[Berocca]

A friend advises that he is having trouble with his young daughter's use of msn messenger on his computer, and has asked me to call around to his house to remove or block it on his computer.

His main problem seems to be offensive messages and he is particularly concerned of some of the lewd requests by some of the posters and various pop ups by msn messenger.

I did a few internet searches to try to find out what action is required to remove or block msn messenger, but am now completely overwhelmed by the conflicting views and suggestions as to what is required.

So I am here to ask the experts what I should do to help him with his problem.

Details of his system are follows:

1. Windows XP fully updated which I understand includes a firewall of some sort
2. No other firewall
3. AVG Free Virus Protection
4. Various other protection including Spybot and Ad Aware

I suppose he will also need to block Yahoo Messenger and any others in common use.

Any advice to help will be appreciated.

P.S. I have no idea how to block ports as has been suggested by some. Please help.

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Hi,you need to remove msn and yahoo messenger from the add remove prgrammes list,then block them through the firewall.Hope this helps.

[hippichic100]

Hi,you need to remove msn and yahoo messenger from the add remove prgrammes list,then block them through the firewall.Hope this helps.

[Neil Jones]

The definite answer to this question comes not from MSN Messenger or its uses or users, but from how computer savvy the kid is.

Uninstall the program, the kid knows she can just go back and download it again.
Block it in the firewall, the kid will probably eventually figure out how to get into the firewall and enable it again.

Port blocking is a different kettle of fish because Messenger opens quite a few depending on what you're doing with it at the time, plus IIRC it tends to jump around between ports each time its (re)installed.

Do a Google on the HOSTS file, this will allow you to redirect requests to Messenger's site back to the computer and hence throw up a "Page cannot be displayed" message. This can be done with Messenger, AIM, Yahoo (the international variations would probably need blocking each separately) and ICQ, as well as others.

The HOSTS file method is simple to implement, considerably secure (since its an advanced feature which most people won't know about which would probably include the kid) and is completely transparent, handled by Windows itself and works cross browser too.