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ICQ will stop working from June 26

icq.com

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Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#611

Post by snthpy »

jen_h wrote: post #607

Wow. Blast from the past. Just tried to log in after 20 years and it worked…but I didn’t get farther than it requiring full name and a phone number and lots of other mobile web badness before noping out. If they still have those account creds and first names, y’all reckon VKontacte has our old messages? :X Oh well, have great memories, pouring one out for ICQ tonight.

Wow, a blast from the past indeed. I used it heavily in 1997 and then switched to other things in the late 90s. Can't believe this still works.

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#612

Post by brnt »

jraph wrote: post #456
nogridbag wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still feel bad I left my parents' computer online all night to download a .wav (?) audio file of Mario jumping from Nintendo.com. Back then, the closest most kids got to Nintendo was via video game magazines. So going to Nintendo.com for the first time and downloading an audio file was a special moment. The download was taking hours and I have no idea how much it cost my parents. I just remember being so disappoint…

Wait, it didn't take an entire night to download a 1 sec wav (assuming the worst) file, did it? 1 sec of wav would be 176.4 kB (assuming 44.1 kHz, 16 bits, stereo), or 176.4 * 1024 * 8 bits. That divided by 28800 bits/s (assuming a 28k modem) gives 50.1 seconds. A 96 kHz 32 bit stereo wav would be 768 kB, 4-5 times that so still less than 5 minutes. What am I missing?

I remember downloading the Monstertruck Madness demo overnight (15megs or so?).

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#613

Post by totetsu »

hypercube33 wrote: post #596
badsectoracula wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when people all of a sudden switched to a worse alternative, MSN MSN wasn't a worse alternative to ICQ, MSN was faster and came with Windows, making it both easier to keep running at the background on the weak hardware of the time (i remember launching ICQ and waiting waiting waiting at the splash screen with the rotating petal colors and then the main UI was a mess of buttons, icons and all sorts of bloat) and it…

At some point I had MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and irc and pidgn came to save me. There were also cool places to hang out like Yahoo Games or a few of the location based chat apps that were fun to connect to strangers and just chat. Discord is so walled garden it's awful in this respect. I also miss the VRML world builders like CyberTown https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/CyberTown

then you could try pidgin to connect them all from one app

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#614

Post by dandanua »

kazinator wrote: post #599
bayindirh wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ICQ was the chat tool of the democratic internet, or internet of the people if you prefer the term. After companies started dominating the internet, it was never be the same. We thought that any company would play by our rules, but they poisoned us with their research, gamification, single way information flow, and walled gardens. This is why I moved to small web. I miss the old internet dearly.

> ICQ was the chat tool of the democratic internet It was proprietary client software released in 1996 and bought by AOL two years later. It relies on a service operated by a single party, which is now sunsetting it. According to the Wikipedia article, when ICQ was under AOL's stewardship, "AOL pursued an aggressive policy regarding alternative ("unauthorized") ICQ clients." The article details all the tactics that A…

If it still feels more democratic than modern chat apps then there is something deeply wrong with how things evolve.

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#616

Post by gassius »

larodi wrote: post #116
jedberg wrote: post #14

This 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

733927

Still remembered, always remembered

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#617

Post by Suppafly »

garciasn wrote: post #551
incompatible wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was commercial, wasn't it? And only worked on Windows? IRC was the open alternative.

I had a Linux ICQ client in 1997/1998.

I had to recompile some cmd line one from the linux sources to work from my home directory on my universities unix system ~2000. Back before everyone in college had laptops.

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#618

Post by UberFly »

joshspankit wrote: post #567
RajT88 wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First thought: I had assumed ICQ was long dead. It seemed impossible anything from that era could still be running. IRC is of course, through the grace of an ecosystem, but it is a tiny fraction of what it was. Second thought: how do people randomly connect to talk now? Comments sections mostly? I have long ago stopped seeking new connections of any variety.

While it had it’s troubles and closed recently, omegle was a modern way for people to connect randomly.

That's for sure.

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#619

Post by netsharc »

swores wrote: post #606
trilbyglens wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WhatsApp is European much more than it is American. Most Americans are just using SMS like cave people.

The comment you replied to is more accurate, as WhatsApp is huge in multiple continents not just in Europe (just not as big in North America as you both point out). For example it's big in South America (and I think Central America too?)

Asia too. Australia too. So again it's the Fahrenheit users being different...

Edit: I looked it up, maybe not Australia...

Re: ICQ will stop working from June 26

#620

Post by ido »

trilbyglens wrote: post #602
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp in non US world

WhatsApp is European much more than it is American. Most Americans are just using SMS like cave people.

How much of that due to sms historically being free in the US but cost per-message elsewhere?
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