The folks over at MESS.be are real crowd pleasers.
They have released a patch for MSN Messenger that removes features about MSN that they’ve found irritating.
I’ve tried it and it works like a charm. Don’t be too ambitious and remove all the features indiscrimately (you might regret it). Remove only what you think you don’t need. You can always remove more later. Remember also to backup your contacts before doing patching (Contacts -> Save Contact List…). Lastly, it seems that patching violates Microsoft’s Terms of Use.
Download MESS Patch (there might be an occasional ad)
Rant:
With network effect building in, it seems like there’s no escape from MSN Messenger, though there are always alternatives like Trillian and Miranda. A regret about these viable alternatives is that certain features are broke at times.
MSN Messenger is an inferior protocol. I’ve written about this a while back. Read it and other people’s comments here. What’s even worst is its horrible interface and the lack of offline messaging. Windows Live Messenger (now in beta) seems to tackle this straight on, but the interface is still not good enough. Where’s the tabbed interface that Gaim and Trillian already have?
The only way is to use other protocols, other Internet Messenger, but there are just too many of them.
We need only one protocol and we need an entity powerful enough to shove us all into it. Not Microsoft though. Google will be good.