I’ve been a big fan of Messenger Plus! since around MSN Messenger 4. In fact, I seem to remember that being the main reason I got rid of MSN Messenger 2. Messenger Plus! adds loads of cool new features to Messenger such as tabbed chats, boss mode, quicktexts, inline formatting, personalized status and more.
The latest version, Messenger Plus! Live was released last night. This version is for Windows Live Messenger only. There are tons of new features and improvements and there is a total interface overhaul with a brand new look. There is a list of features on the Messenger Plus! Live site.
Scripting
Messenger Plus! Live also provides a great interface for developers. It allows you to write scripts which interact with Messenger using Javascript and you package it as a zip file – similar to Firefox extensions. This means you could do some really crazy things – you could have your nickname show the title of the latest entry from your blog, integrate web services into Messenger or upload all your chat logs as RSS files.
Check out the scripting documentation which contains a tutorial to make a really simple script. Scripting is really awesome. I wouldn’t be surprised if this spawns a few hundred extensions for Messenger, like Firefox has already done. If Microsoft had any sense, they’d buy this and integrate it into Messenger.
Sponsor Program
Messenger Plus! comes with a bundled sponsor program which is spyware. The great thing is that Messenger Plus! allows you to choose not to install it during the installation (say no to the sponsor program). I’m not particularly happy that Messenger Plus! even allows you to choose to install spyware and many people I know have refused to install Messenger Plus! because they believe it contains spyware.
Other Messenger Enhancements
At the moment I’m using Mess Patch from Mess.be (removes ads, junk from menus+UI), Stuffplug and Screenshot Sender.