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ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

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Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#81

Post by digi_owl »

stormbrew wrote: post #33
digi_owl wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you Canadian by any chance? MSN only ever really seemed to take off in some specific regions, one of which was Canada. After ICQ, almost all my American contacts moved to AIM. Which was honestly pretty awful, since MSNM was much nicer.

Norwegian actually.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#82

Post by buserror »

mathrawka wrote: post #32
FigBug wrote: 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…

Hey! I'm not sure if we ever talked, but I maintained Licq and did the rewrite when the protocol got switched to be like AIM. I also wrote the initial Miranda ICQ plugin for the new protocol as well, I think that was back in 2002. Just thought I'd say hey.

licq, thanks for that, scary thoughts how much of my life back then passed thru licq.

I'm still on ICQ, via pidgin. There's just 'me' these days, but I'm holding the fort. So there :-)

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#83

Post by peterwwillis »

Fun fact: So many international criminals use ICQ to make deals that "unspecified federal investigators" (read: spooks) had "brought concerns to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S." (the treasury) protesting its sale to a Russian company and asking them to stop it.

ICQ is specifically referenced in speeches by FBI and intelligence agency directors. So that's a pretty neat rep to have.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#84

Post by Cyph0n »

FigBug wrote: 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 started using Miranda relatively late - around 2008 or so - but I do recall that it was the best chat app back then. I think Pidgin started to become popular around this time.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#85

Post by 4ad »

hal9000xp wrote: post #74

I'm former ICQ backend developer (2010 - 2014). I started to work at Mail.Ru in 2010, when Mail.Ru bought ICQ from AOL. I was enjoyed working with ICQ backend code-base written by AOL (although to be honest not all code was high quality). Here are some quick facts about ICQ backend infrastructure: 1) ICQ servers has over 2'700'000 lines of code which is written in C and C++; 2) ICQ has its own TCP/IP implementation w…

> ICQ has its own TCP/IP implementation which works in the user space;

Mind expanding a little bit why is that?

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#86

Post by scrollaway »

FigBug wrote: 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…

Woah! Miranda was my first IRC+MSN client, back when MSN was a thing... I no longer use it, but let me be another person to thank you for creating it.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#87

Post by qwertyuiop924 »

bluedino wrote: post #22
qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #10

>the forerunner of all messengers ...erm... IRC? write? talk? CBBS? No?

Those aren't really messengers.

Define "messenger."

All of the above (save perhaps write) allow two users to converse freely, over a network. Sounds like a messenger to me.

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#89

Post by j2bax »

Terr_ wrote: post #80
j2bax wrote: post #35

Did anyone else used to "hack" people on ICQ? If I recall correctly, ICQ would expose users IP address if they didn't intentionally hide it. My friend and I would get to chatting with strangers and then exchange photos... Only ours wasn't a photo, it was something that opened a backdoor into their computer that would allow us to take over their PC. We never did anything harmful but might have gotten a few people in t…

No, but I was a moderator or helper in #NoHack on DALnet for a while, giving people removal instructions all day :)

Good man. Cleaning up after us snotnose teenage wannabe hackers. :D

Re: ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit

#90

Post by sofaofthedamned »

failrate wrote: post #34
sofaofthedamned wrote: post #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.

You are perhaps not aware of Grindr.

Good point. But this was 15+ years ago, available to everybody, and was completely anonymous.
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