ICQ icon
ICQ icon

ICQ

 72 likes

ICQ is one of the oldest instant messengers. First developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis, sold to AOL, sold again and currenly owned by the Russian "mail.ru" group (known for one of the largest social networks).

ICQ screenshot 1
ICQ screenshot 2
ICQ screenshot 3

License model

  • FreeProprietary

Country of Origin

  • RU flagRussia

Platforms

  • Mac
  • Windows
  • Linux  Available as Snap package
  • Online  available at icq.com
  • Android
  • iPhone
  • Android Tablet
  • iPad
Discontinued

ICQ will stop working from June 26, 2024.

4 / 5 Avg rating (3)
72likes
6comments

Features

Suggest and vote on features
  1.  Web-Based
  2.  Video Calling
  3.  Messages

 Tags

ICQ News & Activities

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Comments and Reviews

   
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Top Positive Comment
Goranko Ilic
Jul 4, 2018
0

It is easy to find users in chat rooms. I found some good girls.

Top Negative Comment
martinjohn1
Aug 25, 2016
0

Hmmm - it asks for me to enter my country code and phone number, then returns a red message saying "Perhaps you are entering a city phone number" No explanation of what it means, what alternatives there are, or how to proceed.

I can only assume that only people with moblie phone accounts are allowed to sign up.

[Edited by martinjohn1, August 25]

[Edited by martinjohn1, August 25]

dygotron
Dec 13, 2022
0

The website no longer functions

linuxien
May 20, 2019
-1

One Question : Is this program libre / Open Source?

According to the website https://icq.com/linux/en

"This software is available under Apache Public License 2.0 license

Source code is available on GitHub"

Rate : I used to be a regular user, now, very rarely, but it may change.

massagesGR
Jan 23, 2012
1

i don't know the technical, but ... what i really liked ICQ for was being able to split the screen and see the message the other person was composing as they were typing it. you could see the letters being typed, so there was no "drag time" in waiting for them to type, then they press send, they you see it, then you read it, they you type your response, etc. seeing them heading down a certain path with the conversation, you could jump in and say, "no, i didn't mean that" right away and it really sped up the whole chat thing.

is there a program ... a "good", not bloated, susceptible to spambots program that does that? so each of us chatting can see what the other is saying right as it's being keyed in? i would love to find something safe / fast / clean / efficient that did that (like ICQ used to do).

thanks much

kramyugtaht
Oct 28, 2017

massagesGR has a REALLY important point, this actually CANNOT be emphasized enough. The addictiveness of social media is now fairly common knowledge (and the fact that it's by DESIGN) but people are still naive enough to think it's how you use it, they are all but completely unaware of the kind of impact it has on them.

The importance of seeing people type the messages is it is in REAL TIME, and there's a natural flow to it. When you send a completed message, even short ones people are prone to make assumptions about how to interpret that, assumptions they don't even know are assumptions - they just take it as fact and make a judgement based on that. Attention span being what it is even the person writing it may lose track and get distracted by their response, especially if it gets emotional and conflict ensues.

Using this kind of real time flow can go a long way, but unfortunately I'm afraid people are so conditioned by the current style of instant messaging that they will not bother to implement this anymore. And plenty of people will have never used it so they don't know what you're talking about, and just ignore it and move on to the next thing.

If anyone out there knows of this feature ANYWHERE, PLEASE chime in. There is WAY too much naive users just following what's given them out there and they have NO idea how their mind has been conditioned in a basic way.

[Edited by kramyugtaht, October 28]

kramyugtaht
Oct 28, 2017

A bit more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real-time_text#Real-time_text_protocols "While standard instant messaging is not real-time text (the message is only sent at the end of a thought, not while it is being composed), a real-time text option is found in some instant messaging software, including AOL Instant Messenger's "Real-Time IM"[4] feature."

The bad news: https://www.ghacks.net/2017/10/07/aim-shutdown-aol-instant-messenger-alternatives/

"AOL announced yesterday that it will shut down the company's messaging service AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) on December 15th, 2017."

Bootlegger
Sep 30, 2009
0

ICQ used to be a decent IM client/service. Then it became bloated and extremely prone to spambots.

What is ICQ?

ICQ is one of the oldest instant messengers. First developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis, sold to AOL, sold again and currenly owned by the Russian "mail.ru" group (known for one of the largest social networks). ICQ has been redesigned and is totally different from the "old ICQ". It's available for almost every platform: Web, Desktop, Mobile and even via WAP.

Official Links

ICQ information

  • Developed by

    RU flagMail.Ru
  • Licensing

    Proprietary and Free product.
  • Rating

    Average rating of 4
  • Alternatives

    102 alternatives listed
  • Supported Languages

    • English
    • Arabic
    • Czech
    • French
    • German
    • Portuguese
    • Russian
    • Chinese
    • Spanish
    • Turkish
    • Ukrainian
    • Vietnamese

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Our users have written 6 comments and reviews about ICQ, and it has gotten 72 likes

ICQ was added to AlternativeTo by zteff on Mar 16, 2009 and this page was last updated May 25, 2024.