
ICQ: 20 Years Is No Limit - pvl1
https://medium.com/@Dimitryophoto/icq-20-years-is-no-limit-8734e1eea8ea#.e8abfoxci
======
FigBug
Around 2000 I got annoyed with the ads and crap in ICQ, so I wrote Miranda
ICQ, now called Miranda IM ([http://www.miranda-im.org/](http://www.miranda-
im.org/)) based on libicq. One of my main inspirations to write the app was I
wanted to connect a chatbot to ICQ to harass my friends, but the standard API
wouldn't allow sending messages. So I added a plugin API, connected the
MegaHAL chatbot and good times ensued.

I lost interest in Miranda shortly after that, but I'm always impressed that a
group has kept it going.

~~~
mathrawka
Hey! I'm not sure if we ever talked, but I maintained Licq and did the rewrite
when the protocol got switched to be like AIM.

I also wrote the initial Miranda ICQ plugin for the new protocol as well, I
think that was back in 2002.

Just thought I'd say hey.

~~~
buserror
licq, thanks for that, scary thoughts how much of my life back then passed
thru licq.

I'm _still_ on ICQ, via pidgin. There's just 'me' these days, but I'm holding
the fort. So there :-)

~~~
Trombone12
There is still one icq contact occasionally online for me! And I think I
talked to a friend using icq less than three years ago ;)

Though with all the closing of networks these last years I sometimes neglect
starting pidgin at all since I'll need some tabs open fore messaging
regardless :(

------
hal9000xp
I'm former ICQ backend developer (2010 - 2014).

I started to work at Mail.Ru in 2010, when Mail.Ru bought ICQ from AOL.

I was enjoyed working with ICQ backend code-base written by AOL (although to
be honest not all code was high quality).

Here are some quick facts about ICQ backend infrastructure:

1) ICQ servers has over 2'700'000 lines of code which is written in C and C++;

2) ICQ has its own TCP/IP implementation which works in the user space;

3) Concurrency based on event-driven model (epoll), each instance handles many
requests semi-simultaneously;

4) About 60 different interconnected internal services;

5) Each kind of backend service is a cluster of more than a hundred of
instances;

6) C core-code is written in old-school style and I liked that;

7) OSCAR protocol is defined in TCL files. Our custom build system created
C-functions which pack/unpack OSCAR messages;

8) Huge portion of core code-base was dedicated to create very scalable
distributed server architecture;

Note that all publicly available information in the Internet about ICQ
protocol describing legacy binary protocol called OSCAR. Native modern mobile
client uses HTTP based protocol which supports recently added features.

According to Mail.Ru Group audited annual report, in December 2013 ICQ had 11
million monthly active users.

P.S. I would prefer not to discuss marketing/business side of ICQ because I
personally had fundamentally different opinion from AOL/Mail.Ru product
owners. I was quite happy with plain minimalist Pidgin ICQ client. Also, I'm
not aware of new features this guy describing. Many things in code-base may be
changed since I left the company.

~~~
4ad
> ICQ has its own TCP/IP implementation which works in the user space;

Mind expanding a little bit why is that?

~~~
pimeys
Could it be because of the age of the codebase? When ICQ started the available
TCP/IP stacks were not good enough and it doesn't make sense to refactor the
whole project to use the system stack.

~~~
hal9000xp
Yes, that's mostly true.

In early days, native TCP/IP stacks wasn't good at handling so many
simultaneous connections as ICQ needed to handle.

So AOL just wrote their own TCP/IP stack (I think they used this
implementation not only in ICQ).

In modern days, it's legacy.

I think they already removed this stack since I left company.

------
j2bax
Did anyone else used to "hack" people on ICQ? If I recall correctly, ICQ would
expose users IP address if they didn't intentionally hide it. My friend and I
would get to chatting with strangers and then exchange photos... Only ours
wasn't a photo, it was something that opened a backdoor into their computer
that would allow us to take over their PC. We never did anything harmful but
might have gotten a few people in trouble for looking at naughty websites or
freaked them out by printing to their printer or opening and closing their CD
drives sporadically. This would have been around 9th grade 1999-ish...

~~~
rbinv
Sounds like SubSeven.

~~~
sorenjan
Or NetBus.

~~~
StavrosK
Yeah, I got sent that by someone when I was a teenager. Good thing my ISP
blocked incoming ports (not a good thing when I found out that HTTP servers
exist, but with all the nuking that went on in the 90s, probably for the best
overall).

------
sofaofthedamned
Everybody is missing the elephant in the room with ICQ, which is why it was
popular:

In my mid 20's, i'd come back from the pub drunk, login, search for girls
online now near me and send them messages. Was usually somebody drunk at the
other end, had a few fleeting relationships from that.

Nothing since, including Facebook, has had that same immediacy.

~~~
mahyarm
Tinder is kind of like that? Wechat has something similar in China. I worked
at a messaging company, and I found out those kind of 'unsolicited date
messaging' features are a really good way to scare away your female users
pretty quickly.

~~~
guard-of-terra
ICQ happened to figure something out - girls wrote boys as well, I remember
getting messages from strangers as often as initiating those.

Anyway, it was more about talking than about romantic relationship. Not many
people expected to ever meet their virtual friends.

You can definitely ruin that, for example, if you do not randomize well enough
and a small subset of user base gets too much attention.

~~~
flukus
You sure those girls were girls?

Remember, this was the internet back when men were men and women were men and
children were FBI agents.

~~~
guard-of-terra
Women were comparably more fond of ICQ and even now it's them who still hold
on to it. It's very unlike the IRC sausage party. I think you would more
likely to run into a girl pretending to be male.

Also, I have this feeling that it's much harder to disguise your gender in
Russian than it is in English. First of all, everybody has it as first
language with all its nuance and can guess a lot of things about their penpal.
Discussions are also deeper, making it harder to fake.

------
mikey_p
The craziest thing about all of this, is that my number 7672xxx still works!
Every few years I download the client, and my username and password from the
late 90s is still valid. This is no small feat in the age of shutdowns and
spin-offs.

In other news, WebRings still exists as well.

~~~
drinchev
Just a question. I see more of the commenters have posted their ICQ UIDs with
the last digits hidden, like yours ( xxx in the end ).

Is there a particular reason for not revealing it?

~~~
antisthenes
The 'x's actually appear to him as numbers because it's _his_ UID.

~~~
FlailFast
Hm let me try. 3827Hunter2. Did you just see x's?

~~~
onion2k
_Hm let me try. xxxxxxxxxxx. Did you just see x 's?_

Yep

~~~
polymatter
For anyone not getting the joke, see
[http://bash.org/?244321](http://bash.org/?244321)

------
cm2187
The sad reality is that ICQ was more functional and cross platform than IM are
on skype 20 years later...

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Kinda the point now a days. Everyone wants platform lock-in.

~~~
cm2187
yeah but platform lock-in shouldn't prevent me from sending an IM from skype
for MacOS to skype for Windows...

~~~
cortesoft
What? I do that all the time, it works fine?

------
scott_s
_smacks forehead_

I seek you. I don't think I ever got that. And it was my primary messaging
platform for a long time - I grudgingly made the move to AIM sometime around
2002. I felt that ICQ allowed more in-depth conversations; IM was much more
call-and-response.

~~~
vurpo
CQ has been used for over a century as a call by radio operators (mostly in
Morse code, where it's encoded as -.-. --.-). It's a general call that invites
any operators that receive it to respond to you.

It actually originated from the French word _sécurité_ , but in English-
language countries it was quickly backronym'd to become an abbreviation of
"seek you".

------
cstuder
ICQ had changed the online experience for me: For the first time I was able to
see actual people and friends surfing the web at the same time. I was no
longer alone.

Previously, with Compuserve and BBSs, I've only been using asynchroneous
communication forms like mail or forums. (I stayed away from chat rooms, but I
don't remember why.)

Nowadays I don't even use any messenger app which shows the online/offline
status. I just assume everyone is online all the time...

(Ah yes, ICQ# 188126. Lost my password before I found out that you could
actually sell low numbers like that for good money.)

------
drinchev
My ICQ UID is 15584496 . I still remember people buying less-digits or easy-
to-remember digits accounts for real money.

Gosh, I just logged in. Kudos for not auto-deleting my account for so many
years.

~~~
swozey
163766\. Had tons of people asking to buy it. Too bad I can't even log in
since it's tied to my email address from 4th or 5th grade.

I think the numbers started at 100000.

Prior to that, elementary school, I used PowWow and Mplayer to socialize with
pretty much only Californians.. since everyone on the internet back then lived
in CA. That was a weird time. I of course was 18 for.. oh, 10 years.

I believe I've met 2-3 people with lower numbers than mine.

edit: Wow, just signed in, been awhile. None of my friends online and the web
app doesn't tell you their last time online. Not sure if the desktop apps
still do.

~~~
stevewillows
You can get it back! I was in the same spot.

Contact ICQ support and tell them that you no longer have access to that
email. You'll confirm your UIN and a few names from your user list. It took
about a day to get mine back.

~~~
6stringmerc
Thanks for this post - I've contacted them and intend to get my old account
back too! 48xxxx level.

------
toyg
I met my wife on ICQ.

It's a shame AOL ruined it with ads and overall crappiness, it could have been
Facebook - a decade before FB was even a figment in Zuck's imagination. To be
fair, it didn't help that MS did their "leveraging Windows" play; around 2002,
I realized "normal" people had gone to Messenger because it was "just there"
and it worked better with firewalls. But that was it, the IM scene was never
as cohesive again -MSN, C6, Jabber, Yahoo, they all split the network.

------
cJ0th
I still talk to one person regularly on ICQ. I just wish they would add some
encryption. :(

\--

edit: It says in the article that they do use encryption. However, the
official website states something different:

> ICQ does not encrypt your communications. In addition, your communications
> may be routed through different countries - that is the nature of the
> Internet. ICQ cannot accept any responsibility for any unauthorized access
> or loss of Data.

[https://privacy.icq.com/legal/privacypolicy/en](https://privacy.icq.com/legal/privacypolicy/en)

------
binalpatel
I'm quite frankly amazed ICQ is still alive, I thought it was one of those
things that had just died out some time ago.

~~~
digi_owl
I think ICQ (along with non-technical IRC) took a gut punch when Microsoft
bundled MSN Messenger with Windows XP.

Almost over night people were switching to (or adopting) MSNM, often
reproducing online the cliques already existing in the local communities.

~~~
stormbrew
Are you Canadian by any chance? MSN only ever really seemed to take off in
some specific regions, one of which was Canada. After ICQ, almost all my
American contacts moved to AIM. Which was honestly pretty awful, since MSNM
was much nicer.

~~~
kalleboo
Sweden went something like ICQ/IRC -> MSN -> Skype Chat -> WhatsApp.

I think AIM was only ever popular in the US ( _America_ On Line after all).

The interesting period was when IRC was still popular even among non-techies.
The girls in school would sit on the PCs in mIRC.

~~~
digi_owl
Only other place i can think of that may have had AOL was UK, and then only
because i noticed some AOL ads on satellite tv channels from there.

~~~
NTripleOne
Yeah we had AOL over here. I used AIM once, didn't like it and went back to
using YIM and MSN.

------
kzisme
I thought ICQ died off long ago - much like MSN Messenger faded away years
ago.

Does anyone still use it?

~~~
nom
ICQ was huge in Germany and I was actively using it until 2011 or so, even to
communicate with my supervisor at Uni. One year ago, there were still four
people left in my list. Also, a good friend that I haven't talked to in 10
years used it to reconnect with me just last year. I wouldn't have her in my
life today if ICQ shut down.

It has died down almost completely by now though, thanks to whatsapp, skype
and hangouts. I still log on with pidgin and there is at least one person in
my list that does the same.

I will never forget my ICQ number, it is burned into my brain forever.

~~~
kzisme
I used to exclusively use Skype for talking to friends, but most stopped using
it ~2 years ago.

I don't have a need for Whatsapp - although I hear it's super popular outside
of the US.

Now I mainly use Google Hangouts, but I always feel like it's lacking and
isn't as nice as Skype or other alternatives (for both messaging and video).

------
flukus
I still have that "uhoh" sound as my phones notification.

~~~
pmlnr
I did that as well. It worths a try: the confused faces of IT people in the
office is always hilarious.

------
fluxem
It's amazing how they blew it. I remember, back in the day they were dominant
messaging platform. And now they are relic of the past, while WhatsApp was
purchased for $19 billions. All of this because they missed mobile revolution.

~~~
Tepix
A 4 person team getting $400 million after a few years is "blowing it"?

~~~
chris_wot
From my perspective the "they" being referenced is AOL.

~~~
empath75
They blew so many things but basically the problem is that after the time
warner deal, time warner just bled them dry, hoarding all the dialup money and
refusing to invest in anything.

------
peterwwillis
Fun fact: So many international criminals use ICQ to make deals that
"unspecified federal investigators" (read: spooks) had "brought concerns to
the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S." (the treasury) protesting its
sale to a Russian company and asking them to stop it.

ICQ is specifically referenced in speeches by FBI and intelligence agency
directors. So that's a pretty neat rep to have.

~~~
Cyph0n
From back when I was active in the "black market" (around 2009), nobody would
deal with you if you didn't use ICQ or OTP. Carders especially used ICQ almost
exclusively.

------
exoopsguy
Pleased to see ICQ here on HN.

They were the competitors at a company[2] I consulted for in mid-90's in India
who I believe made a product equal or better than ICQ.

But the potential was never fulfilled due to founder personality quirks and
right time/place issue. They had a gun video conferencing product[2] in late
90's than worked quite well on ISDN lines and even on dial up.

The product was built in collaboration with the famous IIT-Chennai

[1] [https://goo.gl/hV4EVz](https://goo.gl/hV4EVz)

[2] [https://goo.gl/P97rhN](https://goo.gl/P97rhN)

------
bdcravens
I still remember my ICQ # (147xxxxx - set up around 1997 or 1998 I think) and
my password - looking at the list of contacts, I suspect most if not all
haven't logged in over 10 years. It's like a time capsule.

------
songgao
ICQ was a legend! I can't believe nobody has mentioned OICQ yet. It was a
Chinese clone made in 1999, and what later on was renamed to Tecent QQ.

------
sakopov
ICQ brings back some memories. I think the last time I used ICQ was around
'99\. I was a little shit (14-years-old) and messing around with Sub7 and
writing my own client/server tools in Delphi. I was literally just spamming
random people after school with either the Sub7 server or my own little tools
and screwing with their computers. The "Matrix Screen" always freaked people
out.

------
ctvo
7285081 - I still remember it 20 years later.

I think I was introduced to ICQ when I started playing Ultima Online. Good
times, better internets back then.

~~~
Swizec
Ultima Online was the best mmo I've ever played. So much flexibility and ...
well it was really impossible to onboard without extensive help from everyone
else on the server.

Which made it even better. Met a lot of cool people that way.

I remember one time I was playing as a girl and got somebody to "marry" me so
they'd give me free stuff. Got a loooot of free stuff by being a girl on UO.

Good times.

------
jghn
I used ICQ heavily due to Ultima Online. I stopped using it when I both
stopped playing UO and noticed all my real friends used AIM.

Sadly I remember my ICQ number, 3522071, but have long since forgotten my
password. Since at the time they either didn't bother with recovery email
addresses or it was optional I also have no access to my account.

------
mvdwoord
I have some deaf relatives and was surprised to learn that ICQ is still very
popular among deaf people (at least in the Netherlands). Think it was
particularly due to the cross platform availability i.c.w. ease of videochat
for sign language.

------
rsayers
My # was 522621, I registered in the spring of 1998. My password was hacked
well over 10 years ago and I've never been able to recover the account. Not
that I would ever need it, but it would be nice to have it back.

IM seems like such an established part of the internet now, it's easy to
forget how amazing it seemed when I first saw it. Finally I could chat with my
friends without us all having to be on IRC at the same time. It was also much
easier to use than IRC, which brought in a lot of other friends I had who were
less technically inclined.

------
twostorytower
Haha I guess we can just ignore the end where ICQ becomes a near perfect copy
of Snapchat in the last year? True innovation. I mean look at those
screenshots. It's more direct than what Instagram did.

~~~
NTripleOne
Speaking of "old service becomes something else", anyone seen what Bebo has
become recently...? It's uhh... interesting.

------
jlgaddis
Everybody is posting their user IDs but I can't remember mine.

I was 103477,2372 on CompuServe, but I'm guessing that my mom's credit card
that I used expired about 25 years ago.

------
eterm
I still remember my ICQ number and I haven't used it since 99b.

And looking it up reveals I was stupid enough to fill in my birthday correctly
for it, which still displays publicly to this day.

~~~
FireBeyond
Yeah, I have a 500K number. I had a friend who was in the low 30Ks.

There was a sense in "pride" when you gave someone your number and they would
say "Isn't there meant to be a few more numbers?"

~~~
Romkinson
I had a 5-digit in low 20K at the time.

It was stolen because of a weak password on the account.

This is how I started my way in cyber security, thanks to the frustration and
further research on how that happened.

~~~
kodt
Yeah same here, mine was an 8 digit, so not super impressive. But still was
stolen. Associated with a .ir email account now. Oh well.

Same sort of thing happens with low SteamIDs.

------
vmp
Do we have anyone who works at ICQ here? This post gave me the idea to log
back in to my old account from 2002'ish but it says it is "compromised" and
won't let me do anything.

------
Tharkun
These comments have a wonderful sense of nostalgia to them. Thanks everyone
for brightening my day with a blast from the past.

------
jayess
Holy crap I still remember my user number. I just downloaded the client and
logged in!!!! If anyone wants to say Hi... 8335393.

------
tmikaeld
I actually met my fiancé on icq back in 1996, we kept in contact and met in
2005. Been together 11 years now :-)

------
szastupov
So much nostalgia in this thread. I wonder if we're gonna do the same for
jabber in a few years.

------
tempestn
Apparently my memory is faulty, but I could have sworn I tried to find ICQ
10ish years ago and found it no longer existed. I guess what I likely found
was that no one I knew used it anymore. I wonder whether they still have a
significant group of dedicated users.

~~~
josefresco
Was a hardcore ICQ user for years until the AOL buyout and subsequent horking
of the overall experience. Kept my account but moved to multi-protocal clients
such as Pidgin. Glad to see someone still loves it like we all did.

And yes, I still can recite my 7 digit UIN.

------
rootkea
Disclaimer: I have never used ICQ.

Here I'm noticing few comments about how people met their significant others
on ICQ. It seems, in those times, ICQ didn't face a "social awkwardness" as is
faced by Omegle today.

------
digi_owl
Looking over the shots, it seems like ICQ over time morphed into Facebook...

------
SwellJoe
"(UINs used to be rather expensive, by the way)"

Anyone know what the author means by "expensive" in this context? It's a six
digit number, exclusive to ICQ, how could it be "expensive"?

~~~
swozey
A handful of years ago (~10) I was offered BTC (way before their $100+ value)
and I think $75-200 for my 6 digit number. People used to sell Myspace UIDs as
well, Facebook too before they converted to usernames.

~~~
smsm42
Wow, I wonder who would pay such kind of money. I probably still have my old
ICQ number/pwd in backups somewhere. I wonder if it is worth something.

~~~
takeda
Now that it's a deserted place I doubt it is worth much.

~~~
smsm42
Well, another chance of being rich missed!

------
Tepix
I remember there was a license issue about ICQ where they made you license
everything you wrote on ICQ.. that's when I left the platform.

It's good to see that they eventually added end-to-end encryption.

------
51Cards
I still have my ICQ number memorized. 217XXXX. Good times... made a lot of
friends there that I still maintain (though we've all moved to new services)

------
conradfr
Fun fact: not so long ago I logged again in ICQ. My password was only three
letters. Good times.

For some reasons I still remember my login number.

------
pryelluw
I met my wife through ICQ. Life changing tech. :)

~~~
enad
Me too. In 1999.

------
bananaboy
That "uhoh" sound is so ingrained in me that I still hear it spontaneously in
my head sometimes.

------
norin
I loved ICQ. Thanks for the memories

------
chris_wot
It was the find random user that I used back in the day.

------
wallace_f
Do I wish I could find my old ICQ number and password

------
znpy
Since we're talking about old chat systems, I would like to add that I miss
MSN Messenger a lot, and would really like to see it coming back.

~~~
mvdwoord
Oh yes, I loved how they integrated some games in the chat client.

------
seesomesense
ICQ is still around ? Impressive.

------
moonshinefe
surprised to learn it still exists, good memories.

------
josefresco
Pidgin + OTR.

------
qwertyuiop924
>the forerunner of all messengers

...erm...

IRC? write? talk? CBBS?

No?

~~~
bluedino
Those aren't really messengers.

~~~
jandrese
Unix talk is pretty close. Also, BBS chat software would be another good
example, although that was somewhat rare since few BBS systems had multiple
lines and even on the ones that did you wouldn't just hang out waiting to
chat.

I missed the low UIN boat on ICQ because I was solidly into FreeBSD back then
and the ICQ client was only on Windows. It also looked sketchy as hell with
the crudely drawn flower icon and public domain sound effects. I didn't join
for years and ended up with a barely 7 digit UIN.

~~~
qwertyuiop924
What about IRC?

~~~
pmlnr
IRC is not a messenger-type thing; it's not a local client, it never had a
system-wide single handle - you had to register on each network, if it was
possible at all.

The typing and receiving may be similar, but the approach is different.

