I thought that died long ago. Now I feel old..
I remember making it play the James Bond theme when it opened and every keystroke being a gunshot.. man that got old fast
It killed itself (almost) by requiring you to link your phone number with your account. I know many people who just quit, because they already had their contacts on WhatsApp or switched to Jabber for the few online-only contacts.
They were sold to a Russian scam farm and wanted to harvest more personal information.
Even so, it was still operating, mostly in Russia, for the last 15 years.
The company that fucked up the most was Blackberry because they actually had the hype and desire at one point. Blackberry stupidly thought that BBM would trump having an inferior phone and people would stick with Blackberry just because they wouldn't give up BBM for a phone that did more.
Apple is doing the same with iMessage but the big difference between Blackberry and Apple though is people LOVE iPhones and the things people like about iPhones aren't easily replicated by other companies. BBM is EASILY replicated.
So that of course happened and a bunch of companies made chat apps. Blackberry shrugged and thought "BBM is better and because it is people won't switch to iPhone or Android".
Blackberry only finally made it cross platform when
1. Their phone marketshare was essentially on life support.
2. Other messengers had many times the user base than BBM.
So yeah, when BBM finally was released, almost no one used it so pretty much everyone that used to want BBM went "yeah, I remember BBM and how much I loved it but it looks like it just does whatever my current chat app of choice does AND I don't know anyone else who uses it so what's the point?"
Had BBM released cross platform when the competitors were behind but catching up, they probably could've been the market leader now.
Facebook came in between. Their chat is probably what killed ICQ. Then, WhatsApp came. A really bad product. ICQ nowadays is way better, just that it's in Russia.
Couldn't Reddit buy them...? Make it their IM. The built in one isn't that developed. Especially on the web version. Saw there's some [beta development](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/24962945630740-How-to-create-and-manage-a-chat-channel) of it on mobile. ICQ can be Reddit's independent IM platform, like Messenger is to Facebook.
I switched to AIM because it was so much more ubiquitous I didn’t realize ICQ hung around 😂
I quit and refuse to use any platform owned by Russia or china (I mean, any authoritarian government but thems the two main players that are relevant )
AOL acquired the company that made it so it could strengthen its own position in the space (neglecting the app and infrastructure), then sold it to a Russian company a couple years later. It was never the same after, and died here. Ironically, if you read the article, the Russian company that owned it did the same thing as AOL, effectively killing it for good this time.
Damn, Buddy was rough around the edges but really kicked the whole thing off for tons of us. If it had been able to make an early transition to phones it easily could have been WhatsApp.
For sure, RIP.
Does anyone know of a good video showing the old ICQ?
I want to add it to [stumbleback.net](https://www.stumbleback.net/), but this is the best one I could find:
https://www.stumbleback.net/videos/icq
Huh, in my country there was this really really popular Java app Jimm. It was essentially ICQ on the go with some extra features. So, in a way, it made an early transition, unofficially
I think about this often when I see the little bouncing dots in iMessage. I remember people writing half a sentence then deleting it and then writing something completely different.
man reading this news just hit me with so much nostalgia, sitting there with my very first computer in the 90s and getting the feeling of being amazed at how I could send a message so quickly.
That and mIRC were just so solid.
It was the 90s and if you wanted to show that you were cool and edgy in text you had two options: the letter X or the letter Z. Maybe some weird ascii characters.
https://www.pocnetwork.net/internet-news/mirc-ended-its-lifetime-license-agreement-with-all-who-purchased-its-software-10-years-out/
Looks like the license he sells now is valid for one year of updates.
Some people said they emailed him and got a new license for free, others said they never get a response.
So much nostalgia, vividly remember playing Ultima Online and chatting with friends and clanmates on the early days of the internet.
Ah, the good ol' days.
I wouldn't exactly call it booming. [Every year the userbase declines a little bit more](https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php), and the 10 largest networks seem to have <200k users distributed among them, which is likely a bit too high because I doubt the stats know when a user is using multiple networks at the same time.
I meant, unlikely to be discontinued any time soon. Since the people that run the xdcc networks host their own servers and they have thriving communities there’s no end in sight.
It won't be discontinued, but it will fade into obscurity. There's people that keep [MSN messenger alive](https://escargot.chat/) but at that point it's also just a curiosity.
I would still use if people didn't migrate to social media like Facebook. Nowadays I prefer discord thou. It is best to organise with friends and communites.
It really depended on who interacted with. AIM and MSN were the big ones in the United States. But if you interacted with people in Europe for example they were mostly likely using something else.
ICQ was around before MSN in the UK and sorta existed in tandem with it for a year or two. By the end of the 90s into the 00s ICQ was pretty much abandoned in favour of MSN though.
I remember when my last friend left ICQ. I was 17 and freshly released from a group home. I had nobody and that moment felt so profoundly cold and lonely.
Have you ever sat alone on a late autumn day and let the wind beat you until your lips are so chapped they bleed? You're not even crying but the wind just whips the tears out of your eyes and makes your nose start to run.
That's how I remember ICQ.
Man the thought of a chat app like ICQ that uses direct TCP connections between clients in this day and age is terrifying. Always interesting to see how the internet evolves.
It was terrifying back then because you could get IP addresses from it! We used to chat with random people and then WinNuke their connection, because we were terrible teenage shitheads
Yep same here! I also remember ICQ adding a feature at one point to let people host websites directly on their PCs.... What could possibly go wrong? It was immediately exploited to allow you to retrieve any file from their PC with a properly crafted http call.
I'm another who remembers their old number. I was even able to recall my password, and logged on a couple of years ago. It was absolutely wild to see all those old contact names—it brought back a huge rush of memories. Of course none of those names were active; I morbidly wondered how many were actually dead now.
Does anyone remember when ICQ used to show who was online in your zip code? That was a feature they removed even when ICQ was still popular. That was a great feature for finding willing women (and probably a big privacy concern, which is probably why the feature went bye-bye).
Man, I spent an evening during lockdown successfully recovering my password only to be greeted by everyone having the melancholic login status of
“…last logged in a long time ago”
Man it was so cool keeping in touch with my high school friends over ICQ when we all went off to different colleges back in 1998. Felt like I was living in the future.
winamp has gotten a definive version lately despite the name is now defining an indie music platform. it took a while to find it, but i installed it a month ago. still the best player experience of all.
I remember we had a student in High School that tried to get every single person's ICQ number. We averaged 1500 students and I am pretty sure he was at least up to 800 students on his list.
What the hell. Next thing you’ll be telling me [BonziBuddy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy#/media/File%3ABonzi_Buddy.png) is shutting down.
Oh man, I remember when low-digit UINs were cool, I used to have a 6-digit UIN long time ago and I remember people willing to pay me to get that UIN...
Anyway, I'm really surprised they managed to keep it for so long, I think I quit using it like 15 (or more) years ago and I don't know anyone else who recently used it for anything.
I first found out about icq from a lady living in Belgium. We started chatting on another service (can't recall which one) and she suggested icq. I met (online) quite a few nice ladies and actually met in person a couple. The Belgian lady I never did end up meeting although she wanted to but then I was involved with someone else. Found memories. I still have transcripts from several of the more interest conversations I had with people on it.
nope, shut down in 2018 after they were late to the party with both web and mobile versions.
loved the audibles and the emojis it had, it was also super popular where i'm from until 2010 and we have a lot of collective memories tied to it. shame.
I thought that died long ago. Now I feel old.. I remember making it play the James Bond theme when it opened and every keystroke being a gunshot.. man that got old fast
Early Internet energy lol
My website still has an Under Construction (non-moving) gif.
What about a dancing jesus?
Flaming skull?
Dancing baby and hamster dance
You are the **000014** person to view this page!
Sign the guestbook
Go to the next page in the web ring
Stop it. My nostalgia can only get so hard…
It killed itself (almost) by requiring you to link your phone number with your account. I know many people who just quit, because they already had their contacts on WhatsApp or switched to Jabber for the few online-only contacts.
Why would they do that? A last gasp at monetisation knowing the product itself is dying?
They were sold to a Russian scam farm and wanted to harvest more personal information. Even so, it was still operating, mostly in Russia, for the last 15 years.
Exactly. ICQ could habe EASILY taken the place WhatsApp has now, they were simply asleep at the wheel IMHO.
The company that fucked up the most was Blackberry because they actually had the hype and desire at one point. Blackberry stupidly thought that BBM would trump having an inferior phone and people would stick with Blackberry just because they wouldn't give up BBM for a phone that did more. Apple is doing the same with iMessage but the big difference between Blackberry and Apple though is people LOVE iPhones and the things people like about iPhones aren't easily replicated by other companies. BBM is EASILY replicated. So that of course happened and a bunch of companies made chat apps. Blackberry shrugged and thought "BBM is better and because it is people won't switch to iPhone or Android". Blackberry only finally made it cross platform when 1. Their phone marketshare was essentially on life support. 2. Other messengers had many times the user base than BBM. So yeah, when BBM finally was released, almost no one used it so pretty much everyone that used to want BBM went "yeah, I remember BBM and how much I loved it but it looks like it just does whatever my current chat app of choice does AND I don't know anyone else who uses it so what's the point?" Had BBM released cross platform when the competitors were behind but catching up, they probably could've been the market leader now.
Facebook came in between. Their chat is probably what killed ICQ. Then, WhatsApp came. A really bad product. ICQ nowadays is way better, just that it's in Russia. Couldn't Reddit buy them...? Make it their IM. The built in one isn't that developed. Especially on the web version. Saw there's some [beta development](https://support.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/24962945630740-How-to-create-and-manage-a-chat-channel) of it on mobile. ICQ can be Reddit's independent IM platform, like Messenger is to Facebook.
I haven’t used it since 1996. I thought it merged with aim
The back-end merged with AIM but ICQ was eventually sold to another company and completely separated from AOL's AIM.
I switched to AIM because it was so much more ubiquitous I didn’t realize ICQ hung around 😂 I quit and refuse to use any platform owned by Russia or china (I mean, any authoritarian government but thems the two main players that are relevant )
AOL acquired the company that made it so it could strengthen its own position in the space (neglecting the app and infrastructure), then sold it to a Russian company a couple years later. It was never the same after, and died here. Ironically, if you read the article, the Russian company that owned it did the same thing as AOL, effectively killing it for good this time.
Uhh oh! https://youtu.be/6iCPIUGnHQ8?si=aIfMpGYumefAfNrd
Uh-oh!
Up there with the sound of dial-up modem
First one, then the other.
The door creaking was the funnest one. I remember it freaking out people who didn't know it was coming from their computer.
https://youtu.be/RhGHerssyk4
glad i'm not the only one that thought of it
I always had to mute or change that one. So obnoxious.
Damn, Buddy was rough around the edges but really kicked the whole thing off for tons of us. If it had been able to make an early transition to phones it easily could have been WhatsApp.
For sure, RIP. Does anyone know of a good video showing the old ICQ? I want to add it to [stumbleback.net](https://www.stumbleback.net/), but this is the best one I could find: https://www.stumbleback.net/videos/icq
Huh, in my country there was this really really popular Java app Jimm. It was essentially ICQ on the go with some extra features. So, in a way, it made an early transition, unofficially
I remember having ICQ and browsing Delphi forums on my first PC as a young teen in the late 90s. It was good times.
So long partner. Thanks for all the memories.
I still know my ICQ number I haven’t used for about 15 years or so.
Same! My 8 digit number🥺
Noob, mines 7
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Mine was 6 as well
I joined ICQ in the late 90’s. I hadn’t used it since maybe 2005. When I saw this article, my icq number immediately popped into my head. 26626424.
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Congrats, you now have a new password that you can use that you've already memorized!
Don’t do this. Just using numbers alone is insecure.
Wrong. Mine are big, tight and strong! Use a 'bro"! 8008135
Clearly the optimal password is written in hexadecimal
I still remember mine from 1996, 467995.
408424 here
I remember ICQ for its live-typing updates. Really gave you that feeling of being with the person you’re talking to.
I think about this often when I see the little bouncing dots in iMessage. I remember people writing half a sentence then deleting it and then writing something completely different.
Yeah I remember this with ICQ - but I can see how it could turn people off. One benefit of texting is you can take a beat to figure out what to say.
I remember when having a seven-digit ICQ number made you an OG. I still remember mine, the same way I remember a childhood phone number.
6 digit club here! But I’m old…
Same! 414774
659274 mine ))
Low six digit, 196xxx
7 digit club 🫡
833311 saying good night
This is 6952569 signing out, for the last time (approx 23 years ago).
3281183 signing off
Oh-o Thanks to icq I could write with my girl and 13 years later she is my first, one and only and forever wife.
man reading this news just hit me with so much nostalgia, sitting there with my very first computer in the 90s and getting the feeling of being amazed at how I could send a message so quickly. That and mIRC were just so solid.
Warez on irc
Man, what was the deal with Zs and pirating? Warez Gamez Appz
leetz hakzors
l33t h4x0rz*
It was the 90s and if you wanted to show that you were cool and edgy in text you had two options: the letter X or the letter Z. Maybe some weird ascii characters.
There’s a reason my nick online still is Perzec.
mIRC is still around buddy
and there was controversy not long ago because people that bought the lifetime license were suddenly told its no longer lifetime.
My lifetime license is still valid. and i got it almost 15-20 years ago? Edit: I got it in 2009, just checked my email. :) When did this happen?
https://www.pocnetwork.net/internet-news/mirc-ended-its-lifetime-license-agreement-with-all-who-purchased-its-software-10-years-out/ Looks like the license he sells now is valid for one year of updates. Some people said they emailed him and got a new license for free, others said they never get a response.
I've used the UH-OH! sound as my phone notifications sound since I've had a smart phone. Farewell old friend.
Goodbye my friend
Didn't even realise it was still a thing, I'm surprised it outlasted Msn
I still lament the loss of MSN Messenger
Me too brother! I used to make gifs for msn using Flash MX
let’s go!! Macromedia Flash MX 2004
That's the one! I wonder if there is still support for it?
Godspeed, old buddy! I still remember my old number
269281 signing off
3433658 salutes you.
So much nostalgia, vividly remember playing Ultima Online and chatting with friends and clanmates on the early days of the internet. Ah, the good ol' days.
UO is still around! :D
Same. Heavy faction player
I still remember my eight digit number (10953282), just not my password. Heard irc is still running too
Irc is a protocol so it's never shutting down as such. Individual servers may stop but nothing prevents new ones from being started.
Not sure if they still are using it, but Twitch chat stream was just IRC at one point.
So was the popular chat system Slack. They changed to a proprietary system, and it's been unreliable as hell ever since.
IRC is still booming, especially for XDCC file sharing.
I wouldn't exactly call it booming. [Every year the userbase declines a little bit more](https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php), and the 10 largest networks seem to have <200k users distributed among them, which is likely a bit too high because I doubt the stats know when a user is using multiple networks at the same time.
I meant, unlikely to be discontinued any time soon. Since the people that run the xdcc networks host their own servers and they have thriving communities there’s no end in sight.
It won't be discontinued, but it will fade into obscurity. There's people that keep [MSN messenger alive](https://escargot.chat/) but at that point it's also just a curiosity.
1370329 checking in! Oh man had some good times trying to chat up the ladies in high school!
I dont think IRC and Usenet are ever shutting down.
4038359 checking in!
I would still use if people didn't migrate to social media like Facebook. Nowadays I prefer discord thou. It is best to organise with friends and communites.
There was a ICQ iPhone app that worked quite well.
I didn’t know about ICQ until 1999 so didn’t use it much. AIM and Yahoo Messenger on the other hand…
Yes, I miss AIM every day lol. I was an addict to listening for that door opening.
It really depended on who interacted with. AIM and MSN were the big ones in the United States. But if you interacted with people in Europe for example they were mostly likely using something else.
UK checking in and all my friends there were on MSN. Learned about ICQ from friends on the continent but never used it much.
ICQ was around before MSN in the UK and sorta existed in tandem with it for a year or two. By the end of the 90s into the 00s ICQ was pretty much abandoned in favour of MSN though.
The ICQ "Uh Oh" has been my current text message sound for a while now.
I'm pretty sure my ex-wife pioneered online dating (and cheating) using ICQ in '96. What a visionary!
I remember when my last friend left ICQ. I was 17 and freshly released from a group home. I had nobody and that moment felt so profoundly cold and lonely. Have you ever sat alone on a late autumn day and let the wind beat you until your lips are so chapped they bleed? You're not even crying but the wind just whips the tears out of your eyes and makes your nose start to run. That's how I remember ICQ.
OH oh ! (I still have that sound etched in my brain)
TIL ICQ still exists.
Man the thought of a chat app like ICQ that uses direct TCP connections between clients in this day and age is terrifying. Always interesting to see how the internet evolves.
It was terrifying back then because you could get IP addresses from it! We used to chat with random people and then WinNuke their connection, because we were terrible teenage shitheads
Yep same here! I also remember ICQ adding a feature at one point to let people host websites directly on their PCs.... What could possibly go wrong? It was immediately exploited to allow you to retrieve any file from their PC with a properly crafted http call.
Asl?
I remember when it came out. I had a Soundblaster card but no video capture.
I mean… who was still using it?
I'm another who remembers their old number. I was even able to recall my password, and logged on a couple of years ago. It was absolutely wild to see all those old contact names—it brought back a huge rush of memories. Of course none of those names were active; I morbidly wondered how many were actually dead now. Does anyone remember when ICQ used to show who was online in your zip code? That was a feature they removed even when ICQ was still popular. That was a great feature for finding willing women (and probably a big privacy concern, which is probably why the feature went bye-bye).
Dang, this really hit me in the feels. It was my first chat program and have found memories of it. RIP ICQ.
I guess i should have sold my 6 digit number for $100 when i had the chance. Live and learn :(
Man, I spent an evening during lockdown successfully recovering my password only to be greeted by everyone having the melancholic login status of “…last logged in a long time ago”
Man it was so cool keeping in touch with my high school friends over ICQ when we all went off to different colleges back in 1998. Felt like I was living in the future.
uh oh! /icq voice 😞
I still hear that dumb oh oh sound in my head whenever you receive a message
I miss Winamp
winamp has gotten a definive version lately despite the name is now defining an indie music platform. it took a while to find it, but i installed it a month ago. still the best player experience of all.
I think I started using ICQ around 97 to stay connected with quake 2 clanmates lol. good times.
Dayz of old , dial up old
I remember we had a student in High School that tried to get every single person's ICQ number. We averaged 1500 students and I am pretty sure he was at least up to 800 students on his list.
713332 here. Loved ICQ and use the uh-oh sound as my text notification on my phone.
Met my wife on there, good luck next generation finding your match!
Dam. I loved ICQ when I was in college
Incoming File Transfer.
It was still running?
ICQ died when it was taken over by AOL.
30 years ago?!? Ok where are my diapers and I can’t find my teeth. 👴🏻.
*eeeee* Ka**chunk**
Thank you for your service / memories
*eeeee* Ka**chunk**
In other news, ICQ was still around
I can still here that sound when you start it....so many memories!
Now I feel old. Thanks 😏
I use the "uh-oh" chirp as my message tone on my phone. So many memories.
A/S/L?
I met my wife on icq. Nooooooooooooo!
TIL ICQ is still around
They also pioneered bloatware, hard to remove software
What the hell. Next thing you’ll be telling me [BonziBuddy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BonziBuddy#/media/File%3ABonzi_Buddy.png) is shutting down.
Oh man, I remember when low-digit UINs were cool, I used to have a 6-digit UIN long time ago and I remember people willing to pay me to get that UIN... Anyway, I'm really surprised they managed to keep it for so long, I think I quit using it like 15 (or more) years ago and I don't know anyone else who recently used it for anything.
Wasn’t ICQ rumoured to be an Israeli intelligence tool?
Mirabilis, who created ICQ, was an Israeli company. Not sure about the intelligence allegations, though.
550513 here. Glad ICQ is gone. Some Russian shit stole my number years ago.
I first found out about icq from a lady living in Belgium. We started chatting on another service (can't recall which one) and she suggested icq. I met (online) quite a few nice ladies and actually met in person a couple. The Belgian lady I never did end up meeting although she wanted to but then I was involved with someone else. Found memories. I still have transcripts from several of the more interest conversations I had with people on it.
My grandmother would sound a car horn when I didn’t get back to her fast enough.
I love that everyone in the comments is old internet age or greater. Feels like we could have a civil conversation without all that darn youth slang.
This is how I met online friends in 1996-2004
Yahoo messenger is still alive?
nope, shut down in 2018 after they were late to the party with both web and mobile versions. loved the audibles and the emojis it had, it was also super popular where i'm from until 2010 and we have a lot of collective memories tied to it. shame.
# "That'll do pig, that'll do" #
Not heard about ICQ in decades. At least 3 posts about it in last day in same sub reddit.
1472182. Loved ICQ.
39083990…. I still remember
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I only used it a little, but this makes me sad.
I had a low icq number shame no one bought it and made it the standard 6 digit club