well now that everyone's told you to be paranoid, heres some reasons why you should be. Yahoo doesnt scan files its not like email. you can very easily send trojans, virii, worms, just about anything thru yahoo (there was even a point few months ago with the new build that allowed html and everything in IM's and chat screens) always scan everything you dl. I use mcaffee 6.0 with everything but firewall enabled and sometimes the only way i find a virus is by scanning the dl using heuristics. In fact im pretty sure no instant messenger scans shared files. so be carefull. there are many websites dedicated to exploiting yahoo. i would suggest checkin these sites out ww.eliteprodigy.com www.twizted.net/massfright and follow the links there in ... its very easy to get messed up from people you chat with , if someone sends you a file or even IM's you they can get your ip# just by going into dos and running netstat -n port 5050 is your login to yahoo and connections on 5101 are the people you are chatting with.file transfer and other services have their own ports respectively. but what im saying is if you accept any file that has been binded with a trojan or is a virus yahoo wont ppick it up at all and if you run that file just know that the person who sent it already has your ip# at his finger tips just waiting to connect and have fun......a good idea is to use proxies with messenger especially a socks5 proxy www.lafn.com has a socks (addy may be incorrect) if your not now i seriously suggest gettiing a packet sniffer www.sniff-em.com and learn how to use it . there is an exploit still beiong used where someone can grab a cookie and decrypt it revealing your username and password just from a cookie. also be very wary of what you do on webcams as there is a usable exploit for that also involving media player other than that happy chattin m8 lol