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Messaging Service ICQ To Shut Down Next Month After Nearly 30 Years (icq.com) 83

Posted by msmash from the end-of-road dept.
ICQ, a once-popular IM, is shutting down on June 26, it says on its website. It once served tens of millions of users daily.
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Messaging Service ICQ To Shut Down Next Month After Nearly 30 Years More

Messaging Service ICQ To Shut Down Next Month After Nearly 30 Years

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  • uh oh! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by i.r.id10t ( 595143 ) on Friday May 24, 2024 @01:29PM (#64496449)

    End of an era ....

    • It totally is. Circa 2000, I made so many friends on that system. of course, I haven't used it for years, but it was vital when I was living overseas.

    • Re:uh oh! (Score:5, Funny)

      by kamapuaa ( 555446 ) on Friday May 24, 2024 @01:42PM (#64496501) Homepage

      And yet the site has been Slashdotted by the approximately 53 users still here. Some things never change.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      Seems like IRC [mirc.com] still is around.

      • IRC (Score:3, Informative)

        by davidwr ( 791652 )

        IRC is an open protocol. There are many independent "IRC networks" and who-knows-how-many stand-alone IRC servers.

        ICQ is based on a proprietary protocol.

        • ICQ is based on a proprietary protocol.

          Proprietary, yes, but so well known that it may as well be open.

          • It was well known, and there were multiple thirds party clients. My favourite was a console one called ysm (you sick me). But at one point ICQ started to change the protocol constantly so other clients can't connect. I believe this was what caused the downfall.

    • Yes... the end of an era.

      And in my case- most of my former icq contacts are dead. 30 years is a long time.

      Poignant.

    • End of an era ....

      It's not really the end of an era: the September that never ended https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] continues.

  • They were always trying to fuck over the ICQ folks and force some nasty client with ads or other horrible shit. I loved the old client because it was not bloated and had a nice simple interface. Even my grandma could figure it out. I used some encryption plugins with GAIM back in the day to secure my IM's with my girlfriends or friends. However, there started to be too many other effortless alternatives like Signal which were marginally better. Also, I think those of us who remember ICQ from the beginning

    • Re:Used it for many years but won't miss it. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ZERO1ZERO ( 948669 ) on Friday May 24, 2024 @01:42PM (#64496499)
      I used to use it in the mid to late 90's. It was amazing being able to instantly message your friends. When just 'being online' was a thing, Netscape navigator, HotDog and HoTMetaL html editors. Free webspace from your dial up ISP. Long before before SMS, mobiles, iphone, 'apps' etc Long before the kids started on MSN messenger. It was a revelation. After the client went a bit wanky, I used the free client that handled all the messaging, can't remember the name of it. Maybe Trillian? It's certainly the end, of some kind of era, along with geocities and all the whats called web 1.0 stuff these days. Is there anything left from back then anymore? I guess slashdot hasn't changed much lol.
      • akshully, I have to correct my self. It was Miranda the client I used Miranda NG [wikipedia.org]
        • I used to use that one, too, and Trillian. I don't think there is much good left over from the "web 1.0" that you and I both remember. They drowned it in the bathtub and replaced our budding libertarian paradise with a strip mall and a soviet-style censorship mandate.
          • I used adium for a long time... then everyone moved to facebook and i refused to follow.

          • I used to use that one, too, and Trillian. I don't think there is much good left over from the "web 1.0" that you and I both remember. They drowned it in the bathtub and replaced our budding libertarian paradise with a strip mall and a soviet-style censorship mandate.

            I think the Trillium was the last closed-source client I used before switching to Pidgin. I just checked my ~/.purple/logs directory and all my old chats are still in there even though I haven't used it in decades.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by unrtst ( 777550 )

        I still miss the way HoTMetaL let you work with tables.

      • Yup, Trillian probably. That was awesome: all your individual contacts could be grouped under a single name, where Trillian would then send it to whatever IM platform they happened to be online with or had the capability of receiving your msg/file/call/..

        Later, Pidgin filled that void, and, on top, Pidgin is multiplatform. I still use libpurple (Pidgin's connectivity engine) and a local Bitlbee instance to log all my messaging to irssi. You know, those proprietary platforms with otherwise proprietary client

      • Yeah I had it those days as well. A friend from IRC intro'ed me to it. Had a 6 digit UIN, as I recall.

        ICQ was very cool for what it was those days. Dropped it a couple of years later. Didnt bother to get back the UIN or anything else.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by tbords ( 9006337 )
        IRC is still around with plenty of activity.
    • they took out all teh cool features that made icq fun and unique and replaced them with bloated ad garbage. See as they type mode with fonts and colors, random friend finder, lots of social stuff.

  • 19179167 signing off...

  • I Seek You (Score:3)

    by sudonim2 ( 2073156 ) on Friday May 24, 2024 @01:40PM (#64496487)

    I guess they found who they were looking for. Or everyone stopped looking for them?

  • In Other News (Score:4, Insightful)

    by bitwraith ( 5044201 ) on Friday May 24, 2024 @01:41PM (#64496491)
    ... ICQ still exists. I assumed it was gone like 15 years ago.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HBI ( 10338492 )

      I actually presumed it was turned off when OSCAR was turned off, since my Pidgin client used the same protocol to communicate with ICQ and AIM. If ICQ was still running, then I was unaware of how to connect to it after a certain point.

  • Back in '98 we used the standalone server as a workplace chat app for a tech support department. It worked great, especially since we were always on the phone you could still chat with a coworker. The server wasn't well supported and had a memory leak which lead to the NT Server crashing and killing the entire tech support departments MS Access database. Boss wasn't happy, but had to take the hit since he gave into our request to install. It was fun while it lasted.

  • Fuck em (Score:4, Interesting)

    by shibbie ( 619359 ) on Friday May 24, 2024 @01:56PM (#64496555)
    I had my account hacked in the early 2000s by a Russian (my own fault, I was naive back then) and had a ~100000 account number which was valuable on the black market due being low. I complained to their support, asked them to email me to reset, and all they said was "create a new account" and refused to help. They did this for a lot of people from what I can tell so fuck 'em. They're not missed.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ecuador ( 740021 )

      By the early 2000s ICQ was already past its peak. The original creators, Mirabilis, sold it in '98 to AOL and it started going downhill from then on. So you were expecting customer service from AOL basically...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      Sounds like not much has changed in the last 20 years with regards to tech support.

  • I could never warm up to the program. But then again I was spending countless hours hanging out on IRC during that era, so what do I know.

  • I used to use it all the time had a very low number. Someone "hacked" my account and took it a long time ago.

    • They didn't really run a tight ship. It may have been sold by their own staff or had the authentication credentials simply deleted on accident.

  • I'm astonished that it still existed until today. Last time I used it was probably 20 years ago.

  • Turns out my password manager still has my old ICQ credentials from the 90s. I logged in and every single person on my contacts list is categorized as "seen a long time ago." This is true, in every sense, bar a single person that I still speak to on a regular basis.

    Even though it's probably been over twenty years since I last had a chat with anyone on there, I'm still sad to see it go. Then again, give it about two decades and statistically speaking I shall also be gone.

  • According to Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], ICQ has been owned by VK group since 2010. The Russians couldn't make anything useful out of a popular app, it seems. If it were popular, it positively would have been sanctioned on the start of the war. Maybe this is a metaphor for how businesses cannot really succeed in a corrupt country.

    • They only bought it to stalk me and my then friends and contacts through it on behalf of the FSB and a couple of loosely affiliated cult/mafia groups. Once I stopped using it, it was only a matter of time before the facade became too expensive to maintain. It's the same thing that happened to AIM and Ymessenger.

    • It wasn't really popular in most parts of the world anymore by the time Mail.ru bought it in 2010. I think AOL and Microsoft did a good job, working on opposite sides, to make ICQ relatively irrelevant. I personally stopped using it when in the early 2000s, most of my contacts were moving over to MSN Messenger.

      I logged back in to my account yesterday, and none of my contacts had been online for at least 10 years. The timestamps don't go back far enough to see what the actual dates were, it showed Dec 31 201
  • I met and chatted to so many friends there. I met my best friend there. She changed my world and taught me so much. She's gone now. I miss her more than I can put into words. So many years we chatted via ICQ: we joked, laughed, cried, shared our hopes and dreams, talked about everything imaginable both silly and serious. I haven't thought about ICQ for years. Surprised it's still going. For me this is like one last bright ember of what once was, of her, fading into the night as the moon looks on. Goodbye
    • I don't know you nor your friend, but reading this brought a tear to my eye. You put this in very nice, poetic words, thank you for sharing.

      I never had an online friendship that deep, but I also feel melancholic about the fact that today's Internet doesn't seem to allow that kind of connection anymore. To me, ICQ will always remain a symbol for that very special time when the Internet felt as utopian and full of human potential as it probably never will again. When online time was expensive and limited, and
  • I still remember my ICQ number (5775065). The email address i used is long gone so can never get back into it. I remember when each version was way better from the last and then... it went down hill with adverts and useless addons.
    • I was in a similar situation and it led me down a nice path.

      I still remembered my ICQ number by heart, but not the password. Tried the recovery option (which is pretty difficult to find), only to see that I had used an e-mail address on what was my first personal domain. I forgot to renew that one about 5 years ago and lost it to a domain squatter. Now, thanks to ICQ, I checked it again and saw that it had expired. I immediately re-registered it, set up a forwarding on my old e-mail address, and recovered m
  • wow I wonder if my account still active, I must have that password somewhere.

  • Used you since 1997. Still actually sign in via the number, and not an e-mail address.

    Better let the remainder there know I'm on telegram and discord, before it shuts down.

  • Am I the only old-timer who isn't feeling nostalgic? I remember the hype back then, and all my homies used ICQ... but not me. I guess it's due to my anti-social tendencies.

    • Am I the only old-timer who isn't feeling nostalgic? I remember the hype back then, and all my homies used ICQ... but not me. I guess it's due to my anti-social tendencies.

      No, I'm with you. I had to use it for professional reasons but it never was of interest to me personally.

  • 25239342

  • VK (Score:2)

    by nicubunu ( 242346 )

    I forgot my ICQ number, never actively used it in the last 20 years.... probably I can find it if I look in old backups for the Pidgin config/data. Wanted to brag about it here and thought recovering it from the website is faster, went to icq.com and saw they recommend a move to VK Messenger. Sorry, I won't give any data to VK because Russia.

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