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.

  • Ledivin@lemmy.worldEnglish
    45·
    6 months ago

    Serious question: did anyone here actually know it was still around? I’m one of the more tech-savvy people I know and haven’t touched ICQ in well over a decade at this point

      • 4am@lemm.eeEnglish
        41·
        6 months ago

        Nope, it was much closer to AIM than IRC.

        Also, IRC also depends on servers and, well, many of them have shut down 😔

    • Godort@lemm.eeEnglish
      91·
      6 months ago

      Not at all.

      It’s been well over 20 years since I’ve heard anyone talk about it, and its probably been 25 since I used it myself.

    • toofpic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      6 months ago

      I was working in Russian IT sector at the time when the government tried to block Telegram. For a few days we had some communication problems because we ised TG for all project chats and communication with most customers. We worked as contractors making an app with/for Mail Ru Group (now the whole company is rebranded as VK, but it’s actually a lot of different businesses). This is when I got to know that product manager I was working with was also the product manager for ICQ. And that we had to switch to fucking ICQ for daily conversations because that was their default backup method. Crazy!
      I found out that it was facelifted up to the point where you couldn’t see the difference between it, TG or WhatsApp.
      After about a week, TG was updated and it had a dynamic server connection (not a hardcoded one), so IP blocks stopped working and we returned to tg.
      I still remember my number from the 2000s: 173114498. Though I lost access to that account a long time ago

  • jjjalljs@ttrpg.networkEnglish
    42·
    6 months ago

    I remember being annoyed back in the 90s that ICQ was better than AIM, but everyone just wanted to use AIM. On ICQ you could message offline people, change your display name, and other stuff I don’t remember. It kind of was a big influence in my “wow, people are a bunch of lazy morons” impulse I need to push against even now.

  • megabat@lemm.eeEnglish
    27·
    6 months ago

    Holy crap I remembered my 7 digit id and password! Everyone on my list was “last seen a long time ago” and there’s no chat history.

  • Kokesh@lemmy.worldEnglish
    26·
    6 months ago

    My first ever messaging platform. Still can vividly hear the notification sound… RIP

  • jennwiththesea@lemmy.worldEnglish
    17·
    6 months ago

    Wow, end of an era. ICQ was how I kept in touch with friends after I left for college. Back then, you had to pay per text on your phone or have a limited number each month, and ICQ was free.

  • dave@hal9000@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    6 months ago

    Wow, I thought it shut down loooong ago. I wonder if there’s any way to retrieve an archive of your IMs or anything like that? If only I remembered my number…

    • ThirdWorldOrder@feddit.nlEnglish
      3·
      6 months ago

      I’m a peasant with 7 digits but met some friends on their too who I’ve met in real life and been to their weddings and bachelor parties