Pioneering internet messenger ICQ shuts after 28 years - CNA
Pioneering internet messenger ICQ shuts after 28 years
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/icq-messenger-shuts-after-28-years-4437901
Do you still remember your ICQ number?
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/icq-messenger-shuts-after-28-years-4437901
Do you still remember your ICQ number?
ICQ was my first foray into meeting girls online, back when that was a really weird thing to do.
Post a/s/l to pay respects.
There's a quote that came from ICQ's heyday that I had in mind when I wrote that:
"The Internet: where men are men, women are men, and little girls are FBI agents."
We need to revise that for Lemmy.
"Lemmy: Where men are men, and men are women, and women are men, and I think we've got a few women who were born women, and also there's a whole bunch of new genders as well, and no genders at all, and that's all cool with most of us."
It's a mouthful and might not read well on a t-shirt, but we can workshop it.
What was this from? I know the reference but can't place it. I could obviously search for it but, hey, I'm trying to be social here.
Man, I don't know honestly. I believe i first saw / read it on IRC in the 90's...
and now I'm turning to dust. haha
Thanks for being social!!!
I knew my first long distance gf on ICQ. I remember also having that service in Miranda IM along Yahoo Chat, MSN, Google Chat (back when it was based on XMPP) and Jabber.
Messages from my current gf are announced with the classic ICQ "Uh-oh!".
As someone who has most of her socialization on IRC now... Eww, mIRC is proprietary and for Windows. Maybe it's just me having learned about IRC only a couple years ago and thus not having a sentimental attachment, but why use it if you have open-source ones like Hexchat, Irssi or Weechat?
I used mIRC for years, but as the days have marched on, XChat replaced it, and then irssi, and finally weechat on SSH.
For me, mIRC had a clunky but useful script editor included that 14 year old me spent countless hours creating little chatbots with
RIP 53215700, the oldest account I’m still aware of that I’ve forgotten the password to. Must have made it in 98 or 99.
Edit: it was actually 2001 because I was in a Tribes 2 clan and we used ICQ to chat.
86336930 checking in. Pretty sure I remember the password, but it's not like I can check now.
You will be missed, ICQ. When no other messaging service worked, you always did.
I'm not sure how the numbers were doled out, but in 2000 it was a big deal having a sub-9-digit ICQ number.
Maybe I'm off by a bit then. I could have sworn I had one in like the 500k range but it must have been around '97 or '98.
I got on ICQ in 97 or 98 to keep up with friends from a MUD and mine was 7 digits. I haven't logged into it in over a decade because when I went back to see if anyone from the old game was around none ever showed up online.
It's with the aim and yahoo messenger in the clouds now. Good bye Trillian profile I had back in the late 90s, you were too beautiful for this world.
Yes! Trillian was awesome! I used it fairly religiously from the early to mid 00s. Combined my ICQ, Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, and AIM. I miss that beautiful, convenient piece of software.
how is everyone remembering their ICQ number?
I forgot mine 5 minutes after adding it to Trillian.
I have no idea why I remember mine, 520009. Haven't used ICQ in many years; I didn't know it was still up.
I'm pleasantly surprised the number of replies on Lemmy saying they used this service. It's nice to know that there are some old people on here, like me :)
UH OH!
With ICQ I learned the social skills that I couldn't on the real world because I had been bullied to near death. I talked to random people all over the world, learned that I could talk to girls without having to feel like shit.
Used it so much, and with volume up, my upstairs neighbor thought I was watching the teletubbies all the time because of the UH OH!
Met my first girlfriend this way, she was in Mexico, I was in Europe. Moved to Mexico to marry her (bad idea, she was rather manipulativr and a huge cheater as it turned out, got divorced) and lived in Mexico for samn near 20 years.
To say that ICQ had a big positive influence in my life is an understatement, it changed my life beyond anything I've ever had before.
Thank you.