Pioneering internet messenger ICQ shuts after 28 years

ICQ was my first foray into meeting girls online, back when that was a really weird thing to do.

Post a/s/l to pay respects.

a/s/l
10/f/935 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC, 20535
- Now I'm no American, but something smells FBIish about that address.
I knew my first long distance gf on ICQ. I remember also having that service in Miranda IM along Yahoo Chat, MSN, Google Chat (back when it was based on XMPP) and Jabber.

Messages from my current gf are announced with the classic ICQ "Uh-oh!".
19/f/cali
- I'm pressing X to doubt.
I got engaged and travelled across the Atlantic to be with someone I met on irc

Everyone switch to IRC, quick!

mIRC/IRC is still going, right? Haven’t used that in probably a decade.
- As someone who has most of her socialization on IRC now... Eww, mIRC is proprietary and for Windows. Maybe it's just me having learned about IRC only a couple years ago and thus not having a sentimental attachment, but why use it if you have open-source ones like Hexchat, Irssi or Weechat?
- Mostly for tech communities but yes. Libera.Chat seems to be the go-to network.

RIP 53215700, the oldest account I’m still aware of that I’ve forgotten the password to. Must have made it in 98 or 99.

Edit: it was actually 2001 because I was in a Tribes 2 clan and we used ICQ to chat.

86336930 checking in. Pretty sure I remember the password, but it's not like I can check now.

You will be missed, ICQ. When no other messaging service worked, you always did.
- 2728604 checking in, man i miss those days
52 million seems high for that timeframe.
- I'm not sure how the numbers were doled out, but in 2000 it was a big deal having a sub-9-digit ICQ number.
- Yeah, you’re right. I was playing Tribes 2 around that time and it came out in 2001.
691948 here.
2452680 reporting in
165166320 here

28 is a perfect number of years to shut down after.

I'll see myself out.

Don't disturbed celebrities kill themselves at 28?
- 27
- It's known as the 27 club.

I just signed up yesterday too.

Permanently Deleted

        .
       -|-
        |
    .-'~~~`-.
  .'         `.
  |211-945-323|
  |           |
  |           |
\\|           |//
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The last uh has been oh'd

Permanently Deleted

Uh-oh!

It was still going?!

Was 216845. I’m old.

I still remember my number. It was 7 digits.

how is everyone remembering their ICQ number?

I forgot mine 5 minutes after adding it to Trillian.

I miss Trillian :(
I have no idea why I remember mine, 520009. Haven't used ICQ in many years; I didn't know it was still up.

It's with the aim and yahoo messenger in the clouds now. Good bye Trillian profile I had back in the late 90s, you were too beautiful for this world.

Yes! Trillian was awesome! I used it fairly religiously from the early to mid 00s. Combined my ICQ, Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, and AIM. I miss that beautiful, convenient piece of software.

I'm pleasantly surprised the number of replies on Lemmy saying they used this service. It's nice to know that there are some old people on here, like me :)

UH OH!

With ICQ I learned the social skills that I couldn't on the real world because I had been bullied to near death. I talked to random people all over the world, learned that I could talk to girls without having to feel like shit.

Used it so much, and with volume up, my upstairs neighbor thought I was watching the teletubbies all the time because of the UH OH!

Met my first girlfriend this way, she was in Mexico, I was in Europe. Moved to Mexico to marry her (bad idea, she was rather manipulativr and a huge cheater as it turned out, got divorced) and lived in Mexico for samn near 20 years.

To say that ICQ had a big positive influence in my life is an understatement, it changed my life beyond anything I've ever had before.

Thank you.

486972 signing off. Godspeed.

6751 6686 here... I'm glad it's finally getting a burial since it died like 20 years ago.

Uh oh well

304141822

Farewell o7

444438969 was a great handle. RIP.

23436242, signing out

3100493 😅

783056 good bye ICQ

Thanks for the memories.

RIP ICQ

24546982

237216938 logging off.

RIP 23344084

Weird how i still remember my number... and useless now, 'cept maybe for passwords.

So long 104034239.

Well not anymore
- True... although i'd think ICQ numbers in Ripper dictionaries are probably lower priority than simple brute-forcing sequential numbers.

19699113... RIP

sadly annexed by VK goodbye, icq lasted longer than the first ever.

I had a buddy in the UK I chatted with on this thing in the early days. We thought we were so cool using it. We were not.

UH OH is my text message notification. People think it's cute but then their eyes glaze over when I tell them where it's from.

29533018 :'-)

Here Lies ICQ, a better alternative to AOL Instant Messanger

1996 to 2024

Didn't know this was still around, wow.

Technically wasn't. Some Russian company bought the rights and cleared old accounts at some point.
- Not sure about the owner, but I was able to sign in and see my profile a few days ago. It was an account from maybe ‘96 or ‘97, and I hadn’t even attempted to sign in in at least 15 years.

174695655 says goodbye 👋

393027090 .

99372211 out

It didn't just die, it straight up was acquired by the Russians (presumably to suppress the public) and then gutted. Uh oh indeed.

We are truly living the Days of Internet Services Past.

No, it was bought by MRG after AOL fought its users and won, so they all left for Skype.

EDIT: Or maybe first by Rambler and then by MRG. Rambler was the Russian search engine I used in 2005, btw. Was an email provider too. I had an email account or two there, don't even remember which. Also narod dot ru (free web hosting, similar to geocities) hasn't yet been bought by Yandex then, and there were ucoz dot ru sites, and borda dot ru free web forums (something like phpbb). ICQ (and later Skype) would be used for real-time conversations in all of these communities. EDIT2: ... which you'd make forums for.