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ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

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Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#21
post #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.

And because they were too greedy with their annoying ads.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#23
I remember there was a license issue about ICQ where they made you license everything you wrote on ICQ.. that's when I left the platform.

It's good to see that they eventually added end-to-end encryption.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#25
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, let me be the first to say Thanks! I still use Miranda daily, both at my desktop computer at home and at my computer at work. Just chat, no fuzz.. Just the way I like it.

It seems that Miranda has forked into Miranda IM and Miranda NG, what are your thoughts about those two? Personally, I use Miranda NG because the Facebook plugin worked better in NG last time I compared the two.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#26
Everybody is missing the elephant in the room with ICQ, which is why it was popular:

In my mid 20's, i'd come back from the pub drunk, login, search for girls online now near me and send them messages. Was usually somebody drunk at the other end, had a few fleeting relationships from that.

Nothing since, including Facebook, has had that same immediacy.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#27
7285081 - I still remember it 20 years later.

I think I was introduced to ICQ when I started playing Ultima Online. Good times, better internets back then.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#28

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.

Yeah same here, mine was an 8 digit, so not super impressive. But still was stolen. Associated with a .ir email account now. Oh well.

Same sort of thing happens with low SteamIDs.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#30
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…

I loved Miranda, and made all my friends use it :)
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