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ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

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Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#12

I'm quite frankly amazed ICQ is still alive, I thought it was one of those things that had just died out some time ago.

I think ICQ (along with non-technical IRC) took a gut punch when Microsoft bundled MSN Messenger with Windows XP.

Almost over night people were switching to (or adopting) MSNM, often reproducing online the cliques already existing in the local communities.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#13
post #5

I still remember my ICQ number and I haven't used it since 99b. And looking it up reveals I was stupid enough to fill in my birthday correctly for it, which still displays publicly to this day.

Yeah, I have a 500K number. I had a friend who was in the low 30Ks. There was a sense in "pride" when you gave someone your number and they would say "Isn't there meant to be a few more numbers?"

I had two numbers at one point, tended to give out the longer one to avoid confusing people and appear "normal", hah.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#14
post #9

Around 2000 I got annoyed with the ads and crap in ICQ, so I wrote Miranda ICQ, now called Miranda IM ( http://www.miranda-im.org/ ) based on libicq. One of my main inspirations to write the app was I wanted to connect a chatbot to ICQ to harass my friends, but the standard API wouldn't allow sending messages. So I added a plugin API, connected the MegaHAL chatbot and good times ensued. I lost interest in Miranda sho…

Miranda was my go to for years! We used to tar up our bundles and drop them into our work stations at our call centre jobs where messaging was a strict no no! Due to its super slim design and hotkeys it was the best tool for the job! Thank you for building it! I spent days upon days customizing it and hacking it as a young techie. It truly is my favourite messenger of all time. I wish I could still use it on OSX to consolidate all the different messaging services that are popular these days; slack, FB, imessage etc. It's funny how history repeats itself.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#15
It's amazing how they blew it. I remember, back in the day they were dominant messaging platform. And now they are relic of the past, while WhatsApp was purchased for $19 billions. All of this because they missed mobile revolution.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#17
post #5

I still remember my ICQ number and I haven't used it since 99b. And looking it up reveals I was stupid enough to fill in my birthday correctly for it, which still displays publicly to this day.

Yeah, I have a 500K number. I had a friend who was in the low 30Ks. There was a sense in "pride" when you gave someone your number and they would say "Isn't there meant to be a few more numbers?"

I had a 5-digit in low 20K at the time.

It was stolen because of a weak password on the account.

This is how I started my way in cyber security, thanks to the frustration and further research on how that happened.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#18
post #9

Around 2000 I got annoyed with the ads and crap in ICQ, so I wrote Miranda ICQ, now called Miranda IM ( http://www.miranda-im.org/ ) based on libicq. One of my main inspirations to write the app was I wanted to connect a chatbot to ICQ to harass my friends, but the standard API wouldn't allow sending messages. So I added a plugin API, connected the MegaHAL chatbot and good times ensued. I lost interest in Miranda sho…

Wow you're a legend :) Thanks for Miranda.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I have a 500K number. I had a friend who was in the low 30Ks. There was a sense in "pride" when you gave someone your number and they would say "Isn't there meant to be a few more numbers?"

I had a 5-digit in low 20K at the time. It was stolen because of a weak password on the account. This is how I started my way in cyber security, thanks to the frustration and further research on how that happened.

i had a 6-digit number in the 150's. i haven't logged in in years, and when i did the password reset i discovered it's associated with some mail.ru address now. oh well.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#20
I still remember my ICQ # (147xxxxx - set up around 1997 or 1998 I think) and my password - looking at the list of contacts, I suspect most if not all haven't logged in over 10 years. It's like a time capsule.
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