Does Yahoo Messenger slow your computer down?

Yahoo Messenger makes my computer slow! Why does Yahoo Messenger use up so much CPU time and resources?

• My computer runs extremely slow when I use Yahoo Messenger - when I check the processes and watch the CPU usage after log in, I can watch it increase up to 30% almost immediately, then it spikes and drops even up to 97, 98%! What's up with that? And how do I fix it?

• Answer:

  I had this problem too. It's some of the Flash ads that are causing it. For me it was the Fido ad. There's two ways that will fix this. First way is to uninstall Adobe Flash Player - but then you might need it for other web surfing. I suggest the second option which is what I did. The second option is to add the ads web site to the windows hosts file to block it. To do this simply go to the windows hosts file (located C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc) and first make a backup of the file (copy it to another name), then open the file with notepad and add the following line (there's a tab between the IP and the host name): 127.0.0.1adv.messagia.com What this does is route any request from Yahoo Messenger to the ad site to your PC's loopback address (to the netherworld). This is a common way to block your PC from communicating with ad sites. You can do a search on Google on "windows hosts file" for more info. This fixes the problem. Though I'm sure Yahoo wouldn't be pleased that you're not watching the ads - but it's their fault for not vetting the ads that they are having their users watch. Hope this helps.