The reviews of the new MSN Messenger 5.0 have'nt really been too encouraging. And I agree. Other than being yet another unneccessary cosmetic change, this upgrade was just another incorporation of some completely useless, and particularly annoying features. For example, the extremely irritating MSN Today popup, a dastardly sin that the Yahoo Messenger had already commited. And a new set of sounds that replace the pleasant old ones. The new "user is online" sound is not quite what you'd like to hear at 2 o'clock in the night when you're reading a scary story. (Of course, they're far more pleasant than Yahoo's "user is offline" sound - a horrifying creaking door from those vampire movies.)

But most of all, the one feature that's gotten me flustered is "Browse the Web Together". How utterly, sickeningly mushy. Dear Microsoft Programmer, what were you thinking?