There are certain times when you need to access your instant messenger from the web rather than from a client. For example, if you’re at a friend’s house and want to login on his or her PC for a few minutes, it’s the easiest way to get chatting without installing anything.
The Big Three are AIM, Yahoo and Windows Live (formerly MSN).
AIM
The first way is AIM Express. It’s fast, it looks good and there is little to no learning curve whatsoever.
The second way is for Gmail users only. You can actually login to your AIM account from within the Gmail interface:
The third way is via AOL/AIM Mail. If you use AOL or AIM mail, there is a red "running man" icon on the far right:
Clicking this will launch AIM within email. Works quite nicely.
Yahoo
Yahoo’s web messenger is available at two different URLs. The first is http://webmessenger.yahoo.com. The second is http://web.im. And yes, that really does work. Try it out.
The web messenger for Yahoo unfortunately requires an entire browser window instead of a convenient "mini" window like AIM does it. However it is full-featured.
The second way to get into Yahoo IM is like AIM does it via email. In particular, Yahoo Mail. Those of you who use Yahoo Mail have most likely seen this already. Yahoo’s IM does work in their mail via new or "Classic" mode.
Windows Live / MSN
There are two ways to access this. One way is good and the other is outright antiquated and terrible.
The first (good) way is to login to Hotmail. As Windows Live users are aware, your Hotmail, MSN or Live email address is your Windows Live ID. So you head on over to http://www.hotmail.com or http://mail.live.com (both go to the same place) and login.
At top right you’ll see the Messenger button:
..and from there you sign in.
The second (bad) way is to use the ancient stone-age like http://webmessenger.msn.com.
The first thing you’ll notice is that this site hates modern web browsers as you’ll immediately have a pop-up blocked. The web site will then tell you to allow it just to get it to work.
The second thing you’ll notice is that if you allowed the pop-up and login, you’ll get prompted to install some more plugin crapola if using Firefox.
MSN’s web messenger is just plain awful. Heck, it even uses all the old logos for the messenger itself and MSN which Microsoft supposedly doesn’t want to use anymore but still does..? It makes no sense.
Use the first method instead. That works and works well.
Meebo
Meebo is probably the best free web-based multi-protocol messenger there is. It will connect to everything IM and you can combine that all into a universal Meebo acount of you want. Or if you don’t, that’s not a problem. Just go to the site, enter your user/pass for whatever service you use and go.
