2020-06-27 22:54:56

This may be old news to some of you, but for those of you who were clueless, as I was, will find this interesting. The Windows Live and MSN messenger clients can be used once again thanks to Escargo. You may be asking yourself, isn't Escargot that french dish with the buttery snails? Yes, but Escargo (without the T at the end) is a new server inspired by MSN and Windows Live messenger, that actually uses the old MSN messenger client from back in the day. Basically, what happened is that valtron, a MessengerGeek forum member, patched the old MSN messenger clients to work with a new custom, open source server, which you can find on GitLab. You can check out Escargo here. To help make getting started with Escargo easier, you can read this guide from the House of Fireseed. Now, I have a question for you folks who used MSN back in the day. Is this a good thing, or should MSN have stayed dead? Please vote, assuming the poll works. For those of you who vote, explain your view. Why do you think it should (or shouldn't) exist?

#FreeTheCheese
"The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

2020-06-27 23:20:36

lol?

I am a divine being. I can be called a primordial deity, but that might be pushing it, a smidge. I am the only one of my kind to have ten tails, with others having nine. I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I have ascended my own race.

2020-06-27 23:26:41

I guess if you wanted a 30 second nostalgia trip that's cool. At least until you remember that it has basically no practical use in today's society lol.

2020-06-27 23:28:21

To be honest, I don't know.
Yeah in its day msn was really good.
Would I'd like it back? well if all was fare yeah I would.
But like everything, who is even on it now days.
Msn is now skype.
With whatsapp and other such things now my gut says that skype isn't something everyone uses especially with zoom now.
For myself, due to the death of msn I went skype, and due to the crazyness round skype, even though it does cut me out of a lot of the remote job market, I have made a concious effort to not use platforms that can be turned off in a second.
The latest is twitter which at least was good for direct messages.
To be honest, if I didn't have to, I wouldn't even use forums like this, email is probably the only communication still available.
Would I go back?
Again it would depend on well if everyone else I had in my circle came back.
The days of swapping large sound libraries, bits of code between my hacking group and the like were nice memmories.
However so much has changed between 2000 and 2020.
These changes can be noticed with the overzellous security software to the emergence of all those security breaches on online services and creditcard previders.
To ransomware.
Its just not safe anymore to live chat as it used to be.
And while we have miranda, well who knows.
I made the decision last year to delete miranda completely, why? because not many use it, msn, aim, icq, those were my muse for the last 10 or so years and they all died.
Its not just, a lets bring it all back, its bringing everything back in time to.
Would I go back, if things could go back to how they were, probably.
Would I try now, probably not.
Put it this way, even though I have zoom, and can use it bar the stuff I need to do, I don't actually use it for myself.
My last skype call I did was not that recent either though I still use and have skype updated.
I sms mostly for local stuff and everything else is via email.
I don't need to livechat anymore but I do miss it.
Could I go back, I don't know, things have moved on quite a deal.
Back then I was a student, I had less to do than I have now, I was fat, and lazy and didn't care and could while away the days online imagining me as a big man in the real world.
Now over the other side as it were, I am still fat, as I like eating.
I am not as lazy, but between my podcasts, email, socal media, gaming and the like I barely have time for a chat in fact I need to remind myself I have an offline life and actually try to make myself exit  the matrix for a while.
I mean this ain't even the matrix like the movies as I am still in reality but if its hard to leave the computer now it would be worse in the movies.
Point is, I don't know if I would go back at least not right now.
Now, maybe in another 30 or so years when my family are gone and I am in a disabled institution waiting for my meat to die so I can shift worlds maybe I may revisit the interdimentional transfer point which is online.
For now, I have as much to do here as I do in meat space.
I did experience the cyber life back in my 20s though and was tempted to stay.
These days I have barely the time to really devote to things and seem to slack off from time to time.
Going back to somethhing like this would be nice though as long as say miranda, etc worked with it.
The best messenging client I ever used was old windows messenger 5.1, the one that was never updated, the one that never changed.
I'd like old msn back maybe with skype like functionality so you could talk to your contacts if you wanted.
I'd like that back in miranda.
I mean I could just as easily get on facebook messenger if I had a life in that space but I don't.
My social media nodes are to read other's media nodes and not post.
The closest connection I have to that time is skype and my circle is basically fucked, most are gone, and not much else.

2020-06-28 01:21:05

I loved the old Messenger back in the day, except when they changed things so much that it stopped working with JAWS and the only way to get it to work was to pay to upgrade JAWS. Then Microsoft decided to replace Messenger with Skype, and I wasn't too happy about that. Compared to Messenger, Skype was bloated and slow.

Would I use this version? Probably not unless everyone I talked to switched to it. There are already far too many communication apps as  it is. I don't need yet another one open. Right now I use Skype, with Miranda NG for Facebook Messenger.

2020-06-28 01:28:49

Yeah, sadly, with 3 and 5 here.  Everyone who grew up on IM will probably appreciate some semblance of it, but most of the world population has moved on to texting, messenger and even more interesting to the sighted community and the one that puts us behind on many levels, is snapchat, which brings a whole new level to microblogging and instant multimedia sharing.  Move 229 million users away from it and on to what you're suggesting, and then lets talk.

When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.

2020-06-28 01:47:05 (edited by NevEd 2020-06-28 01:49:45)

@4 made a really interesting point. All these new messenger services are so connected and try to push you to share share share, vs how old skype used to be, where you had an attach files button to share if you felt like it. Not to mention skype was p2p, I think at least, but it wasn't as connected to the matrix of trends and what was brewing up shitstorms at that particular time. The old skype interface, updated when it needed to be did its job well. everything nowadays is just trying to be its own social media platform, with trying to suggest random people to you, push ads, and in general be an overbloated mess. Maybe its just because I'm not sighted, but I just don't care about all the extra shit. That's what Twitter is for. I can go onto Twitter when I want too but Twitter isn't meant for messaging exclusively but its there to message people you find on Twitter.
I really do miss old school Skype and Discord, while close in some way, its not the same interface-wise first of all, and second of all, everything is stored on their servers. Messages, everything. Idk man, shit is not what it used to be. I do like Discord though and do enjoy the strides it made towards accessibility, but I wish it had a more traditional, win32 applike interface like Skype used to have.
I will never use Zoom. Fuck Zoom. Its amazing how naive people in general are, but also schools, to give up security for convenience. It pisses me off personally because when shit does hit the fans later down the line these motherfuckers are going to be screaming at the top of their lungs. It goes hand in hand with giving up rights because you think big brother has your best interest at heart, when really, they care about making as much money as possible while tricking you into fucking yourself.
I wonder if some day down the line there will be a resurgence of minimal and simplistic messaging and VOIP clients. I wouldn't be surprised if some people get tired of the constant noise and a new platform is created and other people join. Even better if its open source, or at least the client is, I don't know. But its supported through donations from people who value it.
Or maybe not.

NevEd.NDO#4838
My community discord:
https://discord.gg/2duutDtGFa

2020-06-28 03:39:29 (edited by queenslight 2020-06-28 03:42:10)

Interestingly, I made a thread about Escargot's MSN Server back in2018 in the month of March, found at

http://trenton.link/escargot/

As of this posting, there's 1228 online right now.

In addition, you can find the special version of Mercury Messenger for android (which works with escargot's Server), on their downloads page linked at the bottom.

PS. Voice Clips on both the Windows  and android applications, shockingly still work!

2020-06-28 05:14:04

I did take a look at discord. I hate that it behaves like a webpage because Electron, but the chat interface seems to be a lot cleaner than something like Slack at least.

2020-06-28 08:45:39

Me: Yes please!
Thread: Meh, network don't care.

I guess I forgot that most people have huge contacts lists and expect constant communication. Instead of, like, two or three people.
MSN is the only realtime text conversation service I'd ever really consider all that good. Bizarrely enough, Facebook Messenger seems to have done something very unusual, and actually improved on all the relevant axes. As of now, Messenger is smaller than just about every other app on my suggested updates list, even though the others really have no excuse for being 3-5 times the size. It no longer crashes all the time. I'm so use to updates making things worse, especially IM clients, that it kinda feels like I fell into bizarro world.
But if I could talk people into getting on an MSN Zombie instead, yeah, no competition. What even is the point of all the other crap they've been weighing us down with since Skype took over? Oh, hey, you know what else? Saving MSN conversations was trivial. I have no idea what happened to my Skype, Messenger, or text logs if something weird happens to the network or my device. I probably can find a way to save all those, but the thing is, in MSN, I just opened the file menu and hit save, and got a very readable txt or rtf file. But, eh, doing everything on phones these days just makes saving your data (especially privately) pointlessly strenuous in general, so I can't blame texts or Facebook for that. (Skype, though... >.< )

看過來!
"If you want utopia but reality gives you Lovecraft, you don't give up, you carve your utopia out of the corpses of dead gods."
MaxAngor wrote:
    George... Don't do that.

2020-06-28 09:23:54 (edited by queenslight 2020-06-28 09:48:47)

If you see me online,

[email protected]

, is the email address I use.

For those who want to use Voice Clips, make sure ya get MSN 7.0 or later. (Or was it 7.5...)

Though I know some of yall love the MSN 6.2 interface.

The latest compatible version is v8.5, which you can find it's Pre-Patched English download here.

I can't forget good old Messenger Plus! Live, but just make sure to "NEVER!" install the sponsor program.

PS. Escargot does have their own Discord Server now, along with their popular Messenger Geek Forum

2020-06-28 09:48:22 (edited by NevEd 2020-06-28 09:48:54)

We are pleased to offer you the bing bar
I am pleased to offer you my genetalia

NevEd.NDO#4838
My community discord:
https://discord.gg/2duutDtGFa

2020-06-28 11:59:59

I liked msn 8.5. Sadly noone I know will switch to it, so there's no point in me giving it a try.

I post sounds I record to freesound. Click here to visit my freesound page
I usually post game recordings to anyaudio. Click here to visit my anyaudio page

2020-06-28 12:00:10

The clocest thing that comes to basic messaging these days, and even that appears to be changing is an app called Kik, note the spelling.

What I like about Kik is you don't share information, only your username, and adding each other is as easy as replying to that persons message.

So if one of you messages me on Kik, once I respond, we've added each other.

2020-06-28 13:42:38

Hmmm...
Unless kick has fixed themselves in the security department, I’m gonna be watchful for now.

As for MSN and it’s popularity, yeah it’s not for most folks these days... It’s for the “classic” crowd.
BTW, keep an eye on the Escargot News page (link to it found on it’s home page), as support for Windows Live 2009 will soon become a reality.
They’ve been working on support for that version of Messenger for some time now.

2020-06-28 20:27:16

I appeared after MSN Messenger died, is there any practical reason I'd use it now?

If you for whatever reason wish to contact me, the best way to do so is through Discord (Minionslayer#2980). You'll get the quickest response times, and by extension, a higher priority. I also sometimes post my thoughts (for the better or worse) over on Twitter at @Minionslayer2.

2020-06-28 21:31:30

MSN messinger braught back so many memmories. both my grandmother and my cousin were on there for a good chunk of it's life.

be a hero and stop Coppa now!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dkm … DkWZ8/edit
-id software, 1995

2020-06-30 00:11:52

As far as simple messaging clients go, there  is Signal; it does many of the things that the big players like WhatsAp, Messenger, Skype, Viber, and Telegram do, but is much lighter. the trade of is that Signal still doesn't support group voice and video calling, so it may be a turn-off for some; however, if you want something light, simple, and secure, Signal is one of the best options out there.

I attack with the savagery of a thousand piranhas.