A group of us Mac Users of MSN Messenger have got together to start up an online petition which will subsequently be sent to the development team for MSN Messenger at the Macintosh Business Unit.

The petition outlines how MSN Messenger for Mac lacks in so many features compared to the windows version, we are asking for your support in spreading the word about this petition so that we can collect as many signatures as possible.

Please take the time to read the petition at http://www.rjt.cjb.net/messengerformac and sign it.

If you could pass this on to as many people as possible, it would be great.

Thank you very much in advance
RJT and all the people who have signed the petition so far.

[DMBand0026]

This brings one question to my mind...

Why the crap would you want to use MSN messenger?

Good luck with all this, but online petitions have been colossal failures in the past.

[Gargoyle]

Ha, Ha.. Google ads have put a "Download MSN Messenger 6.1" link at the top of the petition page... How ironic!

[chucker]

Good luck but I have my doubts.

[wyvern]

First of all, switch to AIM. There are no advantages to MSN over AIM. Get with the rest of the world already.

Furthermore, spending 5 seconds searching versiontracker yielded the shocking revelation that Fire supports MSN, if you can't convince your acquaintances to switch to a less useless protocol.

[alcimedes]

i don't think he just wants the protocol but rather the "features" MSN offers. although why is anyone's guess.

[Cam'Ron]

well, if all your friends use that why would u use aol? so u can talk to yourself, sweet! every single person i know uses msn, so im with him and want new features for msn cuz that is what i have to use. or ichat could support it, that would be nice.

[ast3r3x]

Originally Posted by Cam'Ron well, if all your friends use that why would u use aol? so u can talk to yourself, sweet! every single person i know uses msn, so im with him and want new features for msn cuz that is what i have to use. or ichat could support it, that would be nice.

So get new friends?

I don't think ANY of my friends use MSN. Where do you live? (is it a regional thing?)

[alcimedes]

or just use Adium, or Fire, or any one of a number of chat clients that support multiple chat formats.

most the people i talk to use ICQ, but that doesn't mean i'm not going to talk to AOL/AIM users. although the signal to noise ratio outside of ICQ is very, very high.

[ast3r3x]

Hi Friend

Originally Posted by alcimedes or just use Adium, or Fire, or any one of a number of chat clients that support multiple chat formats.

Sublimina messages should be the basis of all good arguments between most people.

I however won't do that, I'll just recomment adium. It's very nice.

<-- Click here to quote me

[Cam'Ron]

it is a regional thing. i really dont think anyone in canada uses aol. i used to use icq, but once msn came out everyone switch to that or anyone who wasnt using a messenger service started using that. well, at least MOST people in eastern canada use msn.

[synotic]

Originally Posted by wyvern First of all, switch to AIM. There are no advantages to MSN over AIM. Get with the rest of the world already.

The rest of the United States maybe. From what understand most of Europe uses MSN and AIM is mostly unused. Apparently the same holds true for Canada as well. I'm not sure about Asia, but it wouldn't surprise me if MSN was the majority there as well.

[stevegong]

Originally Posted by wyvern First of all, switch to AIM. There are no advantages to MSN over AIM. Get with the rest of the world already.

Then maybe you should know that only americans use aim. I guess american = rest of the world?

Sorry guys, but you guys flame me for saying anything remotely negative about USA, but just look at your attitude. This is what pisses me off, and don't say the problem is mine again. Just because americans use it it should be the definitive chat service? Remember, there are not that many americans in the world. You are outnumbered by many other countries.


There are far more MSN users than aim, especially in Europe and in Asia.

For the record, aim is a badly designed chat service.

[nicolasg]

Ok, AOL, hmm, have I ever seen a worse ISP .... nope ...
then, AIM, have I ever seen a worse IM client .... nope ....

Oh, but <insert nice AIM AND Mac compatible client here> is brilliantly designed I hear you say, possibly, let me remind you 90% of the world out there still uses Windows, and to them that means using AIM.

Sure there are alternatives, such as Gaim, and other mutli-protocol supporting apps, but 90% os the userbase is computer illiterate remember, so they rely on the official AIM, MSN, Yahoo! and other such clients.

Back in 1996 ICQ was born, and was quite a hit don't you think? AOL saw that, and while they did provide an IM service to their members, they only release AIM as a public service in 1997 after seeing the success ICQ had, and subsequently bought ICQ in 1998. Now, it is said that AIM quickly became the most popular IM client, but nowhere is it mentioned "in the world!", although YOU might consider the United States of America as "the world", that doesn't mean that the other 6,381,887,159 (or 6,088,086,575) if all americans are like you) people in the world believe that, infact you may come to realise that it is quite the opposite.

So as you should have guessed by now, ICQ was the mostly used client for quite a while. People did get annoyed of the chain IM web messages, and porn adds that started going around. Reaching the year 2000, ICQ was losing a popularity because of this, and the fact taht the install size for ICQ install was growing quite large (6MBs and up) and most people were on 56k at the time didn't help either. Back in the day MSN was a much smaller download, and didn't have all the spam problems ICQ had. ICQ lite could have helped the ICQ community survive, but was too little too late.

Yes MSN is what most people in the rest of the world flocked to, lots of people having Hotmail or MSN email accounts, those people had no need to sign up to a new service, just open MSN messenger and log on, it was there ready and waiting.

Around here in "the rest of the world" NO ONE asks "just gimme your S/N" to someone when they intend to contact that person through IM for uni/school work or other communication needs that don't need the urgency a cell phone provides. No, rather what you hear is "give me your MSN" or "give me your hotmail addy" (obviously you hear this in english in england, french in france, italian in italy and so on ...)

Oh, and yes, I have assumed YOU are american (not that I have anything against americans in general). And now I am wondering on what basis you ascertain that MSN is (while you really should say "uses") a more useless protocol than AIM, have you actually ever studied the protocols, have you ever written a client for them, my guess is no, but then again maybe i'm wrong, I'll let the others decide...

But hey, I digress, the point should have been made a long time ago, and I don't feel I need to waste any more time on this. I'll just get back to work, and let you think about it.

---
All population figures courtesy of POPClock (http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html)

[Luca]

What does it matter what "everyone" uses? What matters is what your friends use, because that's who you talk to.

The majority of people on my contact list are people I know personally. I think a number of them use both AIM and MSN. I use AIM. So it's easy. If most of your friends use MSN, then use MSN. It's still easy. It's not like you go around looking for pure strangers to chat with in either one, so you're not really shutting yourself off. Besides, anyone with half a brain can download both, and then if a few of their friends use only one client or the other, they can still communicate with everyone.

And there are a bunch of multi-service clients that are a lot better than the "official" client anyway. Get one of those and you don't have to worry about anything. Both Adium and Proteus are really good, and they support AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ, and I think Jabber (though I know nobody, in person or not, who actually uses Jabber... didn't even hear about it until a year ago).

[stevegong]

yes, but all the 2rd party clients like Adium and Proteus, including aMsn, do not offer the same features as the windows version of MSN.

I have a mac, and I have friends who use windows with MSN. I cannot do an audio chat with them, nor a video chat.

Moreover, these friends don't know English, so they can't dl a version of aim in their language because it doesn't exist. They don't even know enough English to operate the damn programme. MSN provides great language support.

So what am I to do except wish they put those features into MSN mac?


I think aim was designed for use between Americans, because make no effort to make it accessible to the rest of the world.

[nicolasg]

Luca, I certainly don't disagree with you, use the IM system that your circle of friends use, that makes sense, and life a lot easier, and that's what I do (well, I use ALL of them really )

The problem originally stated was that the Mac version of MSN messenger was (and still is) crap compared to the Windows version. And my reply was not intended to say something such as "<insert favorite IM system here> is better than <insert all IM systems - favorite IM system>", but rather to point out that wyvern's reply of "join the rest of the world" was neither smart, useful, helpful, witty, or funny. Rather I thought it was stupid and only worsens the impression the rest of the world (the ACTUAL rest of the world, not "america" as he intends it ) has of the United States: a bunch of obese idiots who think they dominate the world and are a lot cooler than everybody else.

[wyvern]

I didn't realize that MSN had gained such popularity elsewhere. I have never met *anyone* in all my years after switching away from ICQ when that got too horrible who didn't use AIM as their messaging client, and I know many people in other nations, so I had made an apparently false assessment of usage patterns.

From a technical standpoint I see no reason why AIM is an inferior protocol. It supports video and audio chat (as demonstrated by iChat), resumable file transfers, buddy icons, profiles... what more do you want?

But please do not propagate (mostly) false rumors about Americans. Most Americans are furious with what our government has been doing lately. We do not aspire to dominate, or think we are superior to the rest of the world -- only a few who, unfortunately, are in power do. I'm sufficiently fed up that I'm moving to Canada when I'm through with college if Bush is re-elected. I will not live under four more years of this kakistocracy.

[Luca]

I was going to say that people could now stop the stupid bashing of AIM and, more importantly, the United States, but hopefully you can take care of that now. And I see that the bashing of AIM was in response to someone's suggestion that you "get with the rest of the world" instead of using MSN. Whatever, let the comment drop and don't turn this into a political flame war. Looks like you guys already started doing that on your own.

I <3 this message board . So easy to moderate, it practically moderates itself!

Anyway, nicolasg:

Originally Posted by nicolasg the impression the rest of the world has of the United States: a bunch of obese idiots who think they dominate the world and are a lot cooler than everybody else.

This isn't true?

[ast3r3x]

Originally Posted by stevegong Sorry guys, but you guys flame me for saying anything remotely negative about USA, but just look at your attitude. This is what pisses me off, and don't say the problem is mine again. Just because americans use it it should be the definitive chat service? Remember, there are not that many americans in the world. You are outnumbered by many other countries.

Does having an inferiority complex ever cause problems in other parts of your life too? I'm afraid I don't get what hidden hostility you have towards america. Does the use own the rest of the world? No. America isn't just a country though...yeah there are tons of other countries, but you can't deny the power and influence the US has. It's like you have a chip on your shoulder and blame it on us.

I have to agree with wyvern in that I meet almost nobody who uses MSN, that includes everyone I meet from foreign countries (not that it happens every day, but it's not extremely rare)

[thequicksilver]

Just to confirm indeed that practically everyone in Western Europe, notably the UK and France, do use MSNM. I'm a die-hard Adium user, it's a fantastic app, and it's slowly getting there feature-wise. The MSN user icon thing is now supported, as is trickle-slow file transfer, but it's disappointing that MSN for Mac doesn't have the audio/video chat features.

Yeah, I know, iChat AV can work with AIM for Windows, but what use is that when nobody uses it that I know, and there's not a chance in hell that I'm paying £100 for an iSight I'd never be able to use? I've used all four major chat apps (MSN, AIM, ICQ and YIM) on Windows XP, and I'm afraid to say that MSN Messenger is the best of the four apps in terms of features, useability, and pick-up-and-go-ness. Bloated UI that's not to my taste, granted, but it's better than the other four without a shadow of a doubt.

What's most annoying about MSN Messenger in its current Mac form is that file transfers if they're above say 400KB basically crap out, and give my PC friend a message saying that their hard drive is full - most amusing when one of these is 15GB into a 50GB partition. This has happened to multiple friends over multiple PCs of theirs, and has replicated itself over the last two versions of MSNM for Mac, as well as over two different computers and two versions of Mac OS X. At least if Microsoft are committed to releasing a second rate product for the Mac, they may as well make it a second rate product that actually works in the few things it actually does. Grr.

Given my preference where possible for using a superior but lesser known product, using Adium with MSN suits me down to the ground. I actually find it superior to iChat - tabbed windows, absolutely no bloat, customisable, almost everything - but it's pretty cheap of Microsoft not to support AV and functioning file transfers in the Mac version.

[stevegong]

Originally Posted by ast3r3x Does having an inferiority complex ever cause problems in other parts of your life too?

Back off, and if I were anti american I wouldn't go to school in your country, but you should watch your tone. You're pretty arrogant for someone without a history nor sense of identity.

As you can see I'm not the only one annoyed at what a lot of you say. And what the heck is that american flag doing on the top left? Can I even hope to see MY county's flag there on our nathional day? Do you just want to close this site off to others and make it exclusively Americans only?

Maybe you should go do some more lines, or are you so good that stuff doesn't affect you?

[Luca]

Steve, can it or I'll lock this thread. You've made it pretty clear over the few months I've known you that you're not a big fan of the US. ast3r3x's comment was not appropriate, but don't tell him to "back off" and then make the rest of your post a rant. In that case, you are the one who needs to back off and cool down. You can't expect people here to give you much respect if you ignorantly slam their country left and right. And the comment about having no history nor sense of identity is out of line.

The American flag in the top left is because the current leader in the Tour De France is the American, Lance Armstrong. You'll notice that for many days this past week, the flag has been the French one, because the leader in the Tour De France was French at the time. Now Lance is in the lead. So that's why the flag is there. You're overreacting when you try to make it seem as though this site favors Americans over all others. Tell me one website, run in the US by Americans, that put a French flag up for all to see on Bastille Day, July 14th.

In short, think before you type. Look at what you type and think to yourself, "Does this make sense? Am I being a hypocrite when I tell him to cool down and then proceed to make personal attacks against him and his country?" Do that every time you post, and I guarantee you'll have a better time here.

[stevegong]

Sorry guys, I got a little angry with Ast3r3x.

France is on good terms with US, but I really doubt there will be, say a Chinese flag up there when it's our holiday, after hearing the way people here have trashed my country. I'll keep my fingers crossed though.


I'd like to stress again that I really don't have much against the us other than a dislike when some people express american arrogance, or a feeling of superiority. America may well be first militarily or economically or whatever, but why express it like that and make the rest of the world hate you?

And I never said everyone is like this, because I have many good friends at my school.

Peace.

And Ast3r3x, I hope we can put this behind, since we're in the same form. Agreed?

[synotic]

Originally Posted by stevegong France is on good terms with US, but I really doubt there will be, say a Chinese flag up there when it's our holiday, after hearing the way people here have trashed my country. I'll keep my fingers crossed though.

I don't know about that, quite a few Americans think rather poorly of the French. Remember the whole freedom fries debacle? Anyways, are you referring to this thread in the "trashing" of your country? If so, then you're horribly misinterpreting this thread. If this is related to some other incident, then I'll leave it at that. No need to bring it up now and further derail the thread (I apologize as I did contribute to the derailment, although I did learn more about the usage of MSN in Asia). I actually think that the addition of the French flag during Bastille day was very classy of AN. I also think that AN would be rather accomodating in displaying your national flag on your national holiday if you gave them some more information. Although I don't really know any of the owners personally, it seems to me that this board has a lot cooler vibe than many of the other boards I frequent. But I could be talking out of my ass and the owners might have some secret agenda against China and any non-American country (excluding France of course)

P.S. Don't take the last sentence too seriously!

[ShiggyMiyamoto]

MSN Messenger is the crappiest of crappiest IM programs. It's a freakin' memory hog. I only use it because some of my friends (online and off) use it and they either don't have AIM or they rarely sign onto it. The ONLY thing I can say that I like about it is that you can customize what your display name is and everyone can see it. Otherwise I hate it with all my heart. Heh. BTW... MS released version 4 not too long ago.

[Bill M]

I haven't used the Microsoft's mac client in months... the following client is far better:

http://amsn.sourceforge.net/

[goldfish]

Is it the normal attitude here to simply bag people's software choices rather than either deal with the topic in hand or provide some useful information?

It seems unlikely that anyone would go to the trouble of starting a petition if they didn't have a reasonable personal justification for using a particular piece of software. If you don't like that particular software, fair enough, start another thread about "MSN suxx0rs" or whatever, but don't hand out useless information about alternative hacks (that similarly don't include the required functionality) or alternative software (that the person in question doesn't choose to use).

I've used MSN for ages. It does what I need, which is help me communicate with friends elsewhere. Some of these have MSN as a corporate comms client (small companies like Accenture for example) and others are technically unaware people who just want to use the software installed on their PC.

I think RJT has a good point and have signed the petition. MSN 4 is good, but it's dumb that it lags so far behind the PC version.

Everything else here is just pointless noise.

Simon

[Bill M]

Goldfish,
You've made a few good points there, but you ought not to forget that we are talking about Microsoft here. History tells it's all about their ill-practice to offer their free software products featureless and under-performers as compared to the original Windows versions (i.e. MSN Messenger, WMP, Internet Explorer, etc...)

It's not whether it can be done, but rather that they won't ever do it. They keep saying that competing OS platforms don't offer the needed support for their programs, which is total nonsense. Case in point, there are quite a few "hacks" that offer far better support for MSN (i.e. amsn) than their own client under MacOS X. I rather offer my support to the open source developers than losing my time (and a few hairs) trying to change MS's software offerings for the Mac.

So, if you and others are happy with the current MSN 4 yet wish to join a petition to MS for an improved version, that's fine. If people other than you find some of the listed alternatives here as better solutions, that should be fine too. It's all about personal choice. So, please, don't attack others who may not agree with the you or the original poster... you seem to be the one not providing useful information to this thread other than a personal rant.

Peace.

[goldfish]

Originally Posted by Bill M I rather offer my support to the open source developers than losing my time (and a few hairs) trying to change MS's software offerings for the Mac..

Bill M,

I would agree that suggesting aMSN is a useful contribution. Banging on about AIM on the other hand, isn't.

Cheers,
Simon