A LAN Messenger is an

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

program for computers designed for use within a single

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building. By contrast, a wide area network (WAN) not only covers a larger ...

(LAN). Many LAN Messengers offer basics functionality for sending private messages,

file transfer File transfer is the transmission of a computer file through a communication channel from one computer system to another. Typically, file transfer is mediated by a communications protocol. In the history of computing, numerous file transfer protocol ...

chatroom The term chat room, or chatroom (and sometimes group chat; abbreviated as GC), is primarily used to describe any form of synchronous conferencing, occasionally even asynchronous conferencing. The term can thus mean any technology, ranging from ...

s and graphical

smiley A smiley, sometimes referred to as a smiley face, is a basic ideogram that represents a smiling face. Since the 1950s it has become part of popular culture worldwide, used either as a standalone ideogram, or as a form of communication, such a ...

s. The advantage of using a simple LAN messenger over a normal instant messenger is that no active Internet connection or central server is required, and only people inside the

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spr ...

will have access to the system.

History

A precursor of LAN Messengers is the

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, and ot ...

talk Talk may refer to: Communication * Communication, the encoding and decoding of exchanged messages between people * Conversation, interactive communication between two or more people * Lecture, an oral presentation intended to inform or instruct ...

command, and similar facilities on earlier systems, which enabled multiple users on one host system to directly talk with each other. At the time, computers were usually shared between multiple users, who accessed them through serial or telephone lines.

Novell NetWare NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The original NetWare product in ...

featured a trivial person-to-person chat program for DOS, which used the PX/SPXprotocol suite. NetWare for Windows also included broadcast and targeted messages similar to WinPopup and the Windows Messenger service. On

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

WinPopup Messenger service is a network-based system notification Windows service by Microsoft that was included in some earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. This retired technology, although it has a similar name, is not related in any way to the la ...

was a small utility included with Windows 3.11. WinPopup uses SMB/

NetBIOS NetBIOS () is an acronym for Network Basic Input/Output System. It provides services related to the session layer of the OSI model allowing applications on separate computers to communicate over a local area network. As strictly an API, Ne ...

protocol and was intended to receive and send short text messages. Windows NT/2000/XP improves upon this with

Windows Messenger service Messenger service is a network-based system notification Windows service by Microsoft that was included in some earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. This retired technology, although it has a similar name, is not related in any way to the l ...

, a Windows service compatible to WinPopup. On systems where this service is running, the received messages "pop up" as simple message boxes. Any software compatible with WinPopup, like the console utility

NET SEND Messenger service is a network-based system notification Windows service by Microsoft that was included in some earlier versions of Microsoft Windows. This retired technology, although it has a similar name, is not related in any way to the la ...

, can send such messages. However, due to security concerns, by default, the messenger service is off in Windows XP SP2 and blocked by Windows XP's

. On Apple's -based computers, the

iChat iChat (previously iChat AV) is a discontinued instant messaging software application developed by Apple Inc. for use on its Mac OS X operating system. It supported instant text messaging over XMPP/Jingle or OSCAR ( AIM) protocol, audio and vid ...

program has allowed LAN messaging over the

Bonjour Bonjour is a French word meaning (literally translated) "good day", and is commonly used as a greeting. Bonjour may also refer to: People * Laurence BonJour (born 1943), epistemologist and professor of philosophy at the University of Washington ...

protocol since 2005. The multi-protocol messenger

Pidgin A pidgin , or pidgin language, is a grammatically simplified means of communication that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common: typically, its vocabulary and grammar are limited and often drawn from s ...

has support for the Bonjour protocol, including on Windows.

References

Internet culture Online chat {{network-software-stub

History

See also

References