I was in MSN Messenger today and I attempted to send a link to a coworker with “download.php” in the URL. The MSN message didn’t go through, no error was received, it just didn’t send. So just for fun I changed it to “download.asp” and the message went through properly. So to take it one step further, I tried renaming it to “download1.php” and that sent properly.
So for some reason, MSN blocks you from sending a link with download.php in it.
A quick Google search will tell you that MSN is blocking some URLs, presumably to prevent spreading worms through Messenger.
According to Wikipedia: “Messages containing “download.php”, “gallery.php”, “profile.php?”, “.pif” or “.scr” close the conversation window, return a “Failed to deliver message” or simply don’t appear, depending on the version of the client.”
It’s interesting how they are blocking PHP, but not any other web file types. As any developer knows, PHP can be just as dangerous as ASP, ASPX, jsp, etc.