ICQ, One of the Oldest Instant Messengers, Is Shutting Down

https://discuss.tchncs.de/post/16292849

ICQ, One of the Oldest Instant Messengers, Is Shutting Down - tchncs

> ICQ will stop working on June 26. It’s encouraging users to migrate to a messaging app from Russia-based VK, its parent company. I stopped using ICQ in the very early 00s. I didn’t know anything of it still remained.

ICQ was still on?
Right?! Like it wasn’t already shutdown. The news is that is was still operational!
I know, right? ICQ managed to survive when MSN, Yahoo and AIM were all killed by Facebook Messenger?
Shit I wished I’d known
Haven’t used it in many years. But I remember having a lot of fun with it in the 90s. A friend from the UK told me about it, and we used it to stay in touch.
Uh oh!
That’s what my wife said when I told her.
They probably got the sound file from the Visual C++ 4.2 CD’s samples folder. That’s where ICQ got it from.
Seeing as it’s not in the official song, I think it’s from a bad rip or something.
I met my wife on ICQ. I had random chat turned on and she said, “Hello.” That was a long time ago
I met your wife there too.

So what?

We all did.

asl?
18/f/Sealand
You sure it’s not 18/Jawa/Tatooine?
She told me she talked to a guy who just wanted to talk about WoW and his favourite Linux distro. She gave up when he didn’t make a move and decided to look for a real man. Was that you?
Would have been WoW and Star Trek if it was me.
Is she single?
Decapitated. Whole big thing. We had a funeral for a bird.

Did she ever meet anyone interesting doing that?

Jk, of course. It was just too good of a setup to ignore.

Not as far as I know.
Me too. I hope they’re different people

I met someone I thought I’d marry there in the exact same way around '99.

That feature was powerful, and now we just can’t be bothered because scammers and blah blah.

My standard reply was “hailing frequencies open.” Needless to say it was the opening line that let multiple women know that I was single. Surprisingly it had a 100% success rate. I was the best nerd.
Did that line get you laid a lot?
The data is conflicting. I think they had already made up their mind on that topic before messaging me. My reply just reinforced their decision. It’s hard to separate causation and correlation in that case.
And now you have grandchildren?
Not yet. Our son isn’t quite 16 and our daughter is 18 and into girls. It may take a few years yet.
Did you wait until your wedding night to cyber for the first time?
Uh…no. It was all about sex. The whole getting married thing was an accident.
53215700 was my ICQ number, but I forgot the password, and the email is long since deactivated. RIP

I had no idea ICQ was even still operational. Good on them for making it as long as they did.

I was never an ICQ user, but it's always sad seeing such long-standing icons of the internet shut down.

it’s always sad seeing such long-standing icons of the internet shut down.

A reminder of how much fun Web 1.0 was, not the walled-gardened, enshittified, corporatized, ad-riddled rage baiter it is now.

I always said way back in the early 2000s that once corporations figured out the internet, it and society in general would be very screwed. Their early attempts at trying to make things go viral and create engagement were laughably bad. Then they hired a bunch of psychologists and sociologists and the rest is history.
That’s the same with one armed conflict that bothers me much. In the 90s there it was called “blood vs oil” by one charismatic man (who also correctly predicted how it’d go further, though), and, well, then “blood” won, and “oil” looked miserable - evil, dishonorable and defeated, all at the same time. But in 10 years they figured it out completely, in 20 years applied that power in every area they needed (mostly not military), in 25 had a big military victory, and now the situation really sucks from the looks of it.
What?

You don’t understand something - you either explain what you don’t understand or you remain silent. This “what” implies my comment is something weird which it isn’t, you’re just slow or apparently lack ability for doing philosophy.

If it’s the bad English, “what” is also utterly useless.

you failed to convey context, and meaning. your response to the what is worse.
lol. Posts shitty nonsense and is then an asshole about it.
big military victory around 2015-now? what the fuck are you talking about

It’s amazing how retards love to blame themselves being retarded on others.

The comment was specifically formed so that you wouldn’t have to know the context except that USSR was breaking up in the 90s.

The meaning was that just like with the Web, it seemed that something good and new has happened and is stronger than something old and evil, and there won’t be a payback later. Just like with the Web it seemed that it’s open and global and can’t be corrupted. (There in my example - it seemed that freedom of nations is now a principle to respect.)

take your meds or get some sleep
Don’t mind the ramblings of Nostradumbass over here.

The early version of what’s now Microsoft’s game suite in Windows was one of the coolest things I’ve seen on the Internet. It was a virtual gaming village where you could go sit at tables and play chess or checkers or cards with people from around the world. It worked 100% fine on 14.4k dialup.

Microsoft bought whatever that was and completely ruined it, just like they ruin everything else they buy.

That just reminded me of something I tried that was similar, I think it was called Visual Chat? It looked like a 2D cartoon, but each person controlled an avatar and could move around and talk to each other, go to other rooms, change expression, gesture, etc.

Microsoft bought whatever that was and completely ruined it, just like they ruin everything else they buy.

It’s like the Midas touch: they make it shiny, expensive, and of little use.

You probably mean Comic Chat. It was actually just an IRC client, and I think it’s still usable (but frustratingly ineffective) today. But there is a website where you can convert IRC logs to it, I think.
Yes, that’s the one! Boy, it’s been a long time.

Man, I am so sad now.

I miss the original internet. Back when it was a place for nerds and geeks, before commercial exploitation and SEO and Adpocalypse

Good on them for making it as long as they did.

They didn’t though, it was sold to a Russian company many years ago.

A fate worse than death.
18434 Will never forget it. So many good memories there

Damn, five figures. Nice! 912800 here.

I had the app on my phone, just to check in on my friendslist. None of them had logged on since about 2004 or so, at the latest.

I actually did forget mine. I think it was in the low six digits though, 2-something IIRC.
I don’t remember mine, but it was a 5 digit that started with 42. I was very proud.