Messenger 7 Beta

Ugh..

I tried this out for half an hour or so, and to be honest I hate it.

The few nagging irritations that spring to mind, some are Microsoft's fault others are not:

1) The interface isn't as nice and "round"/smooth as 6.2, it all seems a bit angular. Of course its a beta and this might change

2) The Search box at the bottom of your contact list. Search with MSN not someone like Google or MetaCrawler. Proprietary, but expected

3) Billing Information: Trying to persuade poor stupid teenagers into buying emoticons and "nudges"

4) MSN Plus: The latest beta of Plus! for MSN 7 Beta no longer has the remove advertising banner feature, and apparantly it will not return. Somehow I think the authors have been politely told by Microsoft that they'll be the next company to be "aquired" if it stays. I mean, come on, its bloody Microsoft, will loosing perhaps 25% of the MSN messenging communities advertising revenue, when most of those users are geeks and would never click on a link anyway hurt them? The MS fanboi's may say "But they run a free service, they need the revenue". Trillian is able to access all the main chat protocols and there's still a free version.

I believe I may very well stay with the 6.2 version for a long while to come.