My brother wants me to get MSN Messenger so that we can chat for free. Looking into it, I find an article in Wikipedia highlighting the fact that viruses can be sent via this route. So, is MSN Messenger safe to use? I appreciate millions of people use it every day, but that does not automatically mean it's safe.
Same as a lot of things... if you use it carefully it's safe.
if you add 100's of random people as contacts and accept everything that they send you then yes you could get a virus but if you only add a few people that you know and trust and don't accept any suspicious files then you shouldn't have a problem.
Make sure you create a decent secure password when you setup the account as well, as people do get their MSN accounts hacked, normally caused by weak passwords.