Skip to content

More about Messenger for the Web

May 8, 2007 on 1:58 pm | In Web version |

Thanks to those of you that have tried the new Yahoo! Messenger for the Web and provided feedback. It’s helpful to hear from you what’s working and what’s not, as well as what you like and don’t like. Here are some notes on the main feedback we’ve received so far:

Stealth settings: Yahoo! Messenger for the Web does offer stealth settings, but they are not as extensive as in the full version. You can start out in stealth mode by clicking the “Sign In as Invisible” link below the sign in button. And when you’re signed in, you can change your status to “Invisible” which will hide you from all your friends. Setting individual stealth settings is not yet available, but we do honor your settings from the full version. So if you set yourself to appear permanently offline to a friend in the full version, when you sign into the web version, that setting remains.

Web vs. Full version: We’ve seen some comments saying “I want the old one back!” or “I want to switch back”. Rest assured that the full, downloadable version of Yahoo! Messenger is here to stay and you can continue using it. There’s no need to uninstall or reinstall the full version if you want to use it again. Just launch it from your desktop Programs menu. And when you need the web version – perhaps when you are away from your computer - just visit http://webmessenger.yahoo.com (or http://web.im).

Window size: If you’re finding the full browser window is a little big for you, you can resize the window and the interface will adjust. You can also adjust the width of the contact list window by clicking and dragging on the handle to the right of the list.

New IM alerts: There are built-in alerts to let you know when a new IM has arrived. There’s a sound that plays (make sure your volume is turned up!) and the Yahoo! Messenger for the Web browser taskbar button at the bottom of your screen will display scrolling text from the new message.

Offline messages: You can send and receive offline messages. When you sign in, new offline messages will be waiting for you, each as separate tabs. Click on the tab to view the whole message.

Message history: This feature is one advantage that the web version has over the full version. All of your message history is easily searchable in Yahoo! Messenger for the Web, from any computer you sign in from. When talking to a contact, click the “View more history” link, or click the “History” link up under the search bar to access your conversation history. Conversation archiving is on by default but you can turn it off by clicking the “History” link, then “Options” and removing the check mark next to “Enable Message History”.

And a couple of last tidbits… If you want to change or create your Avatar, just visit http://avatars.yahoo.com. If you want to display or change a photo or other image, you’ll need to sign into the full version of Messenger to access that feature. And to add friends in the new web version, click on the “Add” button just below your contact list to add both Yahoo! and Windows Live™ Messenger friends to your contact list.

We hope you’re enjoying the new Yahoo! Messenger for the Web. It is a Beta and we’ll continue to improve the product with the help of your feedback. To provide feedback about your experience, just click the “Feedback” link below the search box in the upper right corner when you’re signed in.

Sarah Bacon
Product Manager

23 Comments »

RSS Feed | TrackBack URI

  1. [Comment removed. Please stay on topic to the article. Thanks]

    Comment by Alex Rodriguez — May 8, 2007 #

  2. So the web version is already superior to mac version. Might as well use that then.

    Comment by Adam — May 8, 2007 #

  3. The web version doesn’t have file transfer, Adam. That is pretty critical for me. But you can ignore that because it doesn’t work most of the time

    Comment by Lucky — May 8, 2007 #

  4. Thanks for the updates but here’s a couple of other questions:

    1. Whats happening with messenger for Vista? We had all the hype earlier in the year and since then…nothing, whens a beta version going to be released for us folk to try out and put through it’s paces.

    2. Avatar world, wont download on my vista machine… is this a bug or is this how its going to be???

    regards
    Tim

    Comment by gee_tim_uk — May 9, 2007 #

  5. Thanks for bringing more and new exciting ways to use yahoo messenger. Anyways, I just thought about an idea that might be a little helpful. Aside from being invisible to some of your friends… I think that it would be nice to have an option of being invisible to all or anyone that’s not in your friends list. This feature will be very useful when you dont want to be disturb by people who knows you but not your friends (which you dont want to waste your time on).

    That’s it for now… more power to Yahoo Messenger!!!

    Comment by Shan — May 9, 2007 #

  6. Hi Shan,

    Thanks for the suggestion. You could also get the same result by changing your status to “Invisible to Everyone” and then individually choosing to appear online to each friend in your list.

    After going invisible, right click on each friend and choose “Stealth Settings”, then “Appear Online to [friend]”. That would make you invisible to the rest of the world, but online to just those on YOUR friends list. Totally agree a one-click option for this would be great.

    Sarah Bacon

    Comment by Administrator — May 9, 2007 #

  7. Please restore the chatroom button on the european versions of yahoo messenger!!! (in particular on italian one!)
    Lycos chat is awful…

    Comment by Jiegen — May 9, 2007 #

  8. This is not a viable alternative for the Mac version. Should be fun to see it it remains in beta for a year like the Mac version.

    Alex

    Comment by Alex Rodriguez — May 9, 2007 #

  9. I just went to the US YIM site, and it now allows me to logon (I live in the UK, and got a “not available” message before). So thanks for that. It also appeared in my Yahoo Mail sidebar today, so thanks for moving it forward.

    The lack of Vista Messenger is frustrating though. 8.1 won’t work in Vista for me - with it installed, whenever I launch Firefox and go you Yahoo Mail, Firefox crashes. If I uninstall 8.1 the crashes stop. (So your claim that its “Vista Compatible” isn’t strictly true, at least on my machine).

    Its great that I can use the web messenger as a stop-gap, but why the hold-up on the Vista version? The movie I saw a month or two ago had a fully working version in it, so why hasn’t it been released, at least as a limited beta? Is the team spending months writing (useless) new colour schemes and US football skins for it? Can’t you just release the base client now, and offer the skins and stuff later? Sorry to sound narky, but its frustrating (especially since Vista has been out almost six months, or a year of you count the betas)

    Comment by Al — May 11, 2007 #

  10. how about sending SMS messages in this web based YM?

    it will be nice if this service available in web based YM too

    Comment by Rio — May 11, 2007 #

  11. […] Several days ago there is web based Yahoo!Messenger which I waiting for. It was built using RIA Adobe’s Flex 2 on top of Flash Player 9. But why it don′t have "send message to mobile phone" ? […]

    Pingback by » Yahoo!Messenger web based version « Valid Developer — May 11, 2007 #

  12. Great!
    BUT, what about an update of the ancient installable version of Yahoo Messenger for Linux?
    I agree that this would be a great complement of a full installable version. The people need options and this is a good one if you have a full version. But the Linux growing community is waiting too much for a full version (voice chat) if YM.
    Please, consider us too!.

    Comment by Fernando — May 11, 2007 #

  13. What are the odds that webmessenger will allow access to chat rooms? About the same as ever seeing them added to the Mac standalone version?

    Comment by Len — May 11, 2007 #

  14. I’ve just tried YM for the Web but there’s an unbelievable error: although I signed in with my own ID and Password, it still said that I were signing in as “xyz” (not mine, I’ve never knew this one before). Finally, I signed in his/her YM account. Hope that you can check and fix this error asap as I think it is a very serious one.

    Comment by Hang — May 13, 2007 #

  15. Several people have mentioned the Vista version of messenger…..including myself.

    So why the lack of reply from the Messenger Team?

    Come on guys it’s a straight forward question, how about a reply and a straightforward one. You have been showing the video for a few moths now and Vista has been about a while… I’m sure you were given a Beta release of Vista a year or more ago…

    How about beating MSN at there own game by releasing a Messenger program suitable for Vista… as Microsoft havent got there own working smoothly yet.

    I did hear that you are witing for service pack 2 of vista to come out first…

    There are thousands of us around the world with Vista now…. how about some difinitive answers to our request.

    Eagerly awaiting a response!
    Tim

    Comment by Tim — May 15, 2007 #

  16. Is there a setting/preference somewhere that tells YIM my preferred interface is the standalone YIM and NOT the web version. Whenever I login to Yahoo Mail, it logs me off the standalone and tries to log me in to the web version. Thank you, but I don’t want to use the web version.

    Comment by Ron — May 16, 2007 #

  17. Hi Ron,

    When you’re in Yahoo! Mail, up at the top of the page near the logo and next to your Yahoo! ID is a status with a drop down menu. Click on the arrow to get the menu, then choose “Sign out of Chat”. This will effectively disable the IM feature and when you sign in in the future, it will not sign you out of the full version of Messenger.

    Sarah Bacon

    Comment by Administrator — May 16, 2007 #

  18. Something that might be considerd really really innovative would be, if the web version can do Voice (PC-PC, PC-Phone and Phone-PC plus Conference).

    However the killer part would be if you can record those calls and save them online. That would be the key!

    Comment by Muzammil — May 17, 2007 #

  19. I have 8.1 on Vista Business but the links on yahoo messenger (new mail alerts, popups) do not work at all.

    Comment by Raaj — May 31, 2007 #

  20. I’ve just tried yahoo web messenger. There’s one thing inconvenience that I can’t use unicode for msgs (because I use Vietnamese why chatting, so I need to use Unicode).
    The thing I favorite of YWM is that you have so cool emoticons ^^

    Comment by Vu Tran — June 1, 2007 #

  21. i have tried out yahoo web messenger.its amazing, but people can find me online even if i am invisible mode by using Buddyspy software……:-(
    i hope you can rectify that

    Comment by rahul — June 13, 2007 #

  22. and yahoo games should also be included in the yahoo web messenger………

    Comment by rahul — June 14, 2007 #

  23. Hi
    When i click the link for yahoo messnger for web, its not showing the login page as before. I am facing this problem from last 2 days.
    Could you please send me a solution for it?
    Binoy

    Comment by Binoy — May 29, 2008 #

Post a comment

Disclaimer and Reminder. The opinions expressed here are not necessarily the opinions of Yahoo! and we assume no responsibility for such content. Yahoo! may, in our sole discretion, remove comments that are off topic, inappropriate or otherwise violate our Terms of Service. Please do not post any private information unless you want it to be available publicly and never assume that you are completely anonymous and cannot be identified by your comments.