Mercury Messenger, also known as MM or dMSN, is a free alternative to MSN Messenger offering almost all the same features.
The IM client allows you to connect to your live or hotmail account and chat with your contacts. You can organize them by groups, use emoticons, send files and activate your webcam during chats. The interface itself is highly similar to that of MSN Messenger albeit a much less attractive one. I found that the different elements are placed a little clumsily here and there, making Mercury Messenger slightly unintuitive. Luckily the interface is interchangeable so if you find a good skin you can use that instead.
A big difference with MSN Messenger is RSS support. Mercury allows you to add and preview RSS feeds. I was a little skeptic of the idea at first, as I much prefer previewing RSS feeds on a whole screen, however I found it very similar to feed reading on a mobile device, which works in some way. Mercury Messenger has a tabbed interface which allows you to open and work with multiple accounts. Beware that having too many open simply ends up confusing though.
Although missing the most recent features of MSN Messengers and despite a weaker interface, Mercury Messenger is a good alternative with RSS and multiple account support.
