How To Make Windows Live Messenger More Secure

Most of you all use Windows Live Messenger or MSN Messenger or whatever you like to call it. And I'm sure most of you have all came across a suspicious link sent to you from someone on your contacts list. Unfortunately there are a few of you (including myself once) that click on these links without thinking, "wait a minute, maybe they didn't mean to send me that link". But by the you thought about it was too late, and you've now just spread this worm/virus to everyone on your contact list.

So to prevent this from happening, and making you feel like a total douchetard to all your friends and family follow these 2 simple steps.

It's recommended that you use the latest version of Messenger. Yes I know, many of you don't like the layout and how that button isn't in the same place as the last version, but suck it up.

Disable/Uncheck "Allow links in conversation windows and my contacts list", and "Open Windows Live Messenger when I click a link on a webpage that tries to interact with Windows Live Messenger"

These two settings are on by default. You can find these settings from the Tools-Options menu under Security.

What I find myself doing a lot now is when I receive something from someone, I message them first. I ask if they meant to send that or not? Only takes a second, and a lot easier than getting some strange Trojan/Worm/Virus installed on your computer and then trying to get rid of that.

This just doesn't apply to Windows Live Messenger. I also use Digsby on Windows, and Adium on my Mac. With using a Linux or Mac machine you might be able to get by accidentally clicking on these links, but you should still disable clickable URLs in chat windows with your chat client of choice. It only takes a second to copy and paste the URL from the chat window into a browser once you know it's safe.

So the next time you get a message from a contact that says "Go here to c some raunchy pictures of you at that party". Unless you really know how to party You can probably just ignore it and then tell the buddy that sent you the message they have a virus and then laugh at them!