Instant Messengers and the Risks

Instant Messengers (also called IM's) are very dangerous. There are over 50 million IM users worldwide, so the threats and risks are very high. I don't use any downloadable IM's. I do use the ones that are built into your email on yahoo and gmail. One thing to keep the risk down, if you do use IM's, is to only allow messages from the user's you know by making yourself private. I would suggest not even using them unless it is either 1. Required by job, school, etc. 2. The only way to communicate with friends, relatives, etc. If you don't want to use IM's to chat, you could sign up for gmail and give the audio/video chat a try. It is free.