Messenger Plus! (formerly known as Messenger Plus! Live, commonly abbreviated MsgPlus, Plus!, or incorrectly as MSN Plus) is an add-on for Windows Live Messenger and Skype. The software provides additional functionality to Microsoft's Instant messaging client, Windows Live Messenger, by adding its own controls to the main interface. These controls affect Messenger's behaviour and appearance, often through additional dialog boxes.
The add-on was first released in May 2001 under the name "The Messenger Plus! Extension" for MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger. It later changed its name to "Messenger Plus!" and then, for the release of the new Windows Live Messenger client, "Messenger Plus! Live" was chosen. In 2011 the name was changed back to "Messenger Plus!" again. It has become one of the most widely used add-ons for Microsoft's IM clients, citing over 62 million users as of February 2010.
Volunteers from the Messenger Plus! community around the world develop skins and scripts for submission into the database of the website for the software.
Features
Messenger Plus! generally expands the features of Windows Live Messenger 2009 (9.0) and 2011. Notable features include: A set of text formatting codes similar to BBCode (people who don't use Messenger Plus! will still see standard unformatted text with the BBCode still in place). Custom status tags. Running multiple instances of Windows Live Messenger with different accounts. Event logging and chat logging in either plain text or HTML with optional encryption. Chat log viewer. For browsing and searching all saved logs. Contacts on desktop. Small windows always on top which show a specific contact. Auto-reply messages, usually activated when away from keyboard. Emotion sounds. Custom sounds which can be sent to other Messenger Plus! users. Tabbed chatting (all the conversations in the same window). This feature existed in Messenger Plus! before Windows Live Messenger 2011 added native support for tabbed chatting. Messenger locking (Boss Mode). Contact list clean-up. Showing statistics about the user's contacts and allowing him to remove people who removed him or he never talks to. Skinning Windows Live Messenger without the user having to physically edit the program's resource files. JScript scripting allowing users to add their own functionality.
Languages
Messenger Plus! is available in 22 languages:
Arabic
Chinese Simplified
Chinese Traditional
Danish
Dutch
English
Estonian
Finnish
French
German
Hebrew
Hungarian
Italian
Japanese
Norwegian
Portuguese-Brazil
Portuguese-Portugal
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Thai
Turkish
Creator
Messenger Plus! was originally created in 2001 by Cyril Paciullo, who is better known by the pseudonym "Patchou". He was born in France and currently resides in Canada. He started developing Plus! as a hobby next to his day job as a developer, but soon maintaining the Messenger Plus! software became a full-time job.
In Q4 of 2009 Paciullo announced he is no longer in full control of the product and Messenger Plus! is now owned by Yuna Software Limited. In Q1 of 2011 Paciullo officially declared he had left the company and that this chapter of his professional life was closed. Financial details or names of the people behind the new company are not disclosed. Yuna Software has offices in several places in the world and has an office in Montreal, also known as Kimahri Software, where a development team continued to develop Messenger Plus!.
Adware
When developing Messenger Plus! became a full-time job, a form of revenue was added to keep the software free. Formerly, the software came bundled with optional adware software developed by Circle Development Ltd.
Issues with Windows Defender
As of August 17, 2005, the Messenger Plus! website contained a petition to Microsoft's anti-spyware division regarding Windows Defender's (known as Microsoft AntiSpyware at the time) detection of the Messenger Plus! executable as spyware and subsequent warning that Messenger Plus! would attempt to install spyware at runtime (post-installation), rather than the setup program itself that contained the installer for the threat detected.
The petition, which had 401,683 signatures and was 10,137 pages long in total, was sent to Redmond on September 20, 2005 stating that Messenger Plus! should not be labeled as being a threat.