ICQ, One of the Oldest Instant Messengers, Is Shutting Down
ICQ will stop working on June 26. It's encouraging users to migrate to a messaging app from Russia-based VK, its parent company.
I stopped using ICQ in the very early 00s. I didn't know anything of it still remained.
I met my wife on ICQ. I had random chat turned on and she said, "Hello." That was a long time ago
Did she ever meet anyone interesting doing that?
Jk, of course. It was just too good of a setup to ignore.
Not as far as I know.
Me too. I hope they're different people
I met someone I thought I'd marry there in the exact same way around '99.
That feature was powerful, and now we just can't be bothered because scammers and blah blah.
So many scams.
Did you wait until your wedding night to cyber for the first time?
Uh...no. It was all about sex. The whole getting married thing was an accident.
And now you have grandchildren?
Not yet. Our son isn't quite 16 and our daughter is 18 and into girls. It may take a few years yet.
I had no idea ICQ was even still operational. Good on them for making it as long as they did.
I was never an ICQ user, but it's always sad seeing such long-standing icons of the internet shut down.
it’s always sad seeing such long-standing icons of the internet shut down.
A reminder of how much fun Web 1.0 was, not the walled-gardened, enshittified, corporatized, ad-riddled rage baiter it is now.
I always said way back in the early 2000s that once corporations figured out the internet, it and society in general would be very screwed. Their early attempts at trying to make things go viral and create engagement were laughably bad. Then they hired a bunch of psychologists and sociologists, bought up everything, and the rest is history.
Man, I am so sad now.
I miss the original internet. Back when it was a place for nerds and geeks, before commercial exploitation and SEO and Adpocalypse
The early version of what's now Microsoft's game suite in Windows was one of the coolest things I've seen on the Internet. It was a virtual gaming village where you could go sit at tables and play chess or checkers or cards with people from around the world. It worked 100% fine on 14.4k dialup.
Microsoft bought whatever that was and completely ruined it, just like they ruin everything else they buy.
Good on them for making it as long as they did.
They didn't though, it was sold to a Russian company many years ago.
A fate worse than death.
Uh oh!
*My favorite random icq sound finding it's way into music https://youtu.be/nZHFy3YfagU
I hear you
They probably got the sound file from the Visual C++ 4.2 CD’s samples folder. That’s where ICQ got it from.
Seeing as it's not in the official song, I think it's from a bad rip or something.
That's what my wife said when I told her.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
ICQ was still on?
Right?! Like it wasn't already shutdown. The news is that it was still operational!
Edit: grammar
I know, right? ICQ managed to survive when MSN, Yahoo and AIM were all killed by Facebook Messenger?
Shit I wished I'd known
ICQ was still around? I thought it died ages ago!
It had. This thing only has branding in common. A different protocol, a different set of features (no contact directory), and while they had the old database of everything, they deemed a good idea to not preserve it, so old UINs don't exist.
#Uh-Oh!
ICQ may be going away but that message sound effect will continue living rent free in my brain until I’m dead.
I've heard that exact sound used on some computers (lottery maybe?) in gas stations in the US. I'm not sure why they picked that exact sound, but it's definitely distinct and recognizable.
Okay, can we all acknowledge that ICQ died when they nuked pretty much all of the accounts for no good reason?
While it's true it's shutting down, it was effectively dead for years. This is just the death rattle.
ICQ died the day they were bought by AOL.
TIL: ICQ was still around
Yeah I stopped around the same time. But I didn’t know they were run by VK. That’s interesting.
They were acquired recently.
Mirabilis created ICQ. AOL bought Mirabilis in 1998. Russian investor DST (which soon became Mail.ru and later VK) bought ICQ from AOL in 2010, probably because Russians were among the few nationalities still using it. Russians were over 25% of the hits, and it was the biggest instant messenger in Russia at the time. They also own VKontakte, hence why they're directing people there.
I remember downloading almost the complete catalogue of Sega Dreamcast games through ICQ, along with plenty of rooms where “A/S/L?” was a common greeting.
Old enough/yes please/anywhere you'd like
I met an interesting Argentinian girl through ICQ. A co-worker ended up getting their inbox filled with large attachments from an overseas office with fast internet. We were still on dial-up. We just had pop3 access, no online front end. I stayed in the office over night to download the files so the connection wouldn't be interrupted by someone else accessing the line. To pass the time, I downloaded ICQ and started chatting with the Argentinian girl. She introduced me to this song.
Great memories.
I wonder how many old accounts I have from my childhood floating around, long forgotten, created well before the days of using a password manager
Meanwhile IRC and Usenet are still doing fine.
Those are protocols, so the servers/services that run than can come and go. XMPP, which was at least inspired by ICQ, will probably be around forever, similarly.
OSCAR is a protocol too. And there were ICQ servers to run locally back then too. There also was some "ICQ for business" or similar.
I've also learned yesterday that people responsible for Escargot (MSN server) have another project, NINA, for AIM and ICQ.
So maybe these things will be reborn.
They seem to aim for implementing all of the AOL suite functionality. Maybe after they achieve that we'll see Xtraz and contact directory from ICQ working again. If that happens, I'm going to cry for a few hours. EDIT: or weeks.
knock knock knock in the middle of the nicht because i forgot to turn off my speakers, and the whole household would wake up 😂
Oh wauw! I think ICQ 98b was the best version ever! Then everyone switched to MSN, and down hill went the internet (for me anyway)
Icq was bought a while ago and the buyer nuked the original user database. Not long ago I found my login info saved on an old zip drive and tried it. Was hoping my old buddies might still be there, hahahah.
Nope, icq as most remember it was toast maybe a decade ago.
Uh oh
That used to scare the crap out of me when I had the volume up and wasn't expecting a message!
18434 Will never forget it. So many good memories there
Damn, five figures. Nice! 912800 here.
I had the app on my phone, just to check in on my friendslist. None of them had logged on since about 2004 or so, at the latest.
I don't remember mine, but it was a 5 digit that started with 42. I was very proud.
Ooh, you beat mine: 848330 (unfortunately, mine was hacked over 5 years ago, and by the time I realized, their logs didn't go back far enough for me to validate that I was the original owner)
I actually did forget mine. I think it was in the low six digits though, 2-something IIRC.
WOW, 5 digits! You’ve got me beat! Not doxing myself because full name and all used for work; but I was a 6 digits UIN starting with 2 here.
How do you people remember your ICQ numbers? I don't remember what I did last week half the time.
1646590
I am autistic.
Seriously, though, diagnosed autistic and I remember numbers exceptionally well.
For some reason, I never used the "save login info" feature as a teen, I didn't trust that it was safe, so I typed it every time. Hundreds, if not thousands of times over the years. So even after 15 years or so of not using it, I still remember.
66618055 I never tried to get a better number because 666
666 One Boss
Icq numbers that go HARD
I feel envious.
Can't remember my number
I just recently tried to log into my old icq account. It didn’t let me unless I provided a phone number so I noped the fuck out.
Cell phones were not really "a thing" when I had icq. No way I'll remember my number. But I definitely used it for a time...
I just logged into mine. It asks for your phone number, but if you hit cancel it will let you in. I can't believe I remembered my number. Crazy.
Could always just use a temp number from a burner app.
2278311 🫡
1698962 iirc
14204799 (I think) 👋
I've forgotten my password and never linked an email to the account.
To this day I still wonder if they have the old chat history stored.
I got into my account the other day, it had a shit password from when I was a kid and no way for me to change it. Their web portal was barely functional.
6725571
409110
ICQ was still online!?!?!
I stopped using that shit like 25 years ago. Thought died in the late 90's
Same. Wow
Russians kept using it, just like Brazilians kept Orkut alive for years.
33214481
Never forgot my number. I wonder if it's still active.
It was interesting how random people came to talk to you and were really trying to get to know you. I don't think that would work in modern day internet.
I knew they were around because at times I randomly remembered my ICQ number and I tried logging in, but they won't let you if you forgot your password.
Haven't used it in many years. But I remember having a lot of fun with it in the 90s. A friend from the UK told me about it, and we used it to stay in touch.
Oh No, now it is even more useless that I still remember my number!
6479637 rip
And here I thought I was cool with my 8digit number starting with "1"
You're cool
I just logged with 77454405 and it still works. wow.
Used that when playing UO with buddies. Damn, now I feel old.
Fuuuuuuck... every once in awhile I'm like "I should bust out UO again!" But I can never recapture the magic that it once was for me.
234500080, I always liked my number.
Haven't used it in over ten years, I thought it had already shut down :)
icq died a long time ago, with its soul, the xtras, ripped out it remained an empty husk, a zombie walking under its new master, a russion company desperatly trying to have their own whats app clone
with its soul, the xtras
RE-ED TU-URN ... BLUTURN!
Hastalavista, MÄÄÄH!
o7
I don't even remember my numbers.
Most of my friends used aim or msn anyways
245948 - buhbye!
Damn, haven't used mine in about 2 decades, definitely can't remember anything about my profile to possibly access it
Same, I think my number would have been low because IIRC I was using ICQ with Trumpet Winsock on Windows 3.1.
4066088, still works too!
Earlier than mine, I was 7 digits, but started with a 7 IIRC.
1808142... I'm practically a boomer with that.
42442595 I was still logging in until it stopped working with Adium. It'd been a long time since I'd seen any of my contacts login at that point though. Just downloaded the official app and yeah. still a ghost town lol.
Uh-Oh!
somethingsomething-323-945
This is mildly upsetting because I remember ICQ is where I first met a seer who I was referred to by someone else. This was back when I was looking for help regarding a number of strange dreams and spirit visitations I was dealing with.