Messenger Plus! (formerly known as Messenger Plus! Live, commonly abbreviated MsgPlus, Plus!, or incorrectly as MSN Plus) is an add-on for

Windows Live Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versio ...

and

Skype Skype () is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft, best known for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. It also has instant messaging, file transfer, deb ...

. The software provides additional functionality to Microsoft's

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 ...

client, Windows Live Messenger, by adding its own controls to the main interface. These controls affect Messenger's behaviour and appearance, often through additional dialog boxes. The add-on was first released in May 2001 under the name "The Messenger Plus! Extension" for

MSN Messenger MSN Messenger (also known colloquially simply as "Messenger"), later rebranded as Windows Live Messenger, was a cross-platform instant-messaging client developed by Microsoft. It connected to the Microsoft Messenger service and, in later versio ...

and

Windows Messenger Windows Messenger is a discontinued instant messaging client included in Windows XP. Designed for use by both corporate and home users, it was originally created, in 2001, as a streamlined and integrated version of MSN Messenger. It was upgrade ...

. It later changed its name to "Messenger Plus!" and then, for the release of the new Windows Live Messenger client, "Messenger Plus! Live" was chosen. In 2011 the name was changed back to "Messenger Plus!" again. It has become one of the most widely used add-ons for Microsoft's IM clients, citing over 62 million users as of February 2010. Volunteers from the Messenger Plus! community around the world develop skins and scripts for submission into the database of the website for the software.

Features

Messenger Plus! generally expands the features of

2009 (9.0) and 2011. Notable features include: *A set of text formatting codes similar to

BBCode BBCode ("Bulletin Board Code") is a lightweight markup language used to format messages in much Internet forum software, first introduced in 1998. The available "tags" of BBCode are usually indicated by square brackets ( _and_.html" ;"title="/code> ...

(people who don't use Messenger Plus! will still see standard unformatted text with the

still in place). *Custom status tags. *Running multiple instances of Windows Live Messenger with different accounts. *Event logging and chat logging in either plain text or HTML with optional encryption. *Chat log viewer. For browsing and searching all saved logs. *Contacts on desktop. Small windows always on top which show a specific contact. *Auto-reply messages, usually activated when away from keyboard. *Emotion sounds. Custom sounds which can be sent to other Messenger Plus! users. *Tabbed chatting (all the conversations in the same window). This feature existed in Messenger Plus! before Windows Live Messenger 2011 added native support for tabbed chatting. *Messenger locking (Boss Mode). *Contact list clean-up. Showing statistics about the user's contacts and allowing him to remove people who removed him or he never talks to. *

Skinning Skinning is the act of skin removal. The process is done by humans to animals, mainly as a means to prepare the meat beneath for cooking and consumption, or to harvest the skin for making fur clothing or tanning it to make leather. The sk ...

Windows Live Messenger without the user having to physically edit the program's resource files. *

JScript JScript is Microsoft's legacy dialect of the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer 11 and older. JScript is implemented as an Active Scripting engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to OLE Automation applic ...

scripting allowing users to add their own functionality.

Languages

Messenger Plus! is available in 22 languages: *

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

Chinese Simplified Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters used in mainland China, Malaysia and Singapore, as prescribed by the ''Table of General Standard Chinese Characters''. Along with traditional Chinese characters, they are one o ...

Chinese Traditional Traditional Chinese characters are one type of standard Chinese character sets of the contemporary written Chinese. The traditional characters had taken shapes since the clerical change and mostly remained in the same structure they took at ...

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

* Estonian *

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

* French *

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) ** Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

* Hungarian *

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

* Portuguese-Brazil * Portuguese-Portugal *

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

* Thai * Turkish

Creator

Messenger Plus! was originally created in 2001 by Cyril Paciullo, who is better known by the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

"Patchou". He was born in France and currently resides in Canada. He started developing Plus! as a hobby next to his day job as a developer, but soon maintaining the Messenger Plus! software became a full-time job. In Q4 of 2009 Paciullo announced he is no longer in full control of the product and Messenger Plus! is now owned by Yuna Software Limited. In Q1 of 2011 Paciullo officially declared he had left the company and that this chapter of his professional life was closed. Financial details or names of the people behind the new company are not disclosed. Yuna Software has offices in several places in the world and has an office in Montreal, also known as Kimahri Software, where a development team continued to develop Messenger Plus!.

Adware

When developing Messenger Plus! became a full-time job, a form of revenue was added to keep the software free. Formerly, the software came bundled with optional

adware Adware, often called advertising-supported software by its developers, is software that generates revenue for its developer by automatically generating online advertisements in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the ...

software developed by Circle Development Ltd.

Issues with Windows Defender

As of August 17, 2005, the Messenger Plus! website contained a petition to Microsoft's anti-spyware division regarding

Windows Defender Microsoft Defender Antivirus (formerly Windows Defender) is an anti-malware component of Microsoft Windows. It was first released as a downloadable free anti-spyware program for Windows XP and was shipped with Windows Vista and Windows 7. It has ...

's (known as Microsoft AntiSpyware at the time) detection of the Messenger Plus! executable as

spyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user—for example, by violating their priva ...

and subsequent warning that Messenger Plus! would attempt to install spyware at runtime (post-installation), rather than the setup program itself that contained the installer for the threat detected. The petition, which had 401,683 signatures and was 10,137 pages long in total, was sent to Redmond on September 20, 2005 stating that Messenger Plus! should not be labeled as being a threat. On September 23, 2005, just 3 days after the petition was mailed to Redmond from Canada, Microsoft released new definitions for Windows Defender that fixed the false threat detection affecting the Messenger Plus! executable together with other detection improvements. Recent versions of Windows Defender also stopped detecting the Messenger Plus! installer as being potentially dangerous.

Sponsorship agreement criticism

Some software review websites criticized the user agreement, stating that the 'sponsorship agreement', which authorized the installation of the optional

software, was misleading because it looked like a standard

EULA An end-user license agreement or EULA () is a legal contract between a software supplier and a customer or end-user, generally made available to the customer via a retailer acting as an intermediary. A EULA specifies in detail the rights and restr ...

, and was only available in English. The user does get the option to not install the 'sponsor' program, however, even if slightly unorthodoxly. Since Messenger Plus! 3.60 was released (on September 27, 2005), the setup includes a separate sponsor license agreement in addition to a traditional EULA. Both agreements have also been translated in several languages. A separate adware

uninstallation An uninstaller, also called a deinstaller, is a variety of utility software designed to remove other software or parts of it from a computer. It is the opposite of an installer. Uninstallers are useful primarily when software components are instal ...

program was provided by Circle Development Ltd. which appears when users attempt to uninstall the sponsor program of Messenger Plus!.

Discontinuation of the Circle Development package

As of early 2010, Messenger Plus! versions 4.84 and later no longer contain the sponsor program from Circle Development Ltd. Yuna Software currently uses more conventional methods. Messenger Plus! bundles an optional toolbar, custom search page and custom home page all branded as the Messenger Plus! Network. Yuna Software also launched sites in 2010 affiliated with Messenger Plus!, includin
Plus! GamesPlus! SportsPlus! Image
an
Plus! Network
Links on the old website to earlier Messenger Plus! versions caused sites such as

McAfee McAfee Corp. ( ), formerly known as McAfee Associates, Inc. from 1987 to 1997 and 2004 to 2014, Network Associates Inc. from 1997 to 2004, and Intel Security Group from 2014 to 2017, is an American global computer security software company head ...

SiteAdvisor The McAfee SiteAdvisor, later renamed as the McAfee WebAdvisor, is a service that reports on the safety of web sites by crawling the web and testing the sites it finds for malware and spam. A browser extension can show these ratings on hyperl ...

to warn that the website www.msgpluslive.net was linked with

Adware-Lop/Swizzor. However, SiteAdvisor has tested the current website www.msgplus.net and found downloads to be free of adware, spyware, and other potentially unwanted programs. Other sites have already found the site safe. For example, Norton Safe Web has found no issues with this site, stating 0 computer threats, 0 identity threats and 0 annoyance factors.

Non-Optional

In February 2013 Yuna Software released a new installer for Messenger Plus that required the user to install at least one of the bundled options in order to install the software. Note that this may no longer be a requirement as more recent updates do not appear to require that any of the bundled options be installed. This has not been confirmed on a clean install.

Renaming

To coincide with the newly branded

, in 2006 new versions of Messenger Plus! were called Messenger Plus! Live. It was rebuilt from the ground up and included a new user interface design which was intended to blend more with the user interface of

. Since 2011 versions 5.0 and later are called Messenger Plus! again. Messenger Plus! 5 is completely compatible with Windows Live Messenger 2011.

Backwards compatibility

The latest version of Messenger Plus! no longer supports any Messenger version older than 2009. Older Messenger Plus! versions are no longer officially supported. However, the last version of Messenger Plus! (version 3.63, before it was renamed to Messenger Plus! Live) will still be available for download on the official website. This version supports MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger 4.7, 5, 6 and 7. Additionally the last version of Messenger Plus! Live (version 4.90.392, before the name was changed back again) is also still available from the official website. This version supports Windows Live Messenger 8.0 up to 14.0 (2009).

Messenger Plus! for Skype

Messenger Plus! for Skype was released in English on January 12, 2012. This adware adds video and audio recording capabilities to Skype conversations and lets users send flash animations to other users. The subsequent version, Messenger Plus! for Skype 1.2 was released on March 28, 2012 . which introduced 16 additional languages, video and voice transformation effects and ring tones. Version 1.5 was released on June 18, 2012 . which included the ability to stream movies and overlay images in video conversations viewable on all Skype-enabled devices including mobile phones and tablets. Version 1.8 followed on March 3, 2013 . This release was developed after Microsoft's announcement. about discontinuing its Windows Live Messenger service and integrated custom sounds from the united Messenger Plus! for Windows Live Messenger/Skype sound archive, and also introduced a new default design for the add-on.

Features for Skype

Messenger Plus! for Skype is an application for Skype that adds video and audio recording capabilities for

. Notable features include: *Free video and audio call recording of unlimited duration. *3 different levels of video quality *Flash video animation (winks) that can be sent in conversations and previewed. *Chat logs that can be searched and categorized by dates, sessions or by contacts *Preview and print of chat logs *LogViewer that consults with chat logs *Multilanguage support *Mouse over scrollable toolbar *Display recording animated status in the video feed *Video effects: overlay text, mosaic, threshold, mirror, emboss, lens shrink and bulging, invert color effects *Display chat conversation on video conversation *Adjust Video Chat Text font, color, transparency and position *Display date, time and conversation duration a video conversation *Select a user define ringtone per contact for incoming call *Toolbar follow active window *3 levels of noise *Voice transformation effects: chorus, flanger, gain, reverb, tremolo *Built-in Emotion sounds *Custom sounds from united Windows Live Messenger/Skype sound server

Skype Desktop API concerns

Skype has announced its intention to discontinue the desktop API which is used by Messenger Plus! for Skype. Note that the date which this is to happen (originally in December 2013) is now unknown as Skype tries to come up with new methods to support a small subset of the Desktop API functionality. There is currently no information available on the Yuna website that mentions the plans to handle the Desktop API being discontinued by Skype at some point in the future.

Current Development

Version 3.0.0.180 of Messenger Plus for Skype was available for automatic download around January 15, 2014. It was built on January 8, 2014, and has some updated components from December 2013. In the first version this year there is a "feature" that seem not to be mentioned anywhere: It sends an ad for Messenger plus as a chat message to random contacts. This feature makes more or less the extension unusable. In the second version this year (3.0.0.185) released in February 2014, this feature is mentioned and can now be turned off.

Yuna Software Website

Is Messenger Plus! dead?

Apparently, Messenger Plus is still being supported as noted above despite the fact that Yuna software's website gives the impression that this software is no longer under active development due to the following factors:

Forums

As noted above, the forums are no longer accessible to the public. They may not even exist, as all links to them redirect back to Yuna's website. A
archive of the forums
does exist, hosted by a third party.

References

{{Reflist, 2

External links

Messenger Plus! Website
Windows Internet software Adware 2001 software