5 ms·

MSN Messenger to end after 15 years

48 points by mkaziz 12y ago

thejosh 12y ago
>MSN Messenger is survived by Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Snapchat, Skype, Google+ and Instagram. Apart from none of those are actually chat programs, except for Facebook Chat.
- Macuyiko 12y ago
  And Google+'s Hangouts. And Skype's IMs. And tweeting to each other can also be seen as chatting. I'd say the biggest chance is the fact that all of them are web-centric or mobile-centric.
- batuhanicoz 12y ago
  What about Skype? And if we are counting Facebook's Chat, most people I know uses Talk (Google+ Hangouts).
- ceejayoz 12y ago
  Twitter has DMs, Snapchat has text chat, Skype has IM, Google+ has hangouts, Instagram has direct messaging.
- kawsper 12y ago
  Some of my friends do in fact use SnapChat for its chatting capabilities.
userbinator 12y ago
...and another relatively straightforward and open protocol is finally completely replaced with a heavily obfuscated proprietary one. I've worked with MSNP including writing a working client for it, and it was quite easy to do; it's mostly text-based: http://www.hypothetic.org/docs/msn/sitev2.0/notification/example_session.php http://www.hypothetic.org/docs/msn/sitev2.0/notification/exa... As it evolved, MS made it more complex by changing many commands to be dependent on XML and SOAP, but 3rd-party clients could still reverse-engineer and keep up. There's been talk and some action on open-source Skype-protocol clients but I haven't seen anything concrete materialise - maybe if all MSNP servers shut down, the Chinese will up their action on Skype. The interesting thing is that MSNP8 as of now is still functional (and I'm outside of China) - the servers are still up and presence/messaging works. Probably not for much longer though, sad to see it go.
- scrollaway 12y ago
  MSNP may be "straightforward", but it's definitely not open and it is a horrible protocol. At least Skype is "the devil you know". Skype would have to be reverse-engineered regardless, so at least now you no longer have to worry about MSNP. Anything that doesn't get replaced by XMPP or an equivalently good and open protocol is pretty meh regardless.
  - userbinator 12y ago
    How is MSNP "horrible", specifically? You've worked with it? The main difference I see between MSNP and Skype is that much of MSNP could be figured out in a day just by sniffing packets, which is probably what lead to a proliferation of alternative clients and client libraries for it. The (deliberate?) complexity of Skype means that RE attempts are more difficult, so there are fewer people with the skills and inclination to do it. Hopefully there will be more focus on it now, but it's still a huge effort in comparison. Personally, I'm not too fond of XMPP either; something more similar to IRC would be my preference. But all of that doesn't matter when almost everyone you know used/uses MSNP/Skype, and from experience it's very difficult to change that, so any progress toward an open-source Skype client will be great.
    - scrollaway 12y ago
      > How is MSNP "horrible", specifically? You've worked with it? Yes. I'm sure you know yourself: It's very ugly at the low level, it barely supports the minimum feature set to call it an "instant messaging protocol", and let's please not forget that is is a closed, proprietary protocol regardless of how readable it is on the wire. Microsoft has full control over it and can decide at any moment to... well, for example, shut it down. Not saying skype is better, just glad to see crappy proprietary tech die out.
      - zo1 12y ago
        "Microsoft has full control over it and can decide at any moment to... well, for example, shut it down." Not if people decide to write their own server software for it. i.e. Something that you most certainly can't do easily with Skype as it's leaps and bounds more complicated to reverse-engineer. "Not saying skype is better, just glad to see crappy proprietary tech die out." What? Let me rephrase how I re-read your sentence: "Not saying skype is better, just glad to see crappy proprietary tech get replaced by even less open and more difficult to reverse-engineer tech." Why would you be glad about that? You're contradicting your own viewpoint about how bad "proprietary tech" is by advocating it's replacement by an even more "proprietary tech"
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
abmussani 12y ago
Bye Bye MSN... no more nudge :(
guard-of-terra 12y ago
It is also survived by ICQ which it tried to MS-overtake.
51Cards 12y ago
Microsoft also recently killed off SkypeKit which allowed 3rd party applications to interact (text/voice) with the Skype platform on Windows. They are saying as it wasn't cross platform it wasn't a good solution however it has crippled Trillian (and others) which I used daily for Skype. Since I find the actual Skype client to be one of the worst pieces of software ever written I've started introducing everyone to GTalk/Hangouts and so far most are changing over.
RyJones 12y ago
I worked on a few features in MSN Messenger, and I'm sad to see it pass, but the time had come. I hadn't logged in to use it for almost five years when it was shut off in the US.
zanny 12y ago
There are several people I do not have contact info for that I have fleetingly seen on my MSM account in KTP in the last year. It will be a shame if they shut off their XMPP servers, because then I have no way to reach them.
- phillijw 12y ago
  You could try emailing them. At their contact address they used for MSN.
cheery 12y ago
Does anyone happen to have a spare giant stone to place above the MSN grave so we won't see it again?
kmfrk 12y ago
The day Messenger died for me was when all my friends moved to Facebook instead. The halcyon days where IM was somewhat private. Shame they took so long to bring it to mobile devices, too.
drdeadringer 12y ago
Though primarily an AOLIM and Yahoo Messenger user back then, I remember when MSN Messenger’s "British phase-out" occurred around 10 years ago [~2004?]. I had a couple folks from the UK in my list, and we had to go over how else to chat [AOLIM, Yahoo]. I ended up phasing myself off MSN Messenger not too long after. Still a "place in my heart" type situation.
Kompulsa 12y ago
I appreciated the ability to have a messenger running on the computer which would always notify me of new messages, instead of having a Facebook tab open in the web browser.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Facebook chat is just XMPP, you can use desktop clients to receive messages. Facebook themselves recommend Pidgin and Adium: https://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php https://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php
  - luuio 12y ago
    no group chat.

48 points by mkaziz 12y ago

>MSN Messenger is survived by Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Snapchat, Skype, Google+ and Instagram. Apart from none of those are actually chat programs, except for Facebook Chat.

Macuyiko 12y ago
And Google+'s Hangouts. And Skype's IMs. And tweeting to each other can also be seen as chatting. I'd say the biggest chance is the fact that all of them are web-centric or mobile-centric.
batuhanicoz 12y ago
What about Skype? And if we are counting Facebook's Chat, most people I know uses Talk (Google+ Hangouts).
ceejayoz 12y ago
Twitter has DMs, Snapchat has text chat, Skype has IM, Google+ has hangouts, Instagram has direct messaging.
kawsper 12y ago
Some of my friends do in fact use SnapChat for its chatting capabilities.

userbinator 12y ago

...and another relatively straightforward and open protocol is finally completely replaced with a heavily obfuscated proprietary one. I've worked with MSNP including writing a working client for it, and it was quite easy to do; it's mostly text-based: http://www.hypothetic.org/docs/msn/sitev2.0/notification/example_session.php http://www.hypothetic.org/docs/msn/sitev2.0/notification/exa... As it evolved, MS made it more complex by changing many commands to be dependent on XML and SOAP, but 3rd-party clients could still reverse-engineer and keep up. There's been talk and some action on open-source Skype-protocol clients but I haven't seen anything concrete materialise - maybe if all MSNP servers shut down, the Chinese will up their action on Skype. The interesting thing is that MSNP8 as of now is still functional (and I'm outside of China) - the servers are still up and presence/messaging works. Probably not for much longer though, sad to see it go.

scrollaway 12y ago
MSNP may be "straightforward", but it's definitely not open and it is a horrible protocol. At least Skype is "the devil you know". Skype would have to be reverse-engineered regardless, so at least now you no longer have to worry about MSNP. Anything that doesn't get replaced by XMPP or an equivalently good and open protocol is pretty meh regardless.
- userbinator 12y ago
  How is MSNP "horrible", specifically? You've worked with it? The main difference I see between MSNP and Skype is that much of MSNP could be figured out in a day just by sniffing packets, which is probably what lead to a proliferation of alternative clients and client libraries for it. The (deliberate?) complexity of Skype means that RE attempts are more difficult, so there are fewer people with the skills and inclination to do it. Hopefully there will be more focus on it now, but it's still a huge effort in comparison. Personally, I'm not too fond of XMPP either; something more similar to IRC would be my preference. But all of that doesn't matter when almost everyone you know used/uses MSNP/Skype, and from experience it's very difficult to change that, so any progress toward an open-source Skype client will be great.
  - scrollaway 12y ago
    > How is MSNP "horrible", specifically? You've worked with it? Yes. I'm sure you know yourself: It's very ugly at the low level, it barely supports the minimum feature set to call it an "instant messaging protocol", and let's please not forget that is is a closed, proprietary protocol regardless of how readable it is on the wire. Microsoft has full control over it and can decide at any moment to... well, for example, shut it down. Not saying skype is better, just glad to see crappy proprietary tech die out.
    - zo1 12y ago
      "Microsoft has full control over it and can decide at any moment to... well, for example, shut it down." Not if people decide to write their own server software for it. i.e. Something that you most certainly can't do easily with Skype as it's leaps and bounds more complicated to reverse-engineer. "Not saying skype is better, just glad to see crappy proprietary tech die out." What? Let me rephrase how I re-read your sentence: "Not saying skype is better, just glad to see crappy proprietary tech get replaced by even less open and more difficult to reverse-engineer tech." Why would you be glad about that? You're contradicting your own viewpoint about how bad "proprietary tech" is by advocating it's replacement by an even more "proprietary tech"

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

abmussani 12y ago

Bye Bye MSN... no more nudge :(

guard-of-terra 12y ago

It is also survived by ICQ which it tried to MS-overtake.

51Cards 12y ago

Microsoft also recently killed off SkypeKit which allowed 3rd party applications to interact (text/voice) with the Skype platform on Windows. They are saying as it wasn't cross platform it wasn't a good solution however it has crippled Trillian (and others) which I used daily for Skype. Since I find the actual Skype client to be one of the worst pieces of software ever written I've started introducing everyone to GTalk/Hangouts and so far most are changing over.

RyJones 12y ago

I worked on a few features in MSN Messenger, and I'm sad to see it pass, but the time had come. I hadn't logged in to use it for almost five years when it was shut off in the US.

zanny 12y ago

There are several people I do not have contact info for that I have fleetingly seen on my MSM account in KTP in the last year. It will be a shame if they shut off their XMPP servers, because then I have no way to reach them.

phillijw 12y ago
You could try emailing them. At their contact address they used for MSN.

cheery 12y ago

Does anyone happen to have a spare giant stone to place above the MSN grave so we won't see it again?

kmfrk 12y ago

The day Messenger died for me was when all my friends moved to Facebook instead. The halcyon days where IM was somewhat private. Shame they took so long to bring it to mobile devices, too.

drdeadringer 12y ago

Though primarily an AOLIM and Yahoo Messenger user back then, I remember when MSN Messenger’s "British phase-out" occurred around 10 years ago [~2004?]. I had a couple folks from the UK in my list, and we had to go over how else to chat [AOLIM, Yahoo]. I ended up phasing myself off MSN Messenger not too long after. Still a "place in my heart" type situation.

Kompulsa 12y ago

I appreciated the ability to have a messenger running on the computer which would always notify me of new messages, instead of having a Facebook tab open in the web browser.

icebraining 12y ago
Facebook chat is just XMPP, you can use desktop clients to receive messages. Facebook themselves recommend Pidgin and Adium: https://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php https://www.facebook.com/sitetour/chat.php
- luuio 12y ago
  no group chat.