Is ICQ dead?

[von Ryan]

You know, I was thinking the other day... A couple of years ago, there was a major migration from ICQ to MSN Messenger (mainly because ICQ had lots of problems, like spam and those annoying URL message boxes...), that, in my opinion, is lighter than ICQ and easier to use (and your nick changes instantly in the other computers, what doesn't happen in ICQ... You have to change it manually).

Nowadays, most people have both ICQ and MSNM, but most of them don't even talk on ICQ (like me, I just leave ICQ (2003) running in the background). For the first time, ppl's choice awards were awarded to MSNM, instead of the always-favourite ICQ...

Do you think that ICQ is dead? They've made some attemps to match MSNM's functions, like avatars, but that made the program too heavy, imo...

[stefanhendriks]

ICQ is bloatware. Even the light version is bloated. And, besides that, the amount of spam and hacking possibilities make it so non-popular that it ougta dissapear in this scene unless they completely rewrite it and make it fast + reliable.

[Cpl. Shrike]

I used ICQ before I went on IRC only.

Now adays i don't use ICQ nor MSN.
Not ICQ cos i got IRC
Not MSN cos i got IRC and I don't wanne use microsoft network to communicate.

[HangFire]

I use Trillian, and from I see the most popular one is YIM.

[TruB]

msn.. irc is not replacer for msn or icq..
its different.. and serve another perpose..

[@$3.1415rin]

still using icq and not having problems with spams, hacks, whatever. a lot of other students use it too, so I stick to it.

@stefan: you are referring to the 'normal' icq software as bloatware, not the protocol I guess ... and there are several other clients, so that shouldnt be a big problem

[koraX]

centericq
and I like ICQ because you can send message even if guy on the other side is offline

[Zacker]

Gaim is what I prefer to use:
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/

It's a free open source multi protocol instant messenger client which supports ICQ, MSN, Jabber and more.

[Pierre-Marie Baty]

Miranda, which is like Trillian and Gaim... only much smaller, not bloated at all, and all plugin-based I suggest you give it a look.

Though last time I reformatted, I went lazy and clicked "yes" to MSN messenger. Now I stick to it, because it's enough for my purposes, it's integrated with Windows and I'm a lazy bastard

[von Ryan]

Originally Posted by Pierre-Marie Baty

Miranda, which is like Trillian and Gaim... only much smaller, not bloated at all, and all plugin-based I suggest you give it a look.

Though last time I reformatted, I went lazy and clicked "yes" to MSN messenger. Now I stick to it, because it's enough for my purposes, it's integrated with Windows and I'm a lazy bastard

I've heard of Miranda... Never used it though, always sticed to Trillian (which is still buggy after 3 years) and Gaim, that I've been using when I'm on linux.