale-based company has continuously praised it, pointing to the new and "awesome" functions it has. The first beta of the application came out in October 2007 and today, approximately 8 months since the first release, Yahoo is still encouraging users to download and test the new Yahoo Messenger because it provides several brand new features.

In a post published on the official Yahoo Messenger blog, Sarah Bacon, Yahoo Messenger Product Manager, underlined the five most important features of Yahoo Messenger 9 beta, in a move clearly meant to convince users to download the program: the new emoticons and skins, the compact and the detailed contact views, the inline video player, the mouse hovering support and the other features that were already available in Yahoo Messenger 8.

Unfortunately for the Sunnyvale-based company, the users' reaction regarding Yahoo Messenger 9 Beta was pretty negative, as most of them chose to stay with YM8. Here are some of the comments made by the users on the official Yahoo Messenger blog:

"More reasons not to [update to YM9 Beta]: 1. NO emphasis on privacy OR security; 2. Bots attack; 3. Packs more advertisements than previous versions; 4. Does not work for chat; 5. Skins galore.. .for the win!"

"All previously released versions were of beta quality to begin with. So why bother with the label??? Please fix the existing bugs in the bloatware and don't waste your time and energy adding cute smileys."

"YM9 beta crashes (hangs/crashes) in 40% of the times when I try to send files, or when the Internet gets disconnected."

"9.0 is new and yet not as good as 8.1 I prefer 8.1 over 9.0 any day. The Yahoo Messenger team needs more programmers and even some Microsoft techies. Some times [sic] I wish that Microsoft would have just bought out or met Yahoo's demand. They have the chat room fixed QUICK!"

However, if you still want to give Yahoo Messenger 9 Beta a try, you can get the installer straight from Softpedia using this link.