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

I met my wife on ICQ. I had random chat turned on and she said, "Hello." That was a long time ago

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.

Uh oh!

*My favorite random icq sound finding it's way into music https://youtu.be/nZHFy3YfagU

ICQ was still on?

ICQ was still around? I thought it died ages ago!

Two wtf here.

One, icq was still online? I stopped using that one aim got popular and everyone had it.

And two, vk owns icq??

#Uh-Oh!

Okay, can we all acknowledge that ICQ died when they nuked pretty much all of the accounts for no good reason?

While it's true it's shutting down, it was effectively dead for years. This is just the death rattle.

ICQ died the day they were bought by AOL.

TIL: ICQ was still around

Meanwhile IRC and Usenet are still doing fine.

I met an interesting Argentinian girl through ICQ. A co-worker ended up getting their inbox filled with large attachments from an overseas office with fast internet. We were still on dial-up. We just had pop3 access, no online front end. I stayed in the office over night to download the files so the connection wouldn't be interrupted by someone else accessing the line. To pass the time, I downloaded ICQ and started chatting with the Argentinian girl. She introduced me to this song.

Great memories.

knock knock knock in the middle of the nicht because i forgot to turn off my speakers, and the whole household would wake up 😂

Oh wauw! I think ICQ 98b was the best version ever! Then everyone switched to MSN, and down hill went the internet (for me anyway)

Icq was bought a while ago and the buyer nuked the original user database. Not long ago I found my login info saved on an old zip drive and tried it. Was hoping my old buddies might still be there, hahahah.

Nope, icq as most remember it was toast maybe a decade ago.

I wonder how many old accounts I have from my childhood floating around, long forgotten, created well before the days of using a password manager

How do you people remember your ICQ numbers? I don't remember what I did last week half the time.

18434 Will never forget it. So many good memories there

Uh oh

66618055 I never tried to get a better number because 666

2278311 🫡

I just recently tried to log into my old icq account. It didn’t let me unless I provided a phone number so I noped the fuck out.

33214481

Never forgot my number. I wonder if it's still active.

It was interesting how random people came to talk to you and were really trying to get to know you. I don't think that would work in modern day internet.

I knew they were around because at times I randomly remembered my ICQ number and I tried logging in, but they won't let you if you forgot your password.

1685212. I thought it had closed yeeeears ago.

ICQ was still online!?!?!

I stopped using that shit like 25 years ago. Thought died in the late 90's

Oh No, now it is even more useless that I still remember my number!

6479637 rip

icq died a long time ago, with its soul, the xtras, ripped out it remained an empty husk, a zombie walking under its new master, a russion company desperatly trying to have their own whats app clone

o7

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.

This is mildly upsetting because I remember ICQ is where I first met a seer who I was referred to by someone else. This was back when I was looking for help regarding a number of strange dreams and spirit visitations I was dealing with.

234500080, I always liked my number.

Haven't used it in over ten years, I thought it had already shut down :)

Used that when playing UO with buddies. Damn, now I feel old.

I just logged with 77454405 and it still works. wow.

245948 - buhbye!

I don't even remember my numbers.

Most of my friends used aim or msn anyways

4066088, still works too!

1808142... I'm practically a boomer with that.

42442595 I was still logging in until it stopped working with Adium. It'd been a long time since I'd seen any of my contacts login at that point though. Just downloaded the official app and yeah. still a ghost town lol.

somethingsomething-323-945

Uh-Oh!