Yahoo! Messenger Blog » Let’s Chat

Let’s Chat

January 22, 2007 on 10:20 am | In Features |

We appreciate all your enthusiasm and comments on our blog. We do read the comments, and it’s clear there are concerns around Yahoo! Messenger’s chat rooms. So we want to address some of them.

Right off the bat, we want to let you know there was an outage the weekend of January 12th that prevented users from signing into the chat rooms. This is uncommon, and we were able to fix it. We appreciated your patience as we tackled the issue.

As some of you know, since Yahoo! Messenger’s chat rooms began the Internet has evolved and as a result, we’ve seen problems occur in the rooms with things like bots and other disruptions that can take the fun out of a chat. We are aware of these problems and continue to work on solutions.

Recently, we discontinued our web-based chat rooms. If you were using web-based chat, we hope you’ve installed the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger and started using its chat rooms. Since this changeover, we fixed a few bugs. Recently, if you clicked to ignore someone in a chat room, the next time you signed in to Messenger, the person was no longer on your ignore list (so you had to ignore the person again). We have corrected this to preserve ignore lists, so if you still have that problem, please upgrade to the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger. Also, if you’re not seeing chat text when you’re in a room, turn off the Messenger preference that is set to ignore anyone who is not on your contact list. You’ll find this under the Messenger menu > Preferences > Ignore list. (Thanks to reader “bart” for the tip!)

We also know many of you enjoyed our user-generated public chat rooms, which were discontinued. We will not be able to bring them back as a feature. But as a Yahoo! Messenger user, you can easily set up a private conference over IM with many friends at once.

Thanks again for your feedback and comments about your chat room use. They are important to us, and we are working on solutions to make the chat experience better. We’ll keep you updated here on the blog.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

293 Comments »

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This is useless as the inferior Mac versions is not setup to support chat groups.

Comment by Alex Rodriguez — January 22, 2007 #
What about the chat exploit that disconnects users? Has it been addressed yet?

Comment by Michael King — January 22, 2007 #
If you guys want, I could provide a detailed list of bugs that me and my friends have compiled dealing with crashes, chats, IMs, conferences, GUI, etc. as it can assist the Yahoo! Messenger team improve Y!M (contact me if interested).

Keep up the good work team! =)

Comment by Michael King — January 22, 2007 #
I agree with Michael for bringing this to your attention i am on Yahoo Instant Messenger 24 hours a day and i notice Disconnects in Chats. I only normally have this problem when voice is enabled. There are many voice bots out there which disconnect my messenger also Large amounts of Bots which hit me. I hope your going to help towards blocking these nasty programs in the future because these are nasty programs. I am a proud Yahoo Chatter and like YIM.

Also Sarah you said about you cant bring Yahoo User Chats back. I know many users loved the user chats and i thought you would of comeup with a safer way on Chatroom Creation.

Also everyone keeps asking about Follow User and Go To User also Join User In Chat which was pulled from the buddy list Menu as soon as Yahoo Messenger 6.0 was released. These was handy features and i hope there can be a way to bring them back in the future.

You could allow Privacy Options.

Allow user to Join me in Chats*
Only Allow Buddys to Join me in Chats*

These sort of options Protect the Privacy of all other users. I really do hope there is a way to bring these features back in the future.

Thanks for all your hard work over at Yahoo! Inc.

Comment by Mr Gordon — January 22, 2007 #
Id love to cyber with Sarah. Now, that wasnt intended to get on Sarah’ nerves or to be vulgar but to show Sarah, and Yahoo! that PM isnt disabled, and the users who were breaking such rules in chat can continue to do so in PM - so in reality its only stopped a small amount of abuse.

Comment by mr t meola — January 22, 2007 #
I have used Yahoo Messenger for quite some time, until recently anyway. I also use Windows Instant Messenger. I recently needed to chat with a friend who could not log onto Windows IM and I attempted to log into Yahoo IM several times. It would show to be logging in and then would go back to log in page. I decided that maybe I needed to re-install, and discovered that there was a newer version out, so I downloaded Yahoo Messenger with Voice (8.1.0.239) My Yahoo Module (8.0.0.1). I uninstalled the previous version and installed the new one and attempted to log in and once again could not do so. I did attempt several times with no success. When I was unable to resolve the problem on my own, I went to the “Help” function and “Reported the problem” to Yahoo. I did this several times. I also discovered that others were having the same problem with the service. After completing the reporting process for the second or third time, and having Messenger set to log in automatically, I walked away for a period of time and came back to my computer to find that I had connected to Messenger just at the moment I sat down at the desk. Since I had done nothing, I made the mistake of thinking that perhaps Yahoo support had done something to assist me. Shortly after I sat down, Messenger went of and I have not been able to sign back in, despite leaving it on in a {”connect automatically” for hours at a time. Thankfully, I did not “Hold my breathe” awaiting a response from Yahoo about the problem reports I made to them. I know others are using Yahoo Messenger, but now wonder if they are using an earlier version, since the new version, in my opinion, “SUCKS.”

Comment by Van Randolph — January 22, 2007 #
WHEN R U GONNA ALLOW MAC USERS TO USE THE CHAT ROOM??

Comment by Mike — January 22, 2007 #
Someone should delete all the Spam comments from here. The user mitchell redirects to a porn site.

Oh yeah and chat room would be great, but Photo Sharing is much more important for all teens. This is the digital century. Give Mac users Photo Sharing

Comment by Lucky — January 22, 2007 #
Oh yeah and the new emoticons that Y! 8 has. I want those! Or even better you could do the emoticons Mac OS X style. Just like the Y! messenger homepage for the Mac version.

Comment by Lucky — January 22, 2007 #
Hi everyone - We’ll have a Mac update on the blog in the future so I’ll see what I can find out about chat rooms for Mac version users. Thanks,

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

Comment by Administrator — January 23, 2007 #
hey if you love 2 chat your in the right place

Comment by fredina — January 23, 2007 #
I’ve been using yahoo messenger, for a good 6, 7 years, its pretty much the only messenger service I use. In the begining it was great, never had problems, good fun chat rooms to go into. But now, the messenger freezes on me all the time, kicks me off and its hard as hell to get signed back in. Ever since you took out the teen rooms and the user create rooms, the chat rooms have become boreville. I know hunderds of people who quit using the messenger and or the chat rooms because of these problems. You guys should fix the freezing and being booted off and put back the teen rooms and the create rooms so we can have some form of entertainment.

Comment by Rob — January 23, 2007 #
how do i get into a chat room

Comment by frances browne — January 23, 2007 #
to yahoo.
i am really trying to see how i can get into a chat room, cause i have not used the pc for a long time now, so i have forgotton how to log onto the messenger for chatting, kindly send me a step by srep process on how to log on and be a member of the chat
thanking you
aleen

Comment by aleenonyx — January 23, 2007 #
You can find out how to get into chat rooms from Yahoo! Messenger here (refer to the step by step on the right side of the page):

http://messenger.yahoo.com/feat_chatrooms.php

Comment by Administrator — January 23, 2007 #
i recently received an offline message saying that yahoo was going to deactivate messenger accounts and that it would cost 10.00 per month to use our accounts. is this true?

Comment by MJOHNSON77327 — January 23, 2007 #
MJOHNSON77327 - No, that’s not true. Sounds like you got him with some spim (IM spam). If you see that again, click the ignore button in your offline messages window to report it as spam. Thanks!

Sarah Bacon

Comment by Administrator — January 23, 2007 #
This Vista Messenger will you bring out a version compatible with Windows XP. I tested Vista out and dont like its new GUI

Comment by Mr Gordon — January 23, 2007 #
Just a small point about Messenger builds please..would it be possible somewhere on this blog to post changes, enhancements and bug fixes etc for builds as they are released please?

Would be usefull to know whats happening with the builds as they appear so an update log would be of benefit to all users I feel.

Cheers.

Colin

Comment by Colin — January 23, 2007 #
A few things I would like to see implemented.

First and absolutely foremost are the amount of bots in the chat rooms. There are a ridiculous amount of bots and the issue has become almost unbearable.Quite discerning upon entering a room and maybe 10 of the 50 people are actually real. I’m not sure how you would go about adressing the matter, but possibly having a random word verification box prior to entering a room may help somewhat?

The next few have to do with the Messenger GUI. I would like to see the “Chat” button put back on the top of the interface. It was much easier and convenient to just click a single button, rather than go to “Yahoo Messenger/Yahoo/Chat/Join A Room”.

Next is the favorites section. Many people do have favorite rooms, but they also have favorite room numbers that coincide with the category. It would be fantistic if the favorites section ALSO remembered the specific room number - rather than just the catagory.

Last of all. Myself and many, many, many others have a problem with the chat filter not working. When I go to preferences/chat, and select “none” as a word filter - it does not stay. Any log on, log off, or switching of rooms automatically puts the setting back to “weak”, although the option is still set to “none”. The workaround is always having to select “weak”, and then setting it back to “none”. Quite bothersome having to do it every log in & room change.

Thanks for listening!!!

Comment by Daren R. — January 23, 2007 #
I noticed that Sarah Bacon said there would be an update on the Mac version of Messenger - PLEASE PLEASE convey to the development team that we Mac users really want access to Yahoo! Chat rooms. I switched from a PC this year, and love OS X, but was crushed to find out that I couldn’t participate in chat rooms. I don’t plan on going back to a PC anytime soon, so as more people buy Macs, Yahoo is going to lose participants in chat features!

Comment by Bill — January 23, 2007 #
How about fixing Mac to PC webcams? Last week it was working fine, but it seems to have been broken in your “Chat Room” changes. I understand about turing it off in the Chat Rooms, but how about fixing straight person-to-person (Mac to PC) webcam?

Thanks for the soapbox.

Comment by Christopher — January 23, 2007 #
hi i will soon be on windows vista and i saw ur making a new YiM for vista well could u make it so the avatars do what people will type in *action text* ? if my buddy types in *hugs* the avatar will hug my avatar or say my buddy types in * makes out * her avatar will make out with my avatar now that will be so cool !

btw please add a disable photosharing check box i want to disable that completely thnx

Comment by cat — January 24, 2007 #
To the Blog Team, i know you are aware of the current room packet exploit in the YMSG protocol and it been sent in the YMSGHTTP protocol, have you made any progress in detering this exploit and stopping it from happening?

Comment by Dermot — January 24, 2007 #
Hello Yahoo! Messenger Team. I’ve read through the posts on this blog and by now I’m sure you recognize that many users are frustrated and disappointed with the current state of your chat service and IM client, I can’t say I blame them either. While your service is indeed a good one there are so many ridiculous flaws plaguing it that it’s a haven for malicious users to attack innocent chatters.

I have disclosed to you vulnerabilities I have discovered in the past (May of 2005) and more recently a flaw involving your Plugins and sending them to contacts. The last flaw I disclosed to you (and you only) allowed for Plugins to be sent and then automatically loaded against a user’s permission. If you are reading this it would be extremely WISE to hear me out.

Over the last couple of months “room booting” attacks have been a serious problem on your chat service. More recently this room booting has evolved into a seriously widespread DoS attack capable of disconnecting entire rooms of chatters. This attack can be launched by sending only a single large YMSG packet from a YMSG/HTTP session to trigger a server-side disconnect to all connected chatters in the target room. This means that even a dial-up user can launch and ‘boot’ up to 49 people PER chat room! If we do the math here and this flaw was exploited in multiple rooms simultaneously the “body count” would be extremely high. If an attacker chose to log 10 “bots” into 10 different rooms, 1 per room, and send this packet to all of them you’re looking at a max disconnection pay off of 490 users, nearly half a thousand of them in one go. If an attacker logged 20 bots into 20 different rooms and hit them all simultaneously you can kiss about ~1,000 people (assuming the maximum room population in each) goodbye within seconds from even a standard broadband connection.

This vulnerability being exploited is the most serious DoS attack flaw that has ever been seen or launched on ANY IM service I’ve ever used or worked with because it’s a broadcast DoS attack that will drop all chat room users from your YMSG servers. My question to you is… WHY does this vuln exist? Was it put there on purpose (it would appear so since justification for it’s existence wouldn’t make any sense)? Your chat server architecture is pretty flawed, ‘booting’ exists because YOU allow it to. Your servers disconnect the target(s) of YMSG packet floods instead of the source(s), it needs to be the other way around. You should be properly validating YMSG packet length where in many cases you’re not.

Below is some information regarding this YMSG/HTTP (single packet) Broadcast DoS Disconnection Exploit. The “fix” is a simple one and if you, the Yahoo! Messenger team, refuse to resolve it within the next 5 days (you have until the 30th) I will go public with example code (Proof-of-Concept code) and a binary that’s already compiled and ready for use with instructions on how to deny service to potentially thousands of people on your chat service. Five days is PLENTY of time for you to fix this vulnerability, starting now the countdown has started until I disclose this in it’s entirety to secunia and bugtraq. Don’t take me lightly, you’ve allowed this to go on for TOO LONG now and not only am I becoming impatient with your lack of “Quality of Service” and standards but EVERYBODY else is too. Take the responsibility to fix your server flaws especially when they’re of this degree of severity!

Vulnerability Type: Remotely Exploitable Broadcast DoS Attack (server-side disconnect)

Easily Launched? YES

Actively Being Exploited? YES

Affected YMSG Service Type: Chat Room Message/Service Type 0×00 0xA8

Details: A server-side Broadcast Denial of Service Attack can easily be launched on the Yahoo! Chat network potentially affecting thousands of chatters. A vulnerability that exists in the server architecture allows for a remote DoS attack to be exploited in broadcast.

Instructions for Reproduction: Chat network access via YMSG/HTTP login session. Room entry for target room. Upon successful entry (room login accepted and join request granted) a single YMSG packet of an exact length is needed to trigger a broadcast disconnect vulnerability in your current server architecture.

Exploit is delivered through a Chat Room Message packet circumventing your server’s 300 Byte Chat Message limitation. Due to the fact that your YMSG server architecture doesn’t properly validate the full packet length, but instead field-specifically (ie. you’re only applying the 300 char limit to the ‘117′ message field), chat message packets over 10KB in size are able to be generated and delivered to chat room users.

When a YMSG/HTTP session is used to send this structurally abnormal packet the chat message packet can reach over 15KB in size. When a chat message packet is sent from YMSG/HTTP at EXACTLY 15,310 Bytes + Room_Name_Length + User_ID_Length it WILL instantly trigger a broadcast disconnect to all currently logged in chat room users affected under YMSG protocol. The vulnerable field in the chat message packet is the Message Type Definition field which should ONLY be character 0×31, 0×32 or 0×33 (1/2/3). This field NEEDS TO BE restricted to only allow for a single Byte to be carried and acknowledged, you’re allowing for over 15KB to be present in this field, this is ridiculous and poor implementation on your part. =\

You STILL HAVEN’T remedied the issue I disclosed back in May of 2005 concerning your ‘Logfile’ for Messenger “troubleshooting” and it’s serious privacy risk potential. You can find that advisory here: http://seclists.org/bugtraq/2005/May/0212.html & archived and “Verified” by the Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB) here: http://osvdb.org/displayvuln.php?osvdb_id=16815&print

Please take the responsibility to AT LEAST patch the broadcast DoS vulnerability that is being actively exploited publicly in all chat rooms on your service or I will have NO CHOICE but to completely disclose it with working proof-of-concepts. You can bet this one would be all over Security Focus, The Register and many security-related sites as a “Headline” in their news sections.

How can you expect people to care about and use your new Vista version of Messenger when they can’t even use your service without serious disruptions such as this? You can contact me directly if you would like anymore information on fixing this one… you have until the 30th and I’ll be checking daily to see if it’s been fixed. This isn’t a threat this is a promise because you’ve been more than aware of this being actively exploited and haven’t even attempted to fix this issue or make the public aware that you acknowledge it’s existence. This is complete negligence on your behalf for such a matter that you could easily rectify within MINUTES not days. I’ve given you until the 30th which is far more time than you would need to resolve this issue. Please don’t “sleep” on this one like you did on the Local Log Disclosure privacy issue that you’ve still yet to do anything about. I’m looking out for the chat public’s best interest.

Regards,
Adam [Torseq Technologies]

Comment by Adam [Torseq Technologies] — January 24, 2007 #
I remember back in the old days when there was a exploitable Yahoo Messenger 5.6 where you could send HTML and Javascript code directly to chat. That was so annoying and its just the problem now with people getting booted all the time. Wouldent it be nice if everyone was totally unbootable on Yahoo Messenger? I think it would be nice if u was not booted.

I hope all these booters an 3rd party clients are going to get patched again Sarah. Like i said to alot of people… “How would you like it if somebody was using your Servers as a Connection direct to their Chats” If it was my servers i would be quite damn annoyed and would keep issuing patches to block these 3rd party clients / booters etc. I hope you patch the YMSG Protocols soon and just stay to one Protocol which you can easily always kill off and patch.

I really hope you guys over at the Yahoo Team are thinking of doing this. Theres no reason they should Exploit onto your Servers, you have a written Document for Yahoo Messenger Users to connect to Windows Live Users / LCS and Lotus Sametime not 3rd party clients and other programs which like to exploit the Servers aswell as other Messenger Users.

Comment by Mr Gordon — January 25, 2007 #
Is there anyway that I can show screen name,and not my real name that I wrote when my account was signed up?
I have tried several ways that I can find but it still can not be solved

Comment by pencil — January 25, 2007 #
@ pencil, Yahoo Preferences > Appearance > Select ‘Yahoo! ID’.

Comment by Michael King — January 25, 2007 #
Quote: “Also, if you’re not seeing chat text when you’re in a room, turn off the Messenger preference that is set to ignore anyone who is not on your contact list. You’ll find this under the Messenger menu > Preferences > Ignore list.”

Sarah, can you explain the rationale for Yahoo changing the ‘Ignore anyone who is not on my friends list’ function? Not too long ago (within the last two years), if you set your Ignore preference to this option, it would ignore any non-chatroom contact from non-friends (IM’s, invites, etc.) but would leave all room text and voice intact. Now, the option also disables text and voice from non-friends in the rooms.

This is impractical for most room chatters, to say the least. They may want this option to block unsolicited IM’s, which is very desirable, but they still want to see all the room activity. I don’t know anyone who uses this option anymore, nor can I think of a reason to do so, short of riding out a booter attack. Please consider revising this feature. Thanks.

Comment by Mike F — January 25, 2007 #
Hi

I am jus curious if yahoo is going to do sumthing about the room booter that is messing up all the rooms sometimes ya cant stay in them for longer then a few minutes as peeps jus keep bootin it and bootin it n it knocks ya straight off messy its making chat not a very enjoyable place to be as some sit there for hours and do it ya change rooms and ya jus get the same I really hope this problem can be sorted out soon and make chatting enjoyable again thanx

Comment by Aus — January 25, 2007 #
I cant get into the Chatrooms again at of 12:15 GMT UK Time today. takes 1 minute to get into a chatroom.

Comment by Mr Gordon — January 26, 2007 #
The Exploit Torseq Technologies posted to you on this blog i think its seriously effecting people on the Chat Servers because alot of the rooms i go in hardly nobody has any ears on in the chatters list. I really hope this issue will be fixed soon for everyones sake.

Comment by Mr Gordon — January 26, 2007 #
I hope you take the advice of Torseq Technologies, because if true and you dont I will personally ask a few of my associates to contact the Government about taking legal action against yahoo for negligence in not enforcing the Denial pf Service rules in your own Terms of Service

Comment by Mr Brand — January 26, 2007 #
Hello Yahoo Messenger Team again

I just downloaded your Yahoo Avatar World its seems a really easy new way to create your own chats and customize it with your Yahoo Avatar. I hope you will be adding more stuff and enhancing it with more Privacy features. Good work well done!

Comment by Mr Gordon — January 26, 2007 #
After posting my initial comments here, and reading all of the others - it looks like many people have disconnection issues. I personally do not experience any random disconnects & have not experienced them for quite a long while.

Again, the only improvements I would like to see are 1) placing the “Chat” button back on the Messenger GUI, rather than having to access it through the menus. 2) Fixing the massive spam bot issues in the rooms, and 3) HAving the “favorite rooms” list keep track of the catagory AND specific room number… rather than simply the catagory alone.

Comment by Daren R. — January 26, 2007 #
Daren, the disconnections mentioned above are caused by a Broadcast Denial of Service exploit within chat rooms. In simple terms, that’s bad. VERY bad.

Comment by Venom — January 26, 2007 #
a bug in the Yahoo Messenger GUI stops the Search for Members on Yahoo Messenger from being displayed in the Buddy Window Menu - You can access it if you put the Menu Item in the Task Tray Menu. I you guys at Yahoo can issue a fix for this as thats a very good feature of Yahoo Messenger. Its nothing to do with a Privacy issue its a Members Directory and anyone has the right to browse throughout the Yahoo Members pages.

Comment by Mr Gordon — January 26, 2007 #
When I enter a chat room the voice/mic automatically turns on. I would like the messenger to remember next time I enter a chat room if I have voice/mic off, to stay off.

Comment by Dave — January 27, 2007 #
Dave, try YTK Lite or YTK Pro as it has an option to turn off auto voicing. =)

Comment by Venom — January 27, 2007 #
After reading all these posts, the ones that most struck a chord with me were the posts submitted by Daren R.

I too have been scratching my head in amazement and disbelief ever since some genius on the Yahoo Messenger development team thought it would be a good idea to REMOVE the “Chat” button from the Messenger interface. Why would you do that? Why fix something that wasn’t broken?

Actually, it wasn’t a fix, but rather a huge step backwards. By removing the simple functionality of a button that was easy to access, you now force users to search thru their menus in an attempt to locate a way to enter chat. And even if you know the location (as has been outlined in previous posts), the fact is it now requires several steps instead of simply pressing one button located right on the GUI. Why? Someone please explain it to me. I’d love to hear the rationale behind this decision. Of course we’ll never get an answer.

I find it all the more perplexing given that you now HAVE to use Messenger to enter chat, and can’t enter thru your web browser. You would think that Yahoo would want to make it as easy as possible for people to enter chat thru Messenger. No, that would be too logical. What does the brain trust at Yahoo do? They tweak the GUI so it now contains a bunch of useless buttons and items that most people never use, and instead remove one of the useful buttons that a majority of people actually use. Kudos to you Yahoo.

Isn’t an upgrade to a program supposed to be an improvement? If so, can someone at Yahoo explain to me how removing the “Chat” button enhances or improves the user’s experience. Yeah, I didn’t think you could. This is why I continue to use version 7.0.

By the way, for anyone that wants to continue to use an older version of Messenger instead of the latest and *cough* greatest, and not be nagged to upgrade each time they launch it, it’s a simple matter of renaming the “yupdater.exe” file to something else. Go to where you have Messenger installed, most likely:

C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger

Make sure you have file extensions visible and not hidden (as they are by default — change that in Folder Options if necessary) and locate the “yupdater.exe” file. Rename it to something like “yupdater.old” and click “Yes” when asked if you are sure you want to change it.

…..

Something else I’ve noticed lately, which hasn’t been addressed much by Sarah or anyone else, is how difficult it has been to enter chat lately. Messenger logs on without a problem, but entering a chatroom is ponderous and slow, and requires several attempts. I’m sure many of you are familiar with the following Chat Error:

“Signing in to Chat took longer than expected. Please try again later.”

It’s been going on for 3 weeks or more, with a short respite of about a week or so, but today I see the problem is back. What’s up with that? Does this have something to do with the interoperability between Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger?

Comment by Michael L. — January 27, 2007 #
Yahoo needs a ‘Status’ web page to let us know of any current problems like right now all rooms are frozen and you cant log on.. so whats up with that?

Comment by So0o0_Confused — January 27, 2007 #
Another thing… That “Loading Chat” message above the ad when you 1st enter a room can be removed, as we all know it’s fake. There IS no loading of chat. It’s quite obvious as other chat apps don’t have to “load” anything.

I’d like to see someone come here and address the issues posted here at least a couple times a week.

Comment by Daren R. — January 27, 2007 #
ok, not to be a jerk here but WTF is yahoo doing to mess things up now? I can’t sign in to regular messy, can’t sign into yazak or yahelite. everything was working good last night then poof, Did some dork in a suit decide to play with the wiring at yahoo cause he was bored?

Comment by southern_fried — January 27, 2007 #
How about having a modetior in each of the rooms… to watch all the crazeyness.. when the mod. leaves…. the room is closed… no questions asked..

Comment by Chris — January 27, 2007 #
When will Yahoo update the TV chat rooms list?
The TV category in Yahoo Messenger chat is horribly outdated. Over half of the rooms (15 of the 28) are for shows that have been long since cancelled and new, popular shows have no room of their own. As an aside, a large group of Big Brother fans have been petioning for our room back since Yahoo removed it after season two. Because Yahoo is a free service, Yahoo seems to turn a deaf ear to any complaints. I have inquired on this on numerous previous occasions and have never received anything other than a “form letter” type reply. Does Yahoo itself monitor these questions?

Comment by Wayne Harke — January 28, 2007 #
I hang out in the pagan rooms and especially Paganism 5…..the room ish being booted at least 8 times a day if not more…..why should we suffer for not doing asnything but chatting….This room has done nothing to deserve being booted….you need to path this booter….ban the room booter!! —- Kytten

Comment by The Wiggmeister's Kytten — January 28, 2007 #
A mod in each room? Thats absolutely ridiculous.

Comment by Daren R. — January 28, 2007 #
i am going to tell you how it is yahoo free .
on that yahoo is the ones who keep the back doors
opne ok for some one to make a booter ok its free
what you going to do booting some one is fun and on top of that why all of you bitching… you know you get booted right i tell you what you need to do is go and get a booter and boot them back.. booter been here for god know how long.. thay started weth aol ok and all so ther a booter out for msn as well you know you can stop them so stop bitching.. to yahoo its free

Comment by l_l_l_dragon_l_l_l — January 28, 2007 #
That’s all well and good, but Yahoo will continue to loose advertizers because of a new room booting program that attacks the Yahoo server and boots a room. People are already getting tired of this ridiculous lame activity by a few airheads and are going over to Paltalk. Now I know a patch can be designed to resolve this AND because Yahoo does record ip addresses, the predators can be stopped and banned from Yahoo. I certainly hope some action will be taken soon.

Comment by willowwisp000 — January 28, 2007 #
Yahoo get your act together, the more your rooms get booted the more you lose out to other chat clients.
Come on yahoo, give people like me a break this is the only contact I have with ppl.
For all those people that only want to chat and have no other way to communicate with the outside world.
Please Yahoo get something done we are all looking to you for help.

Comment by moonwolf — January 28, 2007 #
Face it, Yahoo Inc. does not care and is not interested in improving the chat service. Yahoo Inc. would rather face a tribunal of angry rodents instead of fixing chat. Because they’re indifferent to anything except perhaps a class action lawsuit brought on by angry rodents.
Of course, one day the angry rodents will smarten up and build a better chat service on their own with their own rodent servers. I forsee this happening.
As for myself I Boodoodles, hereby vows to never use Yahoo’s chat service ever again. Indifference costs us all. Stop the suffereing revolt now.

Comment by Boodoodles — January 28, 2007 #
i love yahoo chat room! i don’t see why people thinks its bad to chat! its better then chating in the chat rooms!

Comment by kayla — January 29, 2007 #
It’s not bad to chat. It’s just the malicious script kiddies using server side exploits on the chat rooms to disrupt usage. That, and the porn bots.

Comment by Venom — January 29, 2007 #
Yahoo chat room experience has remained the same in terms of features and has only gotten progressively worse in terms of experience in the last 5 years. Yahoo, you guys really have to do something to improve the chat experience. Is it really that hard to get rid of the bots in the rooms? Just have a word verification before signing in. Can you not do something that simple? Not allowing bots to sign in will improve user experience and avoid unnecessary bandwidth wastage.

Yahoo do something to retain your subscriber base. This is your only leg up on Google. Do not lose this. Is it that hard for a company with the kind of resources that Yahoo has to maintain an agile, responsive, feature rich chat experience?

Comment by Frustrated — January 29, 2007 #
While chat has taken over the world, Chat rooms are going to go the way of the dinosaur. Maybe no real people except Filapinos and Nigerians will even keep the Chat rooms that still do exist existing. The way Yahoo used to be 4 or 5 years ago (much better) is gone. Either deal with your own circle of chat contacts, or deal without Yahoo Messenger. Yahoo Chat rooms have become too much of a beating for any civilized person just trying to make new friends. Those days are long gone.

Comment by RCarter — January 29, 2007 #
Surely the people that are addressing Sarah, dont think that they are going to get a responce. This is Yahoo! GET A GRIP.

Comment by Tommy — January 30, 2007 #
Today is the 30th January 2007. This Remotely Exploitable Broadcast DoS Attack has not been patched.

Comment by Mr Gordon — January 30, 2007 #
Yahoo fix these things
1. Booting is a crime no different than mass spam emails, or phishing for Credit Cards
2. People that lock down rooms to others out is not much better those people should have accounts locked, and charge for violiating my civil rights to free speech.
3. Porn bots should be cordoned off, or marked so users can iggy them.
4. Bring back User rooms in certain subjects, but have a person approve or deny the request for a user room.

Finally, those simple measure make yahoo fun to use again. I used for 7 years, and the last couple years the rooms gotten more bot infested, and people boot, and lock down rooms that is why people dont use yahoo like they did in past. Its the 5% of dimwit users that ruin it for 95% of users that are honest, ethical, and play by the rules

Comment by Nick — January 30, 2007 #
Tommy,

If you actually read the comments here, you’ll notice Sarah has replied to one request already.

Comment by Mike F — January 30, 2007 #
I used to log on to the chat rooms to chat with people all accross the country on my day off. Lately the only people logged on are hookers who want you to visit their porn sites, spammers, and idiots begging for money.
You guys got to let me know where the normal people are signing on or I got to find a new hobby.

Mark Blevins

Comment by Mark Blevins — January 30, 2007 #
So when will Mac users be allowed to use the chatrooms? Come on…it’s not THAT difficult!

Comment by Nick — January 30, 2007 #
ok i just got home from work and its 4pm mst and i can NOT log into yahoo using anything!!!! …like i said WHERES MY STATUS PAGE??????

Comment by So0o0_Confused — January 30, 2007 #
I cant get messenger 8 w beta to sign on so I have to use 7.0 and now it signs on but wont let me in chats

Comment by Greg — January 30, 2007 #
I guess you have heard enough about the new Messenger well here it comes again. No response from the help item. This has come at a bad time due to I had set a time to talk to my son who is in iraq. thanks again for letting me down with messenger.

Comment by Barbara — January 30, 2007 #
Has anyone been having problems with Yahoo Messenger 8.1.0.239 constantly signing you off and back on again all the time??? Since I upgraded to yahoo 8.0 and onwards…I have been experiencing this problem. I googled it and realised that I am not the only and lots have a similar question posted all over the web, especially on yahoo answers and a lot of tech forums. Some suggested that the new build requires IE7 which I upgraded to and still the problem exisits.
Any ideas or fixes??? Pleae Help.

Regards,
Allan

Comment by Allan — January 30, 2007 #
I just read through dozens of posts and have seen only one response by yahoo. has Sarah died, or perhaps she has gone on vacation…. As of this moment, yahoo chat isn’t working at all. What’s happening? Did your servers up and croak or did one of your Yahoo executives start pushing random buttons? Please give us some kind of response! Even if it’s just to tell us all to shut the hell up and get a life, it would be better than nothing.

Comment by Will — January 30, 2007 #
today Jan 30 , 2007 yahoo went down again for several hours .. about 5 to 8:30 eastern time… and they patched the chat room boot exploit in http/ymsg servers chat packet field 124 .. and it wasn’t a power outtage … @ sarah

Comment by freecreed — January 30, 2007 #
now…if they could just get rid of the thousands and thousands of bots that inhabit yahoo chat. I just finally logged onto chat and who got there first but the raging hordes of porn bots. I love being in a full chat room with only 8 real people!

Comment by Will — January 30, 2007 #
I have been a Yahoo! Chat user since the week it was first available to the public. I have seen many advancements to the technologies that make it possible over the years and I have always praised Yahoo! for continuing the free speech philosphy that it has afforded the masses around the globe through the use of the software. Yes I do actually understand the issues Yahoo! has faced in such countries as China and other places regarding free speech and keeping your vows to the users.

Being a network admin for several small networks and having some experience in Visual Basic and .Net technologies myself I have given much thought to the methods by which Yahoo can clean up the chatrooms from all the unwanted garbage that has poluted them over the years.

Being an Amateur Radio Operator and frequently getting the opportunity to share with new freinds the major differences between Ham Radio and Citizens Band Radio it occurs to me that If you really wish to clean up chat and make it fun for the users again? You have to allow the users more control over cleaning it up themselves.

Now certainly this does not mean give the users the ability to take accounts away from others, but here are just a few thoughts I have about it to make it possible for the users to do what you would find or have found to be nearly impossible (Not to mention the administration cost will be put in check in the process).

Give users the ability to use a “shared global ignore list” based on the way email spam filters work. With an overide option at the local level so the chat user can un ignore anyone of thier friends that might be added to the list by another user of the shared global list.

User participation in the shared global list should be voluntary, in this fashion the users can self police the rooms of the less than desireable usernames that arent wanted by most users.

This will also provide for some incentive for users to behave themselves while using chat so as to not automatically be ignored by new users who use the global ignore list when they join the service.

This of course would provide invaluable data as to managing trends in the chat rooms for advertising purposes and managing other aspects of the service as well (such as unauthorized use of usernames and bandwidth management).

Of course this is something that will be done eventually either by Yahoo! or by the the competitors, of course if you would prefer to simply shut down the service? With over 4 million users that would be a considerable amount of advertizing revenue you would have to make up for elsewhere so that really isn’t an option and we both know it.

Let the people speak as to who should never be heard in the first place and there will finally be a system of checks and balances in place for the users to use the service the way it was intended, rather than being abused the way it is now.

I would be happy to discuss this further should you have any questions about my ideas for a solution. You have my email address.

Frosty

Comment by Frosty — January 30, 2007 #
well i like to say job well done on patching that room booter its just the 1st step now it time to stop all them people from using them mass illy bot programs they use in the rooms sometimes they will lock a rooms for days now if you can take out the source http://www.romanware.com which sales them programs to do damage to the chat rooms.

Comment by john m — January 30, 2007 #
Bravo Frosty! a well thought out, sensible plan. Now Yahoo, will you consider it, or something else like it? Or will you just continue to bury your head in the sand and hope the porn bots and hackers miraculously disappear?

Comment by Will — January 30, 2007 #
Just to let everyone know, Yahoo has indeed patched the room exploit. =) Happy chatting everyone.

Comment by Venom — January 30, 2007 #
Really yahoo messanger has become less and less important to me ever since we lost the ability to make our own chat rooms. It is really just a back up for me now.

Comment by Ed — January 30, 2007 #
Yes, the room boot exploit was finally patched as of today. Thank you to the Yahoo! staff for making it happen and meeting the deadline before I was prepared to make it public (which I would’ve done within 48 hours of the deadline not being met).

Now your users can actually enjoy your service and chat without all the headaches.

Regards,
Adam [Torseq Technologies]

Comment by Adam [Torseq Technologies] — January 30, 2007 #
Dear Yahoo,

I’m so happy that the room boot been patched. But yet i still see people booting me easy, I tried emailing yahoo and recieved an automated respond telling me to set up my preferences (which didn’t really help at all).

I think no matter what we do with the preferences, script still get send to the victims(me and other chatters) and we either end up getting disconnected or PC’s being damaged.

I don’t really use Yahoo Messenger much till the JAVA Based Chat was stopped, this is the most and secure to use when people are booting the room. JAVA and CHAT2.0 were the best connections for chatting but I don’t understand why they were taken down. I was very disappointed when this went all down the drain.

Also after years of chatting I’ve noticed that them so called pornbots have risen rapidly. Sometimes this pornbots will be sending links to the room and I ended up clicking the link which I have no intention at all. Them pornographic bots should also be taken care off as priorities too.

I didn’t mind some people who stole my names who used cracker programs but only wished being connected in chat for as long as I want without any disruptions from kids/adults who uses them booter programs.

Please Yahoo, bring back the JAVA & Chat2.0 in the Yahoo Chat home page.

Yours sincerely,
Dave (A Yahoo Chat Junkie)

Comment by dave — January 31, 2007 #
P.S.

I forgot to mention that some Yahoo Staffs ( They hang usually in “Game Rooms”.) were giving information on some “original names created by us long time ago”, which we used in chat rooms. Those I created dating back in 2002 and 2003 were all taken from me.

I wasn’t keylogged or have virus in my brand new PC and my password are very hard to crack as i uses ascii codes intead of normal letters.

People are stealing Yahoo names and sold for money so I suggest this get looked up as well, please.

Thanks.

Comment by dave — January 31, 2007 #
Hey Yahoo Team!

please remove the Hackers Lounge’s from the room lists. These sort of rooms involve illegal chat and invade peoples privacy.

Why have a Hackers Lounge in the first place? is all you see when you go in there is people exploiting you or your system. These rooms are bad news. Also it makes people make Hacker ID’s as its also provoking alot of online hackers. I know the rooms state they are monitored 24 hours a day but i dont think they are. If the rooms was monitored there would be Operators in all rooms like Microsoft MSN used to have.

I really think you need to put a end to all this nonsense in the chatrooms. Its not doing you no favours.

its not just you that these problems are layed upon its your Advertisers too. I remember when you lost a Advertiser due to Webcam Privacy issues.

Also before i set off.. Thank You for patching that room exploit Torseq Tech posted to you. I think he did it the right way and not going public with it straight away unlike some people they go to these security sites and put them there public right away without contacting you first. Within hours its allover Google News so that dont do you any favours at all.

I would also like to bring up the Stealth Privacy Issue. Buddy Spy lets users check if you are online or not and also did check if you was in rooms or if your Webcam is on. I really think you need to try your best effort to protect people from these sorts of programs.

and finally you should limit the number of Yahoo users a IP Address is allowed to login to the Yahoo Servers. This will totally make your servers un-conjested and is the BEST idea i have come up with.

Comment by Mr Gordon — January 31, 2007 #
1 more thing. Vista is Final now and is in Stores near you so please hurry up and make a new release to support the Yacs in the chatrooms. This is a current issue which will effect just under 40% of users. They wont be able to use yacs in chat until you officially support it. You could atleast fix the yacs sometim i got my Vista Premium coming today and i wont be able to use voice in chat for a long time.

please do this yahoo team. I want to talk to my friends.

Comment by Mr Gordon — January 31, 2007 #
Dear Yahoo ,

Mr Gordon is right Hackers’ Lounge should be removed I see many people sharing credit card details there which obviously don’t belong to them. As one of the so called hacker said they were stealing them through IRC to share in Hackers’ Lounge or sell their infos illegally or trade for Yahoo old accounts(which some people refer to as illegal names).

As mentioned to my previous post it would be nice to JAVA & CHAT2.0 back , as not so many people prefer to install the messenger. Most of the time people that uses JAVA & CHAT2.0 are the people who work at the offices.

Since I think money is the issue here I have no problem buying a Yahoo Private Servers or Logins for Yahoo Messenger which will “not” be touched by booters. But if I’ll be paying for it , has to be a one off payment and also be able to use servers or logins to any PC’s (make a limit of how many accounts can be use to login for it)

Thanks.

Yours Sincerely ,

Dave (A Yahoo Chat Junkie)

Comment by dave — January 31, 2007 #
As for Privacy , I noticed people can add anybody to their list without the person knowing. There are many programs that can do this or do it manually.

To add someone manually while the person is offline all you have to do is create an alias name to your subprofile and add the victim with that very same alias but before they get the chance to deny it , just delete the alias that was used to add.

The deny will not be sent because it was deleted or their name will be in the main account.

Comment by dave — January 31, 2007 #
I think yahoo team take time out look all accounts been made for bots for booters and porn bots and so on why people use other program such as thrid party chat cleints (bigger iggy bin) and (better spam protection) ! Also protects users from annoying vulnerability !! Idea would be allow users have a choice be in protected rooms or unprotected rooms .I think all this got out hand and service was not made for this at all even if it is free! With new vista messenger coming out how long do think it be before that need fixed becuase of all these problems not be fixed ?All asking is Fix these problems so people don’t want user booters and see porn bot goto a room and talk to real people and not waste there time with spam and booters! (also free play on)Like game sever use anti cheat bust the cheaters why could yahoo not come up something help protect there servers from people try exploited yahoo messenger servers !Then ignore can be use people that are down right rube user choose not talk to .

Comment by Mark — January 31, 2007 #
Well it’s good to hear this room boot/large exploit issue has been fixed. However (and not suprising I might add), you can still be booted with the other X # of exploits that are out there, including the generic “throw tons of yahoo chat packets at user “. When are you guys going to finally address that one? I don’t even care about the chat rooms even, I mean screw it I can go back to IRC and chat still (still superior too, imho) and same goes for using icq or google or something else for IM if I have to. But its possible to still get booted even without being in a chat room at all–just having ypager logged in or in a pm, you can get booted still with the existing exploits. Why not work on fixing those first before adding new features? Did you guys study under Bill Gates? Hey let’s add tons of new features and interconnectivity and screw the security–we’ll deal with that later. Well thats fine if you have a product that’s in it’s infancy, but you IM product has been around how long now? Yet you still have these flaws. I mean who in the hell is calling the shots there? Someone that’s a flunkie or??? Granted it’s a free product (ty), as are your chat rooms. However, you do tout msgr as a means to connect with people (friends, family) as well as even perhaps a special someone, including on yahoo personals (which btw is NOT free). What incentive do people have to pay yahoo to meet/talk with someone on yahoo personals for example with a IM product that can be booted so easily ? Little I’d say and it’s a good thing you guys weren’t charging this whole time for ypager and/or chat, b/c you’d have gone out of business long long ago rofl. You have Y360 and personals though–surely that is incentive enough to finally fix the exploits? I don’t believe that they can’t be fixed either, not for one minute. It’s your crappy protocol that people are using to send 1000’s of packets to someones yahoo id per second or whatever the discrete unit of time is. What are the chances that any one user will EVER get 10000’s of data (pm’s, room invites, buzzes, conf invites, etc. etc) redirected (by you) to their yahoo id (which you have and keep track of) in any small unit of time? none that’s what. So fix it, or lose it. It’s as easy as that (assuming you don’t want to). B/C there’s always someone else that can come along and show you guys how to do it right. Apply a pure KISS approach–that works for a lot of things esp. programming.

Now, what are the chances that anyone will actually take me seriously without doing what Adam did and threaten to give yahoo tons and tons of bad publicity? *ponders*

P.S. You guys have made an argument before that if you DID charge for ypager/chat, you would be open to lawsuit. Well guess what, lol, you STILL got sued didn’t you? And it can happen again (or at the very least tons of bad publicity hahahaha)

Comment by Frustrated (still) ypager user (grrrrrr lol) — January 31, 2007 #
I think yous need to change it back in your codeing in yahoo messenger whan you turn pms off you can see others typeing in chat most ppl dont like how yous have it now whan you turn your pms off you cant see users text in chat 7.0.2.120 and down are fine as you can turn pms off to enyone whos not on your list and you can see users type in chat rooms as for if you go to 7.5 and up if you turn your pms off and you cant see tham typeing enyone but whos on your friends list alot of ppl dont like this also me as well coz that means you have to keep your pms open and you get bots pming you and so on its annoing can yous reless a new yahoo messenger 8.1 and fix it please and thanks and eny newer builds other than that things are fine well the room loader no one likes as well but i dont see yous removeing that but the pms yous need to fix as its relly a pain

Comment by zombie — February 1, 2007 #
the ream over at yahoo yous can also look in to some times you enter a room it dose not allways work and some times whan the room loader is fished you hit the enter butten it dose not allways take you in to chat you have to wait for a long time some times or sign off messenger and close it and try doin it agan hopein it works also to change to a diff room its some times slow ———— so i dont have to make a 3ed post i figer i will post this here i think yous do need to clean up alot of your codeing so its less laggin for some ppl as yous have to think of ppl on slower pcs thay have problams all the time and the more and more yous keep adding its more truble on ppls pcs also with the more yous add in your codeing its more laggin on ppls pcs with if there on xp and a slow pc with not alot of ram or if there on dial up or might be on windows 98 yous need to think more on ppl like that or who have not as fast motherbored theres meny things i can think of most ppl dont care for alot of the stuff yous have add it most like just comein on chat with a friend or so and go in chat and chat with out it laggin see back in 6.0 that was grate and also 5.6 coz it worked good on ppls pcs and ppl still use tham still coz thay can sign on and chat with there friends and go in a room and it dose not lagg there pc as now yous keep addin more things and the installers your up to 9 MB or something befor it was way less yous need to go thow your codeing and bring it down and change some things or remove things clean up the codeing so ppl will update to newer builds and injoy it also as i sayed in my last post about the pms you turn tham off than go in a room and you cant see users typein only if there on your list yous need to fix that coz ppl dont like it

Comment by zombie — February 1, 2007 #
Think point of all this is it out hand.spam and porn bots ,booters,name cracker,lag programs and so on.Over all point is yahoo took better server away like chat2 and java chat now left with one got most mess of them all.There stuff need fixed asp yahoo knows about it alot people told them time and time again ask them fix it .Time look at thing little here room boot is gone rooms seem be filling up little more !If rest this was fixed chat would be fun again.Guess point is when gone to chat goto talk real people or make freinds not finding programs help block spam and boot codes flood the yahoo servers!Over 50 bot you got ip ban most people just change ther ip and load room any way more them 50 bots these are people making problem on yahoo becuase yahoo server allow this stuff be ran on there servers given them power over all other chaters.I seem think yahoo need stop with new builds of messenger and put time in there server and fix these things thrid party chat cleints have seem stop alot this ! becuase there made for that protection .messenger alone is weak all these tool people use it easy for yahoo messenger be booted off yahoo when it should be hard to boot yahoo this your server and your program !this also why people use Ytunnel and programs like that protect them self and older version of yahoo messenger most boot code are made for new builds !Guess asking yahoo look at what gone on with there server and messenger and turn this around so people want to come and chat and so on.Yahoo has good idea’s but need look at protecting the users to more new stuff add more problem are gone come with it fix them while there small before they get out of control .also like see page made so users would know server gone down or work being done so users be able to know what going on not be in the dark for hours at a time

Thank yahoo and messenger blog

Comment by Mark — February 1, 2007 #
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that there has not been one comment from Sarah or any other Administrator from Yahoo since
January 23? The problem with signing in to chat rooms may have been resolved???…. now how about working on STAYING in that chat room? Instead of adding all the new “wonderful features” why not fix what is wrong with the original?? Why would anyone be foolish enough to uncheck that box in yahoo preferences that allows every Tom, Dick and Harry… every porn bot and every BOOTER to IM you just so you can see everyone’s type in that chat room.

Comment by Janice — February 1, 2007 #
“Why would anyone be foolish enough to uncheck that box in yahoo preferences that allows every Tom, Dick and Harry… every porn bot and every BOOTER to IM you just so you can see everyone’s type in that chat room.”

I set mine in preferences to ignore anyone not on your friends list long ago. It doesn’t matter. You can still be disconnected with the exploits still out there, whether it be in a chat room or sitting in a pm with a friend, or just having ypager logged in. It happened to me just a week ago. A friend on my list pm’d me, we chatted for about 15 mins or so then *poof* disconnected. Sign back in, talked for about 5 or 10 mins, then a bit later *poof* again. I happen to know at least one of these times was a boot and not a problem with yahoo or my connection (which is cable), and I had been in a chat room just before this. Locking it to the friends list and setting it to ignore invitations, etc. helps only very slightly to prevent the simplest of these exploits from getting you (pm bombs for example). But you can still be disconnected no matter how much you lock it down. If someone with a super fast upstream sends enough packets to your yahoo id in a short amount of time and you can’t ack them fast enough yahoo happily cuts your plug lol. How lame. Again, what is the chance that any normal user will EVER get 1000’s of ymsg packets in the form of pm’s, various invitations, buzzes, etc., sent to their yahoo id in a very short timespan, under normal usage conditions?!?! NONE that’s what (perhaps webcam/voice data should be exluced–granted I don’t know a ton about how they that works). If you have someone on your ignore list or you have your prefs set to ignore everyone not on your list, yahoo’s end should be taking extra packets and bandwidth and throwing it into the bit bucket, not trying to send it back to you.
Here’s another hilarious thing they’ll tell you if you report abuse or harassment in a chat room - to “use your ignore feature” hahaha. They happily forget to tell you though that they have exploits that allow people to circumvent the ignore feature (e.g. voice chat in a chat room), which can render it useless. They forget to tell you about the exploits in the chat room which allow people to continue using the mic/voice chat well beyond the time they are supposed to be alloted–that doesn’t make chatting voice much fun when you have a room with 1 or 2 idiots that want to play yahoo uber elite god b/c they found some program that takes advantage of an exploit.
Again all this could be overlooked a lot more if this was a relatively new product. But it’s not, it’s been around for years now. And the curious thing regarding the chat is, they had an earlier protocol for chat (YCHT) which was much more boot-proof and they got RID OF IT !!! I mean wtf over??? Why on god’s green earth couldn’t you have YCHT live happily in the same server side program(s)/scripts along with ymsg, and serve chat only, with the other msgr features using the newer protocols?

Comment by Frustrated (still) ypager user (grrrrrr lol) — February 1, 2007 #
tnx for addressing the problems.:)

Comment by southtxlatindiva — February 2, 2007 #
Dear Yahoo ,

It seem to me that Yahoo! Inc itself can’t protect each individual here. Isn’t that breaking the term of protection? Chatters PC’s do sometimes get damage from this so called booters/laggers.

Laggers is one of the hard hitting program that can damage PC’s. Why? Because if you can’t iggy the lagger bot on time it will lock you screen totally which you end up rebooting your system (you cannot do the ctrl+alt+del so you have no choice but to push the power button which is not really advisable to do).

Yahoo! Inc is not really doing much to protect chatters to be honest. Many incidents been reported regarding booters/hackers/crackers and Yahoo’s answer to it , is the automated respond to make sure you iggy anyone who is not in your list.

Where is the sense of security in that? Obviously Yahoo failed for taking importance of each users who are victims of this unsecured chat services you guys’ providing!

JAVA & CHAT2.0 are the ONLY servers that can only protect us from booters and they were taken down with NO reason at all.

Also some Yahoo! Inc Staffs who were hanging in the Games room needed to be investigated for giving information on some Yahoo Account names.

Yours Sincerely,

Dave (A Yahoo Chat Junkie)

Comment by dave — February 2, 2007 #
When I have my firewall enabled the boots are useless against me but the iggy bots and laggers still hit….The iggy bots are the biggest problem on Yahoo! as far as I’m concerned. Everyone goes to blame Yahoo! when they get booted, everyone I have ever seen get booted with a mass im flooder got booted because their settings were wrong…the bling bling and the knock knock you hear when someone is getting booted is a sure sign their stuff is set up wrong and a good firewall stops the D/C and for those using Y’Tunnel…you are way easier to boot than just using Yahoo! Messenger especially with a D/C (disconnect) booter, unless you have a good firewall too…most of the problems we all get from being booted is from our own doing, whether it be a certain client we use or the settings we use with them, no need to blame Yahoo! for things we can stop and solve ourselves…Happy Chatting and get yourselves a firewall you can work to your advantage….
P.S…stored im’s will come back to boot too…lol

Comment by polar — February 3, 2007 #
Its so frustrating.. chat used to be great.
Now you can’t get into rooms.
You miss out on lots and lots of messages
Always more porn bots than people in the rooms
I wish they would fix it.. it just gets slower and slower and more rubish every day..

Comment by Fred — February 3, 2007 #
lol Fred your very wrong about your saying there ! room boot before it was patch would not matter how your setting were set !2nd off yahoo can be d/c even with firewall lol I know someone can show how nasty yahoo is alone! Your saying setting lol take you must still be on older yahoo version what yahoo being getting rid of soon !Like version ignore every one not on list any still see text in the room most booter still made for newer yahoo not older version !You leave out alot info when talking about setting being wrong tell you i bet couple people prove your wrong about yahoo alone being so not able to boot ! To me you look on website about yahoo nasty bug and problem not been fix yet with sever side and messenger it self !Im sure with any those hit yahoo messenger even with firewall still open you to being booted or more! egouth said ….

Yahoo know of this stuff they have to can’t tell me they have no idea .over years recived many letter,emails,phone or whatever.Sad part is yahoo is not small or new to internet or online world think they come up something fix all these !Even if on Yahoo hack day lmao .spam on yahoo and letting it go on to point enter a room and thats all there are is spam bots .most people come to yahoo have no idea about setting or firewalls or thrid party cleints so there thing no to user freindly some these link in yahoo chat to someone did not know any better could open there name be cracked or virus sent to them what your antivirus would not have fix to yet it been done !So asking yahoo to fix problems is not ask to much ychat sever seem protect chatters alot more but took that away and then was chat2 what little better what yahoo use now not much .yahoo should protect users I think it open them up get more users want use there stuff not go on bad stuff they all know about !

Comment by Mark — February 3, 2007 #
you guys are so stupid it is so dangerous to talk in a chatroom TRUST ME I KNOW MY DAD WORKS WITH PEOPLE LIKE YOU GUYS NOT ONLY DOES IT RECK YOUR COMPUTER BUT IF YOU MEET THE WRONG PERSON IT CAN RECK YOUR LIFE SO DONT BE STUPID AND SATY AWAY FROM ANY MESSAGER SYSTEM!

Comment by lynn — February 3, 2007 #
Who on yahoo clicks links in chat rooms or im’s from people you don’t somewhat know? Somewhere there has to be Common Sense and if people don’t have it then they will fall prey to hackers and booters etc., it’s not like there isn’t a wealth of information on things not to do on Yahoo! accepting files on Yahoo! MSN or anywhere is just stupid unless you know the person sending and even stupider if you don’t run an updated virus scanner anyway…when you get to a link that has a Yahoo! account login page eg. (yahoo photos and the url in your browser isn’t a true Yahoo! url but a geocities or whatever then the lack of attention on the person clicking links is their own problem, not Yahoo’s)! When it comes to driving a car do you just hop in a car and go, Nooooooo…you get educated on the way the car works and all the rules that go along with driving then you learn how to drive…and the Add a friend is way out of control, someone finds someone that will actually talk to them and instantly they have to add them to their messenger list…>>>STUPID

Comment by polar — February 3, 2007 #
Your article is very informative and helped me further.

Thanks, David

Comment by davidvogt — February 3, 2007 #
“ourselves…Happy Chatting and get yourselves a firewall you can work to your advantage….”

The firewall will NOT protect you from the most tenacious of booters. Yahoo is still sending you all the data, it’s just getting blocked whether it be by an intelligent firewall, client or both. The problem with the generic boot is that it’s on yahoo’s end still just like the room booter exploit was. They shouldn’t be allowing data in the form of ymsg packets to your screen id and trying to send that much data in a short time span to you, and especially if its from a user that’s not on your friends list. If you so choose to ignore anyone not on your friends list (which if they are indeed your friends would not be trying to boot you), then there is no need to get data from some random bot ID’s that some idiot made up to send data to your screen name. And it doesn’t matter if its someone in a chat room or you are in a chat room. You can still be disconnected like this just talking in a pm, playing a game, listening to music, etc. just having msgr logged in and reading mail, you can be disconnected like this. Sure there are times it’s a legitimate issue with yahoo or your own connection, but yahoo has these exploits and for whatever reason have never fully addressed them. This is not rocket science either–these issues are 100% fully fixable.

Comment by Frustrated (still) ypager user (grrrrrr lol) — February 3, 2007 #
to be honest. half of you people are complaining and trying to sound smart by explaining these things which you have no understanding of in the 1st place. ”booters” do not damage your pc, they simply flood you with messages until messenger closes and then reopens.
”laggers” cant easily be avoided by using yahoo lagg kill, a program made just for yahoo to get rid of the laggers. and as for the ‘poof’ of your im session, you were victem of the room boot exploit. your name was stuck in a chat room even after you signed out and someone booted the room it was in and it still sent the d/c packet to your id. simple as that. b4 you all try to detail the workings of yahoo chat try doing some research instead of just typing what you ”think”.

Comment by D — February 3, 2007 #
Ohhh “D”. You’re such the expert, lmao. So you’re saying that having to hard reboot your system after a lag isn’t harmful to it? That having to reboot using the power switch can cause no harm? Nothing I hate more than a hypocrite.Were YOU also not typing what YOU “think”? And where’s YOUR brilliant explanation? Your own comment quite frankly admits that you think you are above & beyond the knowledge and intelligence of practically everyone else here, yet you said nothing of any significant importance, and also completely failed to have any sort of intellectual “explanation” for anything whatsoever.

Comment by Daren R. — February 3, 2007 #
LOL ‘D’ while there two sides of boat here !Ones run the programs make the problems on yahoo!Other side are one don’t choose download alot crap just pretected them selfs .So simple thing is come up with the fix and yes yahoo need to do it !Crazy some these people think do this that or download other things gone make it better truth is it don’t becuase each build makes more problems and more they add with out other being fix gone lead to alot problems !Yahoo chat is great way to talk to people from your area or from other parts contry.Sorry if speak what i think i been on yahoo for years got sick download programs just stop stuff waste of computer space if ask me !So asking yahoo team in nice way to fix problems and inprove there service is all.

Comment by mark — February 3, 2007 #
“to be honest. half of you people are complaining and trying to sound smart by explaining these things which you have no understanding of in the 1st place. ‘’booters’’ do not damage your pc, they simply flood you with messages until messenger closes and then reopens”
Booters??!?!? The comment was regarding the voice chat lag which plenty of people have commented on before with the need to either ctrl-alt delete or hard-reset as it DOES consume tons of cpu time when its hitting and the natural reaction of a lot of people it to simply reboot even if it has to be a hard reboot. A lot of people have commented on this before. Can you blame them? I blame yahoo for allowing it for this length of time.

‘’laggers’’ cant easily be avoided by using yahoo lagg kill, a program made just for yahoo to get rid of the laggers.”

Laggers “cant” or “can” which is it? Perhaps you are confused lol. The whole point is this–even if a lagger or boot CAN be avoided by using special program(s), people should NOT HAVE TO DO THIS. It’s yahoo’s end and protocol that is F’d up.

“and as for the ‘poof’ of your im session, you were victem of the room boot exploit. your name was stuck in a chat room even after you signed out and someone booted the room it was in and it still sent the d/c packet to your id. simple as that. b4 you all try to detail the workings of yahoo chat try doing some research instead of just typing what you ‘’think’’”

Wow wrong again. You are such the expert lmao. You’re probably one of the lamers that think they’re uber LEET b/c you dl’d or were given one of the proggies that take advantage of the exploits. Look doofus, I had been in a chat room earlier but I had exited it long before that and left of my own accord tyvm. Stop assuming YOU know what the deal is as well. I know what the difference between the room boot when that was active and the generic boot is, and that’s not what happened. When the room booting was taking place I wasn’t even using ypager (which is yahoo’s product and my source of complaint), and before I started using that I simply logged off in disgust after the 2nd or 3rd boot whenever it was occuring. And I have been disconnected plenty of other times where I had never even gone into a chat room at all PLENTY (already said that). All my points are valid and quite accurate. One can be disconnected whether they are in a chat room or not, period. That’s a fact and the generic boot is what most boot programs these days exploit. There is no beneffical good reason NONE for yahoo to allow someone to arbitrarily attack someone and allow them to indirectly through yahoo send 1000’s of rogue ymsg packets to their ID especially when the person is not on their friends list. The only reason for this is malicious intent, PERIOD. END OF THE DISCUSSION. To anyone, I invite you to do the research yourself–that is exactly the bottom line as to how most of the effective boots/disconnects are still happening. And yes, yahoo needs to finally address that as they did with the room boot exploit. Oh and lets not forget the vaunted “ignore” feature–you ignore them and they come back with another ID anyway. Most of the time this is some nitwit on the same IP–easy to filter for that as well.

Comment by Frustrated (still) ypager user (grrrrrr lol) — February 3, 2007 #
Some people actually need to be booted, like the mic hogs, kids in adult rooms and sh*t like that…and a firewall if adjusted to allow a certain amount of packets can be a bonus or it can be a headache…if you don’t know how to use it sometimes it’s better not to use it at all!

Comment by polar — February 3, 2007 #
Frustrated… Seems to me your one use these programs your self seems you know alot about them so if true make you know better then the rest huh ! Silly sit there act like yahoo dose not need fixed ! but at end your letter you agree with alot things been said! Far as lag booter been knowing to blow sound cards on few pc! flood booter yes can cuase pc lag out what make have reboot!Silly sit behind computer just so have power over someone else what point of exploit programs are !Yes i agree yahoo problem and yes did fix room boot now need to fix rest of the problems as see in alot ways were all saying like see it fixed ! So yahoo should do if have no idea how fix these things ask people like Adam [Torseq Technologies] seems to know alot of problem and pretty good idea on how to fix them ! There are few others out there be able to help about time all this stop or least slowed way down! as far as spam it way out control really who want see porn sites or gaming site! Things yahoo should protect users from and there not so how could you enjoy chat or messenger with all that gone on ? Really you can’t itz true pain in the rear !

Comment by mark — February 3, 2007 #
No mark I don’t use them uhhhh because I read up on it? I have never used any of these programs and actually the only reason I started researching and reading more about ANY of this crap was due to this room booting that was running ramped over a month or so. Just because I have read up on it does not mean I am participating oh brother. It was incremental and I simply had enough. Yahoo doesn’t respond to peoples questions or abuse reports unless it’s an automated form reply–that’s their bad not mine. “Silly sit there act like yahoo does not need fixed” huh???? Would you care to retranslate that into english please? Because that is the whole point–that it DOES need to be fixed my whole point and the reason for posting anything at all!!! And yes you can fix that generic boot issue and the other exploits as well and no, it won’t impact chat or msgr adversely, it will enhance it! All they have to do is follow through on what the end user wants, if someone wants everyone not on their list ignored, then there is no reason to get one single packet from anyone not on that list EVER. If someone wants to unlock it in their preferences or if yahoo wants to add additional security options to broaden that in a better managed way for roles or zones or whatever, great. But the way things are now open everyone up to being disconnected, whether it be in a chat room or not. They have taken steps to fix things yes and that’s certainly welcome, but it’s few and far between. And they’re too busy or interested in adding new features and interoperability I guess.
I can only speak for myself I suppose though. But if at the very least that disconnecting issue is not resolved before a lot longer, I’ll probably go to another IM product. Because they have had long enough to fix these things once and for all and all they have demonstrated in the past is a pattern of one step forward and two back.

Comment by Frustrated (still) ypager user (grrrrrr lol) — February 3, 2007 #
“Some people actually need to be booted, like the mic hogs, kids in adult rooms and sh*t like that…and a firewall if adjusted to allow a certain amount of packets can be a bonus or it can be a headache…if you don’t know how to use it sometimes it’s better not to use it at all!”

Yeah thats part of what I was talking about. There are people that DO abuse the mic, but everyone is supposed to be alloted a certain amount of time. If nobody else is keyed up to talk, they’re allowed to continue. You’re supposed to have an ignore feature if you don’t want to hear the abuser or fell someone has gone on too long. But they have exploits that allow people to stay on the mic well over their alloted time and even near indefinetely and to remove your ignore as well.

As for the firewall, yes it might seem like you could limit the # of packets or bandwidth you are getting and that would help, but really it doesn’t The problem is yahoo is still allowing it through, the firewall or client just blocks it. That fact that yahoo allows it through at all is the problem–that’s what booters exploit. You can set your firewall to block literally EVERYTHING in fact (total lockdown both incomming and outgoing), and if someone with a booter and enough bots and/or a super fast upstream types your yahoo id into their little program you are going to be disconnected regardless because they are sending packets to your yahoo id and yahoo in their infinite stupidity sends it to back to you thinking you want it (as if anybody needs 1000’s of packets per second under normal IM usage conditions). In other words, they use yahoo as a proxy to attack your ID–the fact is yahoo will try to send it back to you, whether or not that person sending the data is on your friends list matters not. And if you get too many packets in a short amount of time you get disconnected, firewall or not it doesn’t matter. That is an inherrent flaw. Again, there is no reason at all for: (a) someone to get 1000’s of packets per second from someone under normal usage conditions (e.g. yahoo pager simply logged in or someone is sitting in a pm, on yahoo 360, personals, etc.) and (b) no reason for someone to be getting ANY packets let alone 1000’s per second from someone not on their friends list. At the very least they need to implement group security or broaden that and take additional data and throw it into the bit bucket. I’m telling you, I work in IT myself and this is very fixable. And if it means breaking the 3rd party clients to improve ypager and their server side programs, well IMHO tough!

Comment by Frustrated (still) ypager user (grrrrrr lol) — February 3, 2007 #
Mic Hogs is not really the biggest problem. Those who hog the mic a simple remedy will do “IGNORE!”.

Booters/Laggers/Crackers/Hackers are the main thing that Yahoo! Inc need to focus on if they’re not fix , meaning we’re chatting “unsecurely” which they’re suppose to be providing!

Yahoo! Chat is free , think again! ( I DON’T THINK SO! why? Without us chatters their “adverts” on their websites/webcams/messenger/chatrooms WILL BE WORTHLESS).

JAVA & CHAT2.0 is what we really needed back to have good chat connection! They can at least protect us from booters and so on with them servers.

Using booters to boot other chatter who deserve it , is really contradicting yourself. At the first place that’s Yahoo! Inc job to protect us and penalize the abusers!

Comment by dave — February 4, 2007 #
To simply ignore someone doesn’t do a thing for them hearing you or anyone else, it doesn’t send them to another room or anything. It just makes it so you can’t hear them. Where have you been for the past 3 years anyway, the dam iggy bots are getting worse as time goes on. Every room on Yahoo! is either full of booters or iggy bots and I see more iggy bots than booters, maybe it is just because I apparently don’t get booted as much as the rest of you people and get to stick around and see the ignore bots. Try ignoring 200+ bots off voice and still think you are going to key up over the one running the bots is as silly as ignoring someone so they can’t hear you…!

Comment by polar — February 4, 2007 #
maybe we are handling it all wrong here as bloggers, yahoo takes everything away we like, maybe we should start “liking” yahoo messenger

Comment by double.dutch_trouble — February 4, 2007 #
Once upon a time, long long ago, the yahoo chat ‘help’ rooms were protected against the booters and bots and laggers etc. because, well face it, those of us that are regs donated our time and effort to try and ‘help’ the less knowledgeable.

And some still are ie; freecreed, and a few others. I, myself have almost given up. If it were’nt for the ‘help’ rooms 75% of the ‘chatters’ would be pulling their hair out or committing chat suicide.

I think Yahoo should bring back the proction so we can get on with our work.

( not trying to be selfish, but its got to start somewhere, and i cant think of a better place.

Comment by So0o0_Confused — February 4, 2007 #
Well, I know a little here and a little there.. not as much as some of you though. All I really got to say is when is Voice gonna wok in the chat room for Windows Vista WHEN i want a date, cause I cant go on like this I need my mic and I cant go back to Xp because this computer didnt come with it and i dont have a copy right now! FIX IT!

Comment by SeD — February 4, 2007 #
there is no voice in yahoo messenger for vista users… sign up here to be informed when it is released …. http://messenger.yahoo.com/windowsvista.php

Comment by So0o0_Confused — February 4, 2007 #
maybe we are handling it all wrong here as bloggers, yahoo takes everything away we like, maybe we should start “liking” yahoo messenger

Comment by double.dutch_trouble — February 4

Do think poof problems well go away ? or do think they need be fixed ? if read term of service ,really they breaking couple there own rules they have set!

Comment by Mark — February 4, 2007 #
“maybe we are handling it all wrong here as bloggers, yahoo takes everything away we like, maybe we should start “liking” yahoo messenger”

Perhaps lol. And as already mentioned, they don’t even seem to fully adhere to their own tos rules, so why should anybody be suprised when end users break them by taking advantage of their exploits. I’ll use it still as long as they are willing to fix at least the booting/bot issue. And you know, it really makes sense–they have y360 now and tout msgr in yahoo personals even (which is not free if you want to contact someone). Not to mention that little chat feature still in there. One would certainly think they would want to do whatever it took to ensure that everyone didn’t have to turn to 3rd party clients for more security and bot/boot free chatting, when they could be using a secure msgr with it’s built in advertising.

Comment by Frustrated (still) ypager user (grrrrrr lol) — February 4, 2007 #
[quote]And you know, it really makes sense–they have y360 now and tout msgr in yahoo personals even (which is not free if you want to contact someone).[/quote]

nationwide this only works for US , what about the rest of the Global?

so i wouldnt really say that , this making phonecalls free benefit everyone that uses messengers.

phonecall’s good for emergency but can we use emergency it for calling Yahoo! Inc HQ to report bots? not , right?

in the end this goes again to JAVA & CHAT2.0 issues , to combat against booters and so on.

do you think i like using third party chat clients? you’re wrong , what i really is the JAVA in http://chat.yahoo.com but no longer to its existence.

Dave (A Yahoo Chat Junkie)

Comment by dave — February 5, 2007 #
It’s not just Vista that doesn’t have voice anymore. Voice hasn’t been working for days now, and I’m on XP.

Comment by Daren — February 5, 2007 #
Well one would certainly think they would not want to restrict Y360 to just the U.S., just like they wouldn’t want to restrict msgr, chat, yahoo search and misc. other services they have to only the US. But the point is they have it and want to make $ off of it directly or indirectly, and yes forcing people to turn to the 3rd party clients due to the exploits makes no sense on their part. The 3rd party can be booted as well. Yes the ycht and chat 2 did a better job with the booting. Hey if they want to bring back ycht or chat 2 and use that to serve only text chat or something, great. Already mentioned that earlier–but regardless, they still have msgr with ymsg and have exploits that allow it to be booted. If they bring back ycht or chat2 you may have a more stable chat but msgr using ymsg can still be booted. They need to address these exploits on their end just like they had to address the room booting exploit to fully fix this thing. I dont think anybody really likes using the 3rd party alternatives. What the majority of people like is something that is relatively easy and trouble free, which msgr used to be. It’s the booting and bots that force people to turn to the 3rd party clients. So again, it just makes sense for them to fix things on their end server side and with msgr.

Comment by Frustrated (still) ypager user (grrrrrr lol) — February 5, 2007 #
are u aware that there are people charging fees for ytunnel the program to address what u dont address ie spam booters porn bots 40 spaces in a room 37 porn bots yahoo sucks build a tunnel into it and stop gadging your penny a bot theres other ways to make money from adverts yahoo team are cheap and u have had 4 years to fix the main stream problems iggy button what a joke

Comment by woofgivemeanothercanofbeer — February 6, 2007 #
Get with it yahoo i agree with woof spam and bots have driven people out and away from yahoo! time to build your own ytunnel into the program its a disgrace YTav use it. Scotland Rooms Dont need 25 dollars for a tunnel download a third party chat client its free! Try the new (Ytav) Its no porn bots unbootable no spam and its free! If u have a problem finding it ask for cutefurry_scotsman in Scotland 3 Or Jaffa They have the web site together posts.

Comment by Aha Glen Again — February 6, 2007 #
Why don’t you just tell us where this YTav is? I’d like to compare it next to YMLite & YTK Pro

Comment by Daren — February 6, 2007 #
I agree with tav and woof. the porn bots are a joke.

yahoo needs to put its heed in a basin of cold water.

and also im sick of this http://www.gers character from room one coming in the rooms and trying to sell people used hi-tec trackies and ronson lighters…….he needs reprimanded

Comment by jamesrooney — February 6, 2007 #
They’ve had a LOT longer than 4 years to fix msgr and and boots/bots–that’s the pathetic part of it all.

Comment by Frustrated (still) ypager user (grrrrrr lol) — February 7, 2007 #
Cracking program cheers this tav is a genius (Ytav) is Fantastic it has a windows vista look about it well done !

Comment by Harold Potter — February 7, 2007 #
eh any chance a getting ytav please

Comment by fartlikea_trooper — February 7, 2007 #
do a need to pay for it please send me the instructions thanks

Comment by fartlikea_trooper — February 7, 2007 #
Ive been using the Clyde Tunnel For years its better than Ytunnel Its faster to Dumbarton Rock .

Comment by woof — February 7, 2007 #
(YTav) Wow! program !thanks Ive used Y fink for years Acant fink where the link is for it!

Comment by Gary (yTav) — February 7, 2007 #
thanks for the ytav but do a need to format my computer before it will work

Comment by fartlikea_trooper — February 7, 2007 #
I dont need Y!Tav because i use Y!not and it is compatible with 20 club kingsize (anti-booter)

Comment by rooney — February 7, 2007 #
IM IN THE UDA SO I DONT GET BOOTED

Comment by june — February 7, 2007 #
Its still not working very good

Comment by Fred — February 8, 2007 #
Ok Y!tav is not free anymore there selling it in the pound shops around the uk

Comment by tavishes_wife — February 8, 2007 #
“IM IN THE UDA SO I DONT GET BOOTED”

I assume that’s USA ?
If you have never been booted be it on ypager or in a chat room, consider yourself lucky. If someone on a fast upstream wants you to be booted, you are going to be disconnected no matter what. Kudos to yahoo for that! :-\

Comment by Frustrated (still) ypager user (grrrrrr lol) — February 8, 2007 #
Hello all ,

For last few days I am facing a strange problem. I have installed Yahoo latest version and can chat easily , but whenever I join the Chat rooms my PC stucks and its CPU utilization goes to 100% and the only solution was to terminate the yahoo process. I thought some problem with my PC i checked it with 3 other PC of my friends and they have the same problem. The service provider are not listening to me as they thought it might be Yahoo servers error.aahhhhh. Stucked … can any body help me.
The other thing i noticed tht when i use some other IP scheme of other provider they dont have problem.Does it mean there is problem with the IP class of tht provider. I also discussed the Firewall option but they were sure its not firewall option.
Waiting waiting .

Comment by Adeel — February 9, 2007 #
a just bought Y!tav out of pc world says its only compatible with Woof messenger

Comment by woof — February 9, 2007 #
Y!tav comes with its own rooney bin where people from india can sit and have a laugh with rooney

Comment by woof — February 9, 2007 #
naw theres the new y!woof out that comes with a booter that automatically disconnects tav and you can have a laugh

Comment by rooney — February 9, 2007 #
NAW I USE Y!WOOF, YOU CAN TALK AND HAVE A LAUGH AND EVERYTIME TAV ENTERS HE GETS BOOTED

Comment by rooney — February 9, 2007 #
It seems every man and his dog has their own client these days. YTK looks like something I’ve seen several times in the past, well done. As for booting, speed only effects booting if you are sending alot of packets.. A 56k modem is more than enough to kick someone on say a 3mb connection.

Comment by Optikal — February 9, 2007 #
hi there folks im wondering how a can stop this booting thing would be great thanks if a got any feed back thanks,,,,

Comment by brown_sause — February 10, 2007 #
Why don’t you fix the problems in Yahoo chat. Get rid of the porn bots too! What’s the problem? You think we like going into chat rooms and have to read ‘hey guys i just squirted’. Sick.

Comment by doofus — February 11, 2007 #
hi yahoo fans im bringing out my latest program its called Y!tavshowcamcaught still working on it but will be posting the download page as soon as its ready have fun people

Comment by sticky_bum_tavish — February 11, 2007 #
Background:

I am a Yahoo! Member since when I could download entire Yahoo! from a Stanford FTP server. My profile indicates me as have joined in 03/28/1997, which makes it almost 10 years.

During this time, I’ve seen Yahoo! system go through many changes. The last good Messenger was around the 6.0 release cycle.

I have sent this message to John Dunning in the past, but I’ll post here as well as it seems like you, Sarah, are a more appropriate person for this discussion. I would be very interested in collaborating with Yahoo! with coming up solutions to these problems.

Hi John,

Based on your participation in the ydn, I would like to start a dialog with you on the next release of Yahoo! messenger main application. If you are not the correct person, perhaps you can suggest the right one.

I am a frequent user of Yahoo! Chat rooms, in particular Small Business:1, Programming:1 etc.

For quite some time, the automatic ignore feature based on an arbitrary threshold in a chatroom has not been working correctly. I believe it last worked in the 6.0-series release of the client. Rather than ignoring the offender, we erroneously get the “You cannot ignore yourself” modal dialog box popups.

Secondly, we are inundated with automated programs. The infamous ones start with the string aa1. At some rooms the ratio of bots to humans exceeds 1:1. Craigslist deals with this type of a problem with a “Flagging” feature, whereby if a posting attracts a strong negative sentiment, it is removed from the site automatically. It takes a lot of people to remove a posting. What would it take to implement a similar feature such as “flag as bot, spam, or scam” in the Yahoo! Messenger application?

What would it take to escalate scam complaints to http://www.ic3.gov where warranted? There is an abundance of attempts to scam US users by foreign nationals. Perhaps Yahoo! could take initiative in reducing that problem.

What really happens when “Report as spam” button is used and what would it take to implement it at chat room level as well?

Alternatively, we are all add these nuisance generating programs on our ignore list. The ignore list, as I understand it is stored on Yahoo! servers. Presumably, then it is possible to detect that a particular ID has been added to the ignore list by hundreds of people, and automatically disable the ID.

Please classify as feature or bug whether the fact that right-clicking a user in chat room to add to ignore list is just temporary vs. adding them to the ignore list from the Incoming Message window is permanent. If I want to ignore someone, I’d like to do so permanently regardless of point of origin.

In my testing, Vista breaks the voice feature of Messenger.

Also speaking of Vista, Messenger should detect it’s running on Vista and disable its custom theme, which looks awkward at best under Vista. That’s a minor concern, but a valid one nonetheless.

What would it take to make the Changelog available as part of messenger.yahoo.com site?

These are just a few of my questions to start with.

Thank you for your time,

Leonid S. Knyshov, CEO
Crashproof Solutions, LLC
http://www.crashproofsolutions.com
510-282-1008

Comment by Leonid S. Knyshov — February 11, 2007 #
“It seems every man and his dog has their own client these days. YTK looks like something I’ve seen several times in the past, well done. As for booting, speed only effects booting if you are sending alot of packets.. A 56k modem is more than enough to kick someone on say a 3mb connection.”
hello??? a lot of packets is what booters rely on–thats the problem. unless u are talking about specific faults in certain versions of msgr and/or someone that can be booted has pms open then sure that would make sense. some of those problems can be fixed client side, but someone locked up or using one of the 3rd parties, a lot of packets is what it takes, in a short amount of time and you cant do that on dial up–its yahoos blunder no matter how you look at it. the ignore list doesn’t work on their server to block packets there and it should.

Comment by to_yahell_with_this_all — February 11, 2007 #
Im removing yahoo today it has more vruses on it than Bernard Mathews turkey drummers. (Bird Flu)Im using the Old Tavs Program its Bullet proof & English Proof( Rooney came out on the mic last night hes a woman in a mans body)!! Yahoo is great fun keeps u on your toes Its full of ballet dancers.I luv the taran background on the Ytav amazing.

Comment by Yahoo Addicted — February 12, 2007 #