My son wants to install msn in my pc but i'm wary as i have heard from a few people i know that it caused spyware and problems and i have also read on websites that it allows spyware and viruses on to your pc. I have looked up various sites about this and get a mixed response so don't know which to believe. Can anyone help please as i want to allow him to talk to friends but i have had enough problems with my pc in the past and don't want to risk anything else going wrong.
don't be such a prude! of course msn or windows live messenger is free of spyware as it is written by microsoft. Yes it is true that it is possible to get viruses through msn, but it is also possible to get them from anywhere. the risk of getting one through msn is very low as .exe files can't be sent through as a precaution. if you have virus software and anti spy ware you should be fine, i don't think your son's friends will send him viruses.
Msn is completely safe, the only thing to be worried about are other associated third party applications not written by microsoft or files that might be sent to your son by people he knows. other than it should be fine.
Thanks for replying, i appreciate your answers (apart from being called a prude!- Jalathole) The only reason i asked was because i had looked up a lot of forums online about it and a lot of people insisted msn caused nothing but problems on their pc. Some said they constantly got viruses and a few even said it broke their pc's altoghether causing them to buy new one's. I was only concerned as i have had a couple of really nasty viruses in the past which i could not remove at all and ended up having to reinstall windows to get rid of them. I have always used aol's messenger and found no problems with it but my son didn't want to use aol because everyone else used msn.
Some people do experience problems cos they do stupid things. Install it wrong, install 3rd party apps, mix up the settings etc.
The only way you're probably going to get a virus through MSN is down to a friend already having the virus and passing it on, for example; There are a few viruses going around at the moment (Still quite rare) that pretty much don't do anything but annoy the user. What happens is if a person that is online already has the virus, the virus sends itself to all online contacts on their contacts list in the form of a genuine MSN conversation, it starts with something like "Is this picture really you?" or "Have you seen this picture of me?" And then it sends a zipped file, if you accept that file, you get the virus, which then sends itself to all your contacts and so on and so on. The virus could also - instead of sending you the virus in a zipped folder - link you to a website from which it downloads. It's very easy to avoid though, when you know what to look out for. As i said, it's pretty rare, i have about 170 contacts and 1 of them has the virus at the moment. To get rid of it (If you get it) all you have to do is reinstall MSN, done.
