I hope the last message sent on ICQ will be as poetic as the last message on AIM (according to https://justanman.org/posts/the-last-message-sent-on-aim/)
ICQ will stop working from June 26
231–240 of 776 posts
Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26
#232This makes me sad. I mean, I haven't logged in in about 20 years now, and couldn't if I wanted to (don't have the password or access to the email address). But I had a low five digit user number, and built a lot of relationships on ICQ (some of which continue today!). It was my main method of electronic communication in college. I had romantic relationships live and die on ICQ. Another reminder of how things change o…
Same for me but the day I will really cry a little will be when mIRC dies. It was my introduction to instant effortless free worldwide communication. Of course I haven't used it for decades but it calms me that it is still very alive.
mIRC has the same chance of dying as Irssi. As in none.
Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26
#233RIP 2412581 - I don't think I'll ever forget my UIN Proud to be part of this generation of "instant messengers". Long, long before texting, me and my peers were living the future life!
Instant messengers were great — better than texting and better than posting on FB/Twitter IMO. I loved away messages, which were ephemeral and not spammed to your network. We're getting a little of that functionality with iOS's DND status, but it's not customizable.
My theory is that FB didn't want to enable away messages because then people would just set it once and not log in for a long time. It's a shame that a feature that was common 20 years ago is now only starting to make a comeback.
Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26
#234It was way ahead of its time even in the 90s. I remember being swooned by the real-time typing windows, amazing sound effects, Just Works™ file transfer, and the wonderful contact list with people decorating their names with ASCII art. I made some wonderful friends in real life.
I don't remember file transfer being very reliable, it used direct connections between clients so if you had a router it wouldn't work.
Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26
#235Can't remember my driver's license number but will never forget 13658022.
RIP
Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
why should ICQ be a social network?
In the purest sense of those two words it was a social way to interact with a network of people?
That's very fuzzy. What about e-mail? Or the phone network? Or the internet in general? Yes, there can be some social aspects to it. But that by itself does not make it into a social network.
Networks have topologies and paths. The social graph matters on facebook because you get connected to your friend's friends which is a core feature of the platform. This is not the case with chat platforms.
Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Woah, that's a low number.
there was a big market for short numbers back in the day. i remember buying a 6-digit icq number for a 10€ paysafecard when i was like 14 in a "hacker" forum lol
The hack was to scan ICQ numbers for their associated email addresses, filter by big providers like Hotmail and Yahoo and try to sign up for the same address. Some were abandoned and you could use the username again. Then password-reset in ICQ and voila, there’s your 6-digit ICQ number.
But yeah, I bought a 6 digit number on eBay for 5-10 bucks too ;)
Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26
#238ICQ later.
Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26
#239This makes me sad. I mean, I haven't logged in in about 20 years now, and couldn't if I wanted to (don't have the password or access to the email address). But I had a low five digit user number, and built a lot of relationships on ICQ (some of which continue today!). It was my main method of electronic communication in college. I had romantic relationships live and die on ICQ. Another reminder of how things change o…
4125222 I still remember it but not the pass
I had 2589620 ... I have the password, somewhere. :)
Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26
#240Good old days