Messaging Service ICQ To Shut Down Next Month After Nearly 30 Years
ICQ, a once-popular IM, is shutting down on June 26, it says on its website. It once served tens of millions of users daily.
Serious question: did anyone here actually know it was still around? I'm one of the more tech-savvy people I know and haven't touched ICQ in well over a decade at this point
Not at all.
It's been well over 20 years since I've heard anyone talk about it, and its probably been 25 since I used it myself.
I was working in Russian IT sector at the time when the government tried to block Telegram. For a few days we had some communication problems because we ised TG for all project chats and communication with most customers. We worked as contractors making an app with/for Mail Ru Group (now the whole company is rebranded as VK, but it's actually a lot of different businesses). This is when I got to know that product manager I was working with was also the product manager for ICQ. And that we had to switch to fucking ICQ for daily conversations because that was their default backup method. Crazy!
I found out that it was facelifted up to the point where you couldn't see the difference between it, TG or WhatsApp.
After about a week, TG was updated and it had a dynamic server connection (not a hardcoded one), so IP blocks stopped working and we returned to tg.
I still remember my number from the 2000s: 173114498. Though I lost access to that account a long time ago
I remember being annoyed back in the 90s that ICQ was better than AIM, but everyone just wanted to use AIM. On ICQ you could message offline people, change your display name, and other stuff I don't remember. It kind of was a big influence in my "wow, people are a bunch of lazy morons" impulse I need to push against even now.
3369689 you can add me
My first ever messaging platform. Still can vividly hear the notification sound... RIP
"uh-oh" is what is sounded like to me
Exactly!
I met my wife on ICQ in 1998.
I'm so sorry you'll have to divorce her next month.
You win some and you lose some as they say
Me too. But early 2000s.
Wow, end of an era. ICQ was how I kept in touch with friends after I left for college. Back then, you had to pay per text on your phone or have a limited number each month, and ICQ was free.
Wow, I thought it shut down loooong ago. I wonder if there's any way to retrieve an archive of your IMs or anything like that? If only I remembered my number...
I guess we are lucky they aren't selling our old chats.
You think they would admit to that publicly?
Perhaps. But what value would 20 year old chats really have?
I have a 6 digit ICQ number. Actually made some friends IRL via ICQ.
I’m a peasant with 7 digits but met some friends on their too who I’ve met in real life and been to their weddings and bachelor parties
I got in so early, I got a single digit IQ number!
Wait, what's ICQ?
In other news, ICWeiner is still going strong
Awww
o7
damn, that was the first IM service I used, I still remember its logo from ~2001
356531
20042778
37
9694826
That's numberwang! Spin the board!
uh oh
That's my Signal alert sound.
UH oh