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AOL Bridges AIM and ICQ
Checkmate3 writes "Looks like AOL has finally made good on plans to integrate ICQ and AIM... eWeek talks about a new version of ICQ which will allow for users to message across the two networks." I have to agree with the sentiments expressed in the article. I can't remember the last time I used ICQ, or even what my number was.
So now I can get spam from two places at once!
Omnis amans amens
Can't you already message ICQ users on AIM?
so it might as well be me.
Use Trillian , it rocks.
I can remeber my ICQ number and password :-)
:-)
Now if only I could remember by lady's birthday I could walk without a limp
Integration will allow people to choose which service they like better - AIM or ICQ. I don't think they are anywhere near getting rid of ICQ - it has too many users, especially overseas. Integrating with AIM will allow these people to communicate with people who like the less sophisticated AIM communicate with ICQ users. --- Addicted to adult entertainment?
Bah, who uses AOL's adware clients? Bitlbee, the ircd to aim/icq bridge, on irssi on gnu screen is the bee's knees.
I seem to remember that ICQ always had too much bloat. It defaulted to clicking sounds when you typed. the "Uh-oh!" we all know too well. I never really liked ICQ anyway.
Jabber's pretty slick though, if someone sets up their sever correctly, you could talk to anyone on any network through it.
find ~your -name '*base* | xargs chown
The only IM you need is a Jabber client and you can get on AIM, ICQ, MSN and Yahoo Messenger networks.
My personal favourite is Psi
are there already many multiple-platform applications to bridges IMs together?
like Easy Message etc?
i like it the best.
SimonTek
Trillian provides a unified and consolidated view of all of these IM worlds - but you can't send from ICQ to AIM or vice-versa.
btw - I donated and use Trillian Pro.
Evil ZEN Scientist
as icq still is the dominant IM around here
-- never underestimate someone who overestimates himself
... you just made me log into ICQ so I could remember my number!
I like Miranda better. Miranda just gets everything right. Light-weight by default, and plugins for everything else.
I couldn't even find the source-code for trillan. Is it available? If not, Miranda wins _hands_ down since it's GPLed.
Too bad it's Windows only though.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I have given up on ICQ/AIM a long time ago. I now use Jabber for all IM needs. Seriously, I recommend it to everyone who is currently using ICQ or AIM. There are transports which can connect you to your previous network so that you don't loose connectivity to your friends.
Homepage
... and use Gaim, for Linux and Windows. Has capability to connect to AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu(?) and IRC networks.
Cheers,
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
They brought ads to ICQ Lite now as well... Which makes this build of ICQ Lite useless. Back to build #1150 which serves no ads amd is a real Lite version of ICQ.
...its improved in many areas, which is good. But after AOL took over it has lost much of its appeal. Now I primaly use AIM, only cause thats what many of my friends(Yes, I have friends) use. Now I can run one program and talk to both, wahoo!
Ahh.. The mind what a wonderful trap!
This is slashdot! GAIM has most of the functionality of Trillian, and some rather nice plug-ins to boot. It will even run on Win32 for those who haven't seen the light, yet.
You have to wonder how long it will be before people realise, though, that relying on something owned by just one commercial entity (AOL, MSN Messenger, ICQ, etc) is never a good idea. I'm not sure about the feasibility of Jabber, though.
((lambda x ((x))) (lambda x ((x))))
We're supposed to feel good about AOL allowing AIM users to message to another AOL proerty (ICQ?)
Gee..that makes me all warm inside.
What happenned to AOL's commitment to open their platform to message to other systems? Like MSN/Yahoo/etc.
As I recall, that commitment was made as a part of the approval for the (now drastically failed) AOLTW merger.
The idea behind ICQ is good (it was the first popular personal IM system, after all (and no, IRC doesn't really count as one)), but the client has sucked ass for years. ICQ has been on the ever decline since it was bought by AOL - and that was a looong time ago. The client kept getting bigger, more bloated and buggier, but the recruitment of new people to the network has just kept dropping (probably because of the client). This move is probably exactly what's needed to save ICQ, and to keep MSN from conquering the market.
I was on the verge of giving up ICQ myself (but not to move to another network, since my buddies were all on ICQ), when I found Miranda IM. Open source, fast, small, and even interoperable with ICQ, AIM, MSN, Jabber, you name it. I've never even looked at the official client since then...
Personally, I can't stand AIM. I haven't used it in a while, but when I did, It had no automatic logging feature, messages popped up automatically screwing with what I was doing, the Away feature didn't allow you to speak to people and remain in Away mode, the idle detector was an invasion of privacy and personally, I feel the program was bloated.
Since the ads came, ICQ hasn't been any better.
The answer? Miranda IM (http://www.miranda-im.org/)
Comes default with ICQ support, and plugins are available for AIM, Yahoo, Jabber and other such protocols. You can also get plugins to manipulate many of the behaviors of the program. Everything from new message interface windows to ALICE chatbots.
I don't mean to sound like an advertisement, but I feel Miranda is far superiour to ICQ or AIM's clients, and Trillian for that matter. Trillian != free, thus I cannot afford it. =P
i used to use ICQ but its very crash happy on a Mac but the OSX bundled IM program is AIM compatible isn't it? does that mean i can now use iChat to contact people on ICQ networks?
Jabber will be fine and dandy until George Lucas sues it out of existence for its name.
Nice troll. Well not really, and it got marked up to insightful for some reason. Way to go, moderators. Now if you'll all put down the crack pipe and read the following:
Hey, guess what? You don't have to install ICQ to talk to ICQ users. You could use one of the many Jabber clients available to you, though I don't prefer them myself. Programs such as Trillian and the free, open-source GAIM allow you to simultaneously connect to various different IM networks with relative ease now, and despite not supporting the entire feature set of these networks in the case of GAIM, is certainly preferable to having a client installed per each network.
There's also the web pager and web chat room (http://wwp.icq.com/#######, where the # signs are for the number of the user you want to contact). Send them a pager message letting them know you want to talk in their web chat, and away you go.
There's -also- a Java client on the ICQ page (over here), which you can use from just about anywhere if all you want to do is get through to people on ICQ, but the above alternatives are preferable in most cases.
There's also..oh, hey. You're probably not even reading this anyway, are you troll? You got your cute little jab in, and you've probably moved off to harass some other group. Sorry to have wasted your time with reasonable discussion.
I can't be bothered with the interface however. It's like someone said - let's design a non-standard user interface which buries our bastard users up to their eyeballs in configurable options! There is add a simple and expert mode, but some of the frequently used settings don't appear in the simple mode.
I'd prefer AIM anyday. My understanding is that under the surface they use the same IM technology anyway so whatever reason for keeping them seperate must have more to do with politics than technical difficulty.
ICQ blows a big one.
ICQ had more features (able to msg people offline) and AIM was and is relatively featureless. Maybe that's what people like. Just the basics.
In any case, I use Trillian to log on to all the different services at once. (Jabber is another option).
For those of you complaining about ICQ bloat, there's ICQ Lite (link is to the alpha version that can communicate with AIM)
Thoughts on stocks, markets and trading
Now we just need MSN and AOL to be interoperable naturally.
*cough hack
which will never happen
___ Shout Central - Crushes your nuts!
The only reason I still use ICQ is because it's one of the few clients that lets you keep messages in the tray and have non-conversation mode messaging. I don't know why anybody would want an instant message popping up and taking the focus from whatever you're doing, or even wasting space on the taskbar. Miranda can do it too but it keeps crashing on me.
as an aside, the gaim link is wrong..it should be http://gaim.sourceforge.net
Why am I using ICQ right now? Because it has a lot of really important features that AIM lacks. Offline messaging, more in depth profiles, and screenname formatting flexability. Sure its not great for wimps who can't remember their ICQ numbers. Of course both the ICQ and AIM clients suck so much I've used neither since I discovered Trillian, Fire, gAIM, iChat, and Jabber. Now only if they'd adopt some of the features that WASTE has, like ambiquitous encyption(although I'm being told that the latest AIM has some sort of encryption built in).
-sonic
This is a Good Thing, IMHO. It's always a pain when your friends are on different networks, and you tend to get 'locked' in with one IM client/system wich most of your friends prefer.
Personally i find GAIM very usefull since it can communicate with almost every IM network there is (i have had limited success with file transfer) and you can use it on both Windows and Linux et al for concistency.
First of all, let me remind people that these are instant messaging programs. However, they've turned into chat programs. I don't want to chat with somebody, so don't keep a resident chat window up. I want to send an instant message. One. Then I want to get an instant message. Not a chat. What ever happened to that paradigm?
Also, ICQ gives you many more status options. True, they're not all necessary. However, you have the option of letting certain people bug you when you have a certain status. So, if you wanted to set yourself as "Occupied", you're pretty much telling people you're around, but don't want to be bothered. Plus, you can allow certain important people to still contact you anyway. And, of course, there's my personal favorite: invisible mode. It's very handy for when you want to jump on to look for a specific person you need to get in touch with, but don't want to be bothered with talking to anybody else.
Oh, another thing... Screen names. It's nice to be able to pick whatever screen name you want, without it needing to be unique. It's sorta like the real world that way. Chances are slim that you'll personally know somebody with the same screen name as you, so why do they need to be completely unique? Again, ICQ has the UIN to solve this problem.
I hope I'm not the only one that feels this way. The only argument I've ever heard for not using ICQ instead of AIM is "nobody uses it." That sounds like a bad reason to me. I hope that they add these features to AIM instead of removing them from ICQ. I'd like to see the two become one. Or maybe I'd just like to see all AIM accounts get converted to ICQ accounts...
i be all done up on da medicide
Well, I totally disagree. I've been using ICQ for almost 6 years and despite the fact that it's certainly lost popularity nowadays, it's still a decent software.
At the time, AIM, Yahoo messenger and MSN, were all out of competition and even if today they seem well ahead, I don't feel like switching.
Still I'm sure the reason AIM users to ICQ users are 5 to 1 may simply be explained by the fact that AOL has strong positions as an ISP, and is constantly promoting its software.....
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
the article says ICQ Lite build #1211, is this a full product or an add-on?
:)
what if i don't want to have anything to do with anyone from AOL IM? can i somehow block it? you know, you tell your 'lesser' friends that you only have ICQ and you're not allowed to install AOL IM.......
i hope it won't turn out like the mobile phone networks, where you have no choice who/where/how to receive a TXT MSG.
Leaving aside all the lesser-used/open-source IM clients, of MSN, AIM, Yahoo and ICQ, ICQ is the best one. MSN doesn't offer offline messages, AIM sucks, Yahoo is not too bad but ICQ is the most useable and reliable imho.
Merging it with AIM will just take it downhill I imagine...
ICQ was, at least as far as I could tell, the first truly widespread IM client, and certainly the first popular client for Windows (yes, I'm ignoring IRC and Unix's "talk"). I originally got it because it had become a requirement for my Mechwarrior 2/Netmech clan (which would put it somewhere back around 96/97). My number was ~1.1 million, so by that point it had already taken off reasonably well.
Interestingly enough, I'm pretty sure that early on ICQ had most of the features that AIM has added on in recent years, though I don't happen to have an old copy of it around to compare for sure. Unfortunately, later versions became nothing more than an exercise in "How many new buttons can we add per version?" (see this ICQ history page for an example).
Ultimately, I think the two major items that have hurt ICQ are the feature bloat and the network effect. AIM's ability to communicate with AOL users offered a huge incentive to those who didn't have AOL, and with if the people you know are on AIM, why bother with ICQ? AIM's relative simplicity didn't hurt either.
So, while ICQ may not be quite dead yet, it's certainly lost the role of leader and pioneer that it once had. It's a bit of a shame seeing an old favorite go the way of Prodigy and Compuserve, but I guess that's life on the 'Net.
Mark Erikson
It's a horrible program NOW, but it wasn't back when there was ICQ98. A cute small program that rarely crashed. Then came ICQ 99 and it's exponential bloat. It started really going downhill with the 'everything but the kitchen sink' syndrome - with all sorts of alarms and post-it notes and other crap you don't want in an IM client. After that each version got worse and worse. Thanks AOL =P
Now days I just use Miranda IM on the rare occasion I even use IM anymore. It's actually better than ICQ used to be. Extremely stable, small footprint, and extendable through really cool plugins (including talking to msn messenger clients).
You've been "Bridged" for ages.
ICQ uses the AOL network.
Type your ICQ # and Password into ANY AIM Client, for example the sidekick which I know works, and connect.
AIM loads you in, loads all of your buddies, etc.
If you use GAIM, there is no AIM plugin or ICQ - there's one called AIM/ICQ.
Same protocol...happend ages ago =)
Their servers have been able to do this for some time. As a result, Gaim has been able to do this for a long time (a couple releases now, at least).
I know this is about integrating the actual networks, but Gaim has been allowing you to do this for some time now. You just need an ICQ alias. I agree though, the official ICQ application is a piece of shit.
-------
"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
-- George Orwell
I would just like to point out that Gaim has supported messaging between ICQ and AIM for a few months now.
Windows AIM has supported receiving messages from ICQ users since maybe March, but Gaim has been the only ICQ client (I know of) that is able to receive messages from AIM people.
AOL owns ICQ... why do you think they don't promote it to the same extent as they do AIM?
BTW, I prefer AIM because the vast majority of people that I want to IM use it. However, I have always felt that ICQ was in many ways superior. Perhaps I'll switch...
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
...does my six-digit UIN still make me cool?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
"Type your ICQ # and Password into ANY AIM Client"
That doesn't work with iChat.
Why can't we get one standard IM protocol? IM should work like email. Your ISP provides you with an IM account, just like they provide you an email account. They handle the IM servers for their clients, just like they handle mail servers.
Come to think of it, you could do this right now. Write an IM client that sends messages via email, using special headers that identify the emails as instant messages. Email for most people these days is nearly instantaneously delivered. I can recall many occasions were a fast email exchange approached the immediacy of IM - why not write a client to automate the process.
-josh
IMO, The fact that ICQ uses numbers to identity users is probably part of the reason that people prefer other instant messenger services. Which would you have a better time remebering: 57544362769 or mynickname? When AOL took much of Compuserve's market it was because people loved the way AOL used names for their users and not numbers, as Compuserve did. The first step in making something user friendly is making what they use, easy to remember.
When it comes to the client I really didn't care much for it, especially the one for MacOS X. When so many friends being spread across services I opted to use multi-messenger clients such as Fire on the Mac and Trillian on the PC.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
That was my UIN (still is, incidentally, on Trillian). Man, those were the days.
I remember being able to log in and not be spammed to death by random people (either "ASL?! I WANT TO SEX YUO" or sales for penis pumps). I also loved the interface, where sending messages was more "e-mail" than "instant messaging". It let people come up with more eloquent responses to one another, rather than firing off one liners. NOw everyone gets impatient or thinks you went offline if you take more than 30 seconds to reply to anything.
Did I mention the program was relatively bloatfree back in those days? You know, before they turned it into a Swiss Army Knife with stupid features no one uses. Activelists? Come on now.
Ahh, but then everyone I knew switched to MSN (duude, it's soo simpler!), and the days of eloquent messaging were gone, washed away by that fucking butterfly.
Sigh...
*puts an away message on Trillian and goes to work*
hookers and grits.
INTER-NET!!
GAIM and some other clients are already able to cross-communicate on both protocols, both ICQ to AIM and AIM to ICQ.
I don't understand all the heat against ICQ...I've been using it since the beginning, proudly maintaining a 6-digit UIN. It's been the most popular and dominating IM client outside the US for years, due to its ability to send offline messages, appear invisible (so as to be able to talk to only those contacts that you need to without being disturbed by others), talk to someone while away (same reason), change screennames all the time (so that you won't be stuck with hUnniEaZnrIceRbabIEqTypiE14 after you graduate), successfully search for other users (to find that long-lost high school friend of yours), participate in random chat with users of the same interest(instead of randomly typing sn's), send/receive messages through other systems such as SMS/email/web pages, unicode support (ungarbled foreign languages), birthday reminders (forgot the birthday of that cute girl you met in the dining hall?), game/external program support, and many other features. If it wasn't for the fact that all my American friends are too lazy to change their AIM, I wouldn't even have it on my computer. I take that back...actually I don't...I'm loyal to my trillian, which works wonders across all (IM) systems!
h-t-t-p-colon-slash-slash-slash-dot-dot-org
I stopped using ICQ when AOL bought them. I think the best IM out right now is by far Yahoo Instant Messenger... It has support for video, built in games, chat themes (Not skins) and much more... plus it doesn't have all of the security vulnerabilities that ICQ has.
What I would like to see though is for all the instant messengers to use some common network... It should be secure and Easy to use. The clients should be Skinnable... and Open Source so that anyone can develop new features and capabilities. Why can't someone come up with a way for them to all talk to each other (Not just two)?
- Slew -
but the old one. the ad-free, non bloat without webservers, chat windows, spam, etc.
but i guess i'll have to go back in time to 1996 to see that again.
nowadays i see more and more yong ppl using microsoft messenger (yes, that piece of crap). why? comes preinstalled by default on windows xp and it's a pain to get rid of it.
Try multichat with the MSN plugin.
Oh, yeah, and try finding a multichat feature for Miranda's ICQ implementation.
Having fun yet?
This really isn't surprising, nor unexpected. This just means I only have to adjust the filters on who can IM me in one place now instead of two. :)
It takes a village of idiots to build a kingdom of morons.
The developers seem to put much energy into making a nice user interface, and therefore Kopete aspires to be a more useful program than Gaim. As an example Kopete features metacontacts
"Multichat"? Whats that, IRC from Microsoft? Ah, thats "innovative" then is it?
To me, in a work environment, I have to use encryption because anybody with ettercap can see the messages!!
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
Overworked (voluntarily) + underpaid + no social life + having to deal with insatiable end users = disgrungtled OSS developer
underworked (intentionally) + overpaid + overtly excessive social life + having to deal with like minded stupid people = disgruntled state/federal workers
common denominator = PEOPLE!
get rid of them all! they are a miserable race!
****--- A fortune cookie once told me the meaning of life...so I ate it. ---****
Can't comment on that plugin, never used it. Don't even use IRC much; the internet is enough of a timewaster for me already :-(
I'm running the following plugins: CopyIP, GnuPG, History++, PopUp SecureIM, Last seen, Tooltip info, Version info, WhiIsReadingMyStatusMsg.
These all do one thing and they do it fairly well.
I'm also using an older executable to pull the two contact list arrow-icons from, since the one that's distributed with Miranda is ugly as hell. I have no idea why they turned the nice little arrows into ugly plus-and-minuses... yuck.
A little unusual maybe, but I'm running my Miranda with 25% inactive opacity, 100% active opacity. That way I can have the contact list expanded but still read through it as long as the mouse-pointer doesn't put miranda in focus. Very slick if you ask me, and the only use of transparency on the desktop that I feel is meaningful.
/Intresseklubben noterar.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/BUSINESS/05/30/aol.msft/in dex.html
â The two companies will explore ways to establish "interoperability" between AOL's instant messenger network and a similar network that is part of Microsoft's MSN service. That could allow an AOL member to more easily send an instant message to a MSN member.
My guess is this will be SIP based.
Execute? [Y/N] _
I remember their bundling of it with Netscape was particulary aggravating... for a while there really wasn't any way to install Netscape (at least on the Macintosh) without AOL's crap little IM program being installed and, for added kicks, integrated and aliased throughout your system. After every install of Netscape, I spent several minutes spent ripping out the AIM files...
I'm guessing most computer plebians were not nearly so persistent in refusing AOL's push.
I have A real problem with what AOL has done to my favorite programs. I used ICQ a few years ago, but lost interest when none of my friends used it. (Have you loked at their user database? There must be a hundred million south east aisans!) But even worse has been WinAMP 3.0.
Nullsoft was purchased by AOL long before the latest release. Now WinAMP is not the simple, friendly, llama approved MP3 player it used to be. Now it has a web browser, video abilities, etc etc. I don't want another Microsoft Windows Media Player! Bloated is the word. All that coding for stuff I don't want and the stuff i do want doesn't work because they don't have the time to fully test it. Argh!
One more reason to keep an eye on your money.
One thing I have always thought AIM should do is incorporate into itself a system like ICQ has, where you can leave offline messages for friends. I wonder if, with this bridging, that is in the works or not?!?
Regards,
jlk
Besides the lack of 'integration', thats one major reason i dumped the 'native' clients long ago..
Once they drop the ads, and add Y! and MSN to their features, that many of us unfortunately need, i might consider it..
Until then.. its Trillian and Kopete..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Everyone keeps plugging Trillian and saying "ICQ is so bloated, use Trillian!"
Trillian isn't much better with memory usage and FORCES you to skin it unless you pay for it. And how can I not mention their donation policy? For awhile it was "feel free to donate" but then with the release of Pro they said "not enough people donated so now you're gonna have to pay for an IM client!"
Not trying to troll here but when the author of the client quits his day job to work on a freakin IM client at home you can't help feel sorry for him if it doesn't turn a profit.
I use Fire
It too does all of the above, cocoa native. Much in common with Gaim.
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
With some 2 million registered users (400.000 of them active on daily basis) it's of course not a rival for AOL or ICQ, but people in Poland love it - it's simple, light, and in polish :-)
--
there is no copyright for words
Names are easier to remember than numbers. Usability wins, ICQ loses.
Here in the Netherlands (a.k.a. Holland) AIM is also virtually unknown, and ICQ used to be the thing. Unfortunately everyone seems to have switched straight to M$N, now, and neither ICQ nor AIM seem to be relevant anymore.
I have an AIM account, but only because I know overseas people who use it.
(I use gaim to log on to AIM, ICQ, M$N, Yahoo, and two IRC networks at the same time - my contacts tend to be all over the place.)
Sorry to be so offensive, Anon, but ICQ is a very sucky program. There are UI inconsistencies aplenty and the whole program's too bloated (22M from ICQ2000 since I last used it) just to send messages. But you're right, though, but what's the point of downloading a different client that won't utilise the existing networks 100% and will be less stable? I've talked to someone using gaim and that seems to crash at times, (and for comparison, iChat screws up when sending images). AIM itself is extremely stable, and works.
This is ludicrous. ICQ continues to dominate the field in every way (still the most downloaded program ever?..maybe Kazaa has that now). The ONLY feature it lacks is proper dual monitor support (i.e it locks to the outer border of the primary monitor(i would prefer this oversight versus the floating non-dockable aim/msn clients(there is a bug workaround with Ultramon) It has not decreased in functionality since being purchased, seeing as to my knowledge it was the FIRST IM service to make a Java client of its service publicly available(icq2go (can select the use of the http protocol or user selectable port)as well as toned down a version(icqlite) to appeal to all of the clientele it was using because of its complexity. The advanced mode does not really boast all that many functions that arent because of their frivolous nature, once it is configured settings never need to be touched again, wow 3 minutes. Armed with a registry patch or a cracked/icqplus enabled client i am able to enjoy an add free, VERY stable(bet my windows based pc has more uptime than yours) program with more functionality than all of the others put together. The only advancements that are being made that i wish icq would incorporate is the user definable backgrounds/avatars with thumbnail preview option for picture transfers being made available in MSN messenger beta 6 (speaking of which, i have never gotten message in icq stating "IM server maintenance will occur in 5 minutes please finish conversations before you are disconnected, GO M$!). Generally i find that people who are making the switch are in fact the new generation of computer user that cant be bothered with remembering a number instead of a leat nickname. To make a long story short almost EVERY feature available in other clients has an equal or improved function in icq so why make the switch? I personally run 3 clients because i prefer having the functionality that the coders intended me to have whilst using their product, as for trillian the interface is horrid and i am not sure if they still lack online databases support?
Also
2 words...invisible mode....why has no one else incorporated this?
For some reason, I constantly get messages from this eric guy who, I believe, has the same AOL username as my AOLIM username. Anybody else had problems like this?
----
Spam subject of the moment: Offshore account secrets -nashville disrupt
I don't know where the "only six million users" statistic came from, but maybe it was related only to the US. ICQ is still huge all over the world (except the US), and although its user base is indeed declining, all the people I know are switching to MSN Messenger (it now comes with Windows, etc).
:)
Lots of places in Asia and Latin America center almost entirely in ICQ and MSN, and most people don't even know AIM if they don't have any American contacts.
And it's not much of a loss either. I'm not meaning to troll, but if you don't communicate with an American userbase, it's probably the worst IM client out of all the "major 4". Yahoo allows offline messaging like ICQ; MSN is just as easy to use, comes pre-installed now and has user appeal right out of the box; ICQ is still, by far, the most feature-rich IM client. And a lot of these exclusive features are, in fact, useful.
For me, the integration news is good news. If the ICQ features are made available to AIM contacts as well now (invisible/visible lists, offline messaging), I recommend some AIM users give the integrated ICQ a shot. It's a good reason to ditch the AIM client, not the other way around.
Silly rabbits! ICQ > MSN, AOL, YIM
Why? Logging and Offline messages! I use trillian as my client so I dont have to have multiple programs but I prefer to chat over ICQ over any of the others.
The ability to send someone a message if they are online is just great. The fact that AIM and MSN can not do this makes these two services quite frankly SUCK.
Also, last time I checked, icq was the only im client that logged all chats by default.
If you have an ICQ spam problem, just block messages from people not on your list. I havent gotten an ICQ spam in quite some time.
The ultimate network admin tool needs HELP!
AIM is so much better for what I want it to do. My only problem with it is that I can't be set "Away" and talk to someone on my list at the same time. That would be so useful for keeping the IMs down...
My biggest concern is do these programs allow for inter-client (say Miranda to MSN or ICQ to Miranda) transfer of files? Is there a way to use the video conferencing 'tools' (and I use the word tools loosly) of MSN through any of the clients.
If all you want to do is chat this is all well and good, but I've noticed that if you want to start sharing pictures or video with family between clients and platforms (from mac to win to linux) problms arise.
NMG
I recently found my old icq number and ventured to log back in to maybe talk to some of my old friends from back when ICQ was THE messaging client. Well it turns out back then ICQ didn't store your "buddy list" online so its pretty much a waste of time. ICQ imho is a dieing messaging system. The only people I know who use it are software pirates. Not that I'm saying ICQ attracts software pirates. I don't think the liquor industry attracts organized crime either. Infact......oh nevermind.
[Just Shut Up and Do What I say]
So really the only new thing is that the software actually tells you that you can IM people from both programs. For a long time now you could IM icq #'s from aim and vice versa..
Belive in Technology and AMAZE yourself. -- RIP ZDTV/TechTV
Trillian already incorporates AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, and IRC. I don't see why AOL is even wasting their time. Granted you have to have a different account for each network, but it isn't a big deal after you get all setup. It would be nice to use a single username/passowrd combo for all instant messaging services, but I don't even see why AOL is wating their time now. This is something they should have done a few years ago.
I remember how ICQ used to be the one everybody had to have. AOL was a poor imitation. But, ICQ hurt itself by continually adding new and mostly useless features that wasted memory, made the UI more intrusive and less efficient. So, I, like many others, moved to AOL because it wasn't as good, but it had an easy UI and used less memory.
Now AOL is doing the same as ICQ. I use GAIM now, because it has just about the perfect UI and features that I need without all the bloat.
"BEHOLD, CORN!!" - Dr. Weird, ATHF
I'm actually a fan of ICQ, probally because it's been around the longest, esp the fact that the network offers peer to peer messanging rather then routing it via MSN or Yahoo's servers. The only reasons I don't use it on a daily basis is living in America no one really uses it anymore, they've all moved on to MSN or Yahoo servers. The only people I know personaly who use it on a regular bases are those who corispond to users is places like Hong Kong, Germany, and Belgium.
But needless to say it's a big deal in places like europe. I've knows a few people in Belgum who's phone offers SMS-> icq service long before we in america started seeing phones with SMS -> other chat services. While this is just an uneducated observation, icq seems to have caught out more quickly. I'd suspect it's do to the sillyness of paying moolah for local calls, such an insentave I suspect it's likely for ICQ's popularity.
From what I remember SMS-> AIM and ICQ messaging were the first to be seen on mobiles, so I see this intrgragation as being a big deal. No longer would it be the big 4 messanging standards that need respective software support.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
I love auto-logging for these reasons:
1) Ever accidentally close an AIM window before you could read an incoming IM? I hate having to admit to doing that, and then, having to request a repeat of that comment.
2) Sometimes people say hilarious shit. My AIM logs provide hours of entertainment.
3) I rarely use AIM logs to quote people's mistakes, and am not paranoid about others quoting mine. I know my friends are logging me -- and I don't say things that I want off the record via IM.
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
Now go away, or I will replace you both with a very small BASIC program.
Does this mean that iChat will be able to access the ICQ network as well, since it is compliant w/ the AOL network?
Here in Sweden everybody I know who uses IM runs ICQ. Really. I still havn't met a singel person here who uses AIM, and only one who runs MSN.
What is ICQ?
I agree the clients suck, but the network has the best features of any IM service I have used. You have offline messages, a UIN which is nice because then things aren't tied to your ID or e-mail, and other stuff I am probably forgetting because I haven't used it in a few years.
"Windows Me offers tremendous reliability and stability improvements..." -- Paul Thurott
So, with AOL/Netscape/TimeWarner working in conjunction with Microsoft since they settled this as a solution for IE taking over Netscape's place they already announced AIM and MSMessenger to be written to be compatible (my guess the same). AOL's now bringing ICQ into the fold to make 1 program.
Good idea to make them all interconnect.
Opensource implementations will probably need to play catch-up to maintain interoperability. You can help too!
On this page there is centralised effort in reverse-engineering and documenting the protocol: http://www.stud.uni-karlsruhe.de/~uck4/ICQ/. Get your packet sniffer running!
This SourceForge project is a library that implements the protocol, however, its development has stalled: http://libicq2000.sourceforge.net. It could really use implementation of new features, like support for per-message encoding TLV (Type-Length-Value).
I haven't used ICQ since my freshman year of college 5 years ago, but as soon as I saw those 3 letters, my number came right back to me. But I still can't remember my girlfriend's birthday. Kinda creepy.
It has a few problems that I expect will dissapear as it nears 1.0 , but the ability to keep all of your chatts and msgs in a tabbed window is an awsome feature. I also have a spell checker installed to help me with a problem that me and about 95% of slashdot users have. It does all the usual stuff like multi platform communication and everything AOL's aim offers.
The Surgeon General says sigs are bad for me.
Forget ICQ, if AIM only has 33M users left (even that is just a USA count), where are all the rest?
I hope this doesnt mean MSN has them all. Yahoo! still drops 2-3% of messages so I doubt anyone is still there.
Looks like the IM system is still hopelessly fragmented, good thing Fire and the rest let me sign on to 6+ systems at once.
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
It seems to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, that a lot more europeans use ICQ than AIM. I know I don't use it much, but only because I don't talk to my friends in europe online as much.
You would think these dorks could change a password and email it to the original account creator.
I lost 116117 about a year ago with a bogus multi line foriegn character password and I still have yet to get anything but bullsh!t responses from ICQ.
Need my own Jabber server.....
Si vis pacem, para bellum! For evil to succeed good men need only do nothing!
AIM doesn't seem to have made any great inroads here in Sweden
:p
I think you're right about it being an american thing... everyone I know around here (Ontario) uses ICQ or MSN. I'd say that the split is about 50% MSN, 40% ICQ and other networks take the rest. It may just have something to do with the name. Many non-americans tend to resist overt examples of americana, but if you were just change the name...
That, plus almost no one here uses AOL to get online.
I had an ICQ UIN account in the six digit range, specifically below 500000. I had that number for several years, and registered various e-mail accounts with it. That was my mistake. It turns out that low ICQ UINs have a black market, where Eastern Europeans, especially Russians, tend to "steal" UINs and then sell them off to the highest bidder through various web sites, such as this one. You can use it for a while, a year, maybe two, and then they'll steal it back from you and re-sell it. This happened to me. I once had my primary e-mail account for my ICQ UIN be a @operamail.com address. Eventually, my @operamail.com e-mail address expired, and I switched over to e-mail with my own domain name. I made sure that this was changed with my UIN as well. However, ICQ has this lovely little feature where they'll e-mail your password to any and all e-mail addresses you have *ever* listed with your account. Thus, even though my UIN was set to use an @apparition.org e-mail address, a Russian managed to create an @operamail.com e-mail address that was the same as the one I used before, and used ICQ's password reminder feature to gain access to my account. I found this out because one day ICQ was no longer recognizing my password, and using the same method that the Russian stealer used, I obtained the changed password, and logged on, only to find a half-dozen new contacts and several messages waiting for me, all in Russian. A few days later, I got a message in Russian that roughly translated as, "How dare you steal my UIN from me. Give it back, now!" Riiight... Soon enough, they used the ICQ password retrieval feature again and re-changed the password. This went back and forth for about a week before I gave up and let the Russians win. I e-mailed ICQ support, and received a useless generated reply, telling me how to go about changing my password. Since then, I've realized that ICQ is as secure as a box of Cheerios, and have moved on to different instant messengers.
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde
Use it once and never go back.
Maybe it's a Canadian thing, but my experience (and everyone I know seems to be the same has been that the popularity of the messengers goes like this:
FWIW, I use Proteus a very well-written Mac client that does ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, Yahoo Japan, AOL IM, AOL IM(Oscar)-whatever that is, Jabber and Gadu-Gadu.
Yes, it's shareware, and no, it's not GPL'd, but it's still damn good software!
Does anyone have any sort of stats on regional/national usage of different IMs? Since your IM of choice is largely based on how many of your friends use a given network, it's not totally illogical that it might vary from place to place.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
I too have moved to Trillian, though 8 months ago international users noticed that it was displaying junk for characters. The problem is that most of the IM services have switched to UTF8 to deal with non-Roman characters and Trillian hasn't followed suit, and this is 8 months since the problem was first brought up. Trillian is closed source, so nobody can correct these bugs, other than the developers of the project. I will Jabber a whirl.
Out of curosity could someone tell me which clients are UTF8 compliant on Windows, and also with Linux.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
n/t
http://www.pdaapps.com/verichat/
Verichat combines AOL, MSN, ICQ and Yahoo! messenger for your internet enabled Palm device. I use it on my Kyocera 7135 and it is amazing. Even keeps you online when you disconnect from the internet and gateways your incoming messages to SMS if you prefer, and allows for auto-responses when you're offline as well.
A few years ago (2-3) I remember figuring out that if I add someone's ICQ number to my AIM list, I can instant message them from AIM. This was unadvertised though, and stopped working after about a week.
Of course, it sucked because unless you knew everyone by their number... there was no way to see who was online, or who you were talking to... just a bunch of numbers.
ICQ used to be my favorite protocol by far. I really liked the idea of having a number and then configuring your profile... I thought it was far superior to the AOL-style "yom4mm4_6413_unique_name" sorta screennames. It was also nice that ICQ kept history, and that if you sent someone a message while they were offline it would get to them when they signed on.
I moved to AIM simply because it was the popular protocol amongst the ladies on campus... more frequently used than a landline, i'd say.
no comment
Go with Fire, it's built off GPL libraries (jabber, firetalk, libicq2000, libmsn, libyahoo) and AIM connectivity is available thru TOC or OSCAR. My dock thanks these guys.
Leave it to AOL to wait until something's already been done, several times over, then "announce" it as though they'd just invented the idea.
Trillian (excellent), GAIM, and about half a dozen other software packages already exist to fill this need.
Scott
left Australia 1 year ago, everybody was using it. As far as I know they still are. MSN is popular too but AIM whats that.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Everybody that I know uses ICQ. A minority uses MSN, and virtually NOBODY uses AOL Instant Messenger (Who would? It's almost as bad as MSN). It's good to know Canadians aren't buying into the marketing hype and know a good thing when they see it, unlike the Americans.
Supports 6 clients, uses the stable open protocol, so doesn't get shut down by AOL every month or so, and is ncurses, so is easy to combine with screen and ssh to have an always on client.
Oh, sure... NOW you tell me! ; )
heh. Sure was nice of AOL to make it so simple for users to opt out of installing their bundled software. I can't imagine -why- I didn't figure that out.
For those of you that use icq and want to intergrate it with an irc client, check out
http://www.smarticq.com
Icq is still the best chat client.
Not the Professional version.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Part of the reason I use trillian is for the SecureIM feature... I want my conversations to be encrypted if possible, but otherwise I don't want any trace of them to exist on my harddrive. Logging should be OFF by default, in trillian.
~Berj
There was a point in time where I was getting LOADS of spam on ICQ - every day, I'd get a dozen or two dozen spam messages. It was ridiculous. The spam, combined with the fact that AIM lets you chat with people using AOL itself (like a lot of people were/are) and it's not surprising that AIM increased in popularity so fast. Now, I only get one or two pieces of ICQ spam a day, and AIM spam maybe once a week, but almost NONE of my friends use ICQ anymore.
~Berj
Despite what others say about the protocol having been the same for years (which is true), this is still a new thing they're touting. On June 10, this came though the AOL beta listserv:
Dear Testers:
The Beta Team is pleased to announce a new service that allows AOL and AIM users to Instant Message with ICQ users!
As many of you know, ICQ ("I Seek You") is a very popular service that is used by over 120 million users in more than 245 countries. Now it's possible for AIM and AOL users to Instant Message with their friends on ICQ! Even if you don't know anyone with an ICQ account, you can still participate in this test by getting an ICQ number (they're free) and sending IMs from your AOL account to your ICQ number on your own computer!
To get started, go to Keyword: Beta and click on the Instant Messaging with ICQ link.
The AOL Beta Team
Why not use IRC for all your instant messaging needs? Sure there are splits from time to time because of the WAr3z d00dz, but overall, I still use only IRC. It has offline messaging etc if they use services, and there are open-source clients for all sorts of operating systems. If need be, you can even write your own client program to make it resemble (insert IM program here), as the RFC is available.
http://bike.stu.ph/rides - free GPS routes available for Garmin, Magellan, GPX and Google Earth
- Open Source (GPL)
- Open Protocols (Jabber)
- Connectivity with AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! and MSN
- Multi-platform
- Secure connections (SSL)
- HTTP Proxies support
And soon (in a few weeks) PGP authentication and end-to-end encryption.MOD THE CHILD UP!
I'm not trying to be a troll; this is a legitimate question...why is this a big deal? I've been able to use Gaim or Trillian for a long time now to do the same thing. Is it because the owner of the two protocols are finally making them compatible without any outside "trickery"?
When their numbers dwindled from 50 to 8, the dwarves began to suspect Hungry.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am tired of hearing everyone complain about how bloated ICQ is, how they get spammed, etc, so I am providing this simple guide on how to customize ICQ so that it is perfect. First make sure you are in advanced mode and then in Preferences:
;) :)
1)Contact List
a. Options - tuen off everything.
b. Design - only check Sort Contact List by Name
c. Shortcuts - set Activate ICQ Messages to something convenient, I use control-alt-z
d. Colors - who cares
2) Misc - Only check right-click activation
3) Status Mode - uncheck all
4) Connections - personal preference/settings
5) Alerts and Notifications
a. General - choose only Blink all types, save message history, and play sounds
b. Sounds - change the uh-oh ASAP.
6) Shortcut Bar - get rid of everything except Preferences, Security, and View/Change
7) skip down to Email Prefs - clear everything out in this section
8) Old friends - no checks
9) SMS - if you have it
10) URL Messages - Clear that out
11) File Transfer - whatever you like
Security and Privacy:
This section involves a lot of personal preference. But in here you can set it so that you don't get any of those damned Email messages, phone requests, or anything of the sort. Simply go to the Communications tab and check the left column for those things. You can also set it so that items can only come in from users in your contact list.
Under the Spam Control section check those bottom two checkboxes - that kills half of your spam right there.
I hope all of that was helpful to SOMEONE. Peace!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But none of my friends use anything but AIM so I can really only get use out of the AIM protocol. I would like to at least try out some of the others, but that would mean trying to switch over my friends who are not easily persuaded. Mostly all the people I chat with are friends from school. I just graduated High School, so maybe AIM has been our generation more than any other IM? GAIM suits me best though because of its lack of ads without using an AOL client hack, and the simplistic options such as turning off colors in messages.
The IM world should be more like phone service. You can subscribe to any carrier and be able to talk to anyone under any other carrier around the world. ICQ customers can seemlessly connect to AIM customers who can talk to Yahoo customers.
The world doesn't need more plugins, the world needs fewer protocols. I read the "AOL bridges AIM and ICQ" from the perspective of hoping the AOL was moving towards the use of the Jabber protocol as a common baseline for instant messaging.
Jabber is a nice superset of existing instant messaging and chat functionality, from the programmer's perspective. It is, IMO, technically superior to ICQ, MSN, IRC, and other chat/IM protocols. The main thing that prevents it from dominating is really acceptance/buy-in from the big IM providers: AOL, MSN, ICQ, ...
When I went to university for my first year, I met people from all over the world. I learnt that the popular messenging services of the world were grouped to certain geographical regions. All us canadians used MSN, all the americans used AIM and the rest of the world used ICQ. To keep in touch with all my friends I had to be running all three programs at once. Integration of these services is a good thing.
Like I've always said, "How can we allow such a breast to be our president?"
The whole industry IM client wars are as stupid to me as the browser wars were. Basically corporations are competing to provide the most Ads really. Why is it so hard to have an open protocol and then these guys can still have their own clients, thus their own ad space, etc.
if you really wanted to , you could design a sort of 'side band' to the protocol to allow the different IM producers to tunnel their own unique content/featurs, but let the basic functionality of sending an instant text message to somebody on a different client remain....
I'm all for the free market system, but sometimes people need to realize that you got to cooperate some of the time
I lost my concept of community when my community lost all concept of me.
IRC does the same thing. I think IRC and AIM are build on the same distributed model (granted using a different protocol, OSCAR is nice and proprietary, whereas IRC has a public RFC) however, the anonymity isn't as strong on IRC. Other than that, it's exactly the same, you can send files, stream video, I don't know what you're talking about when you say IRC doesn't count. I really don't think plugins and skins make a lick of differnece when you're making a geneaology like this. I don't really want VB plugins in my chat app anyhow, they can only spam or malign me anyway. bitchx is just as good as anything. If you need a gui, GAIM works great for me. Afterall, I can't get a real AIM client (using OSCAR protocol -- which gaim does not) on Linux. Friggemall anyhow, AOL just wants your money.
Speak for yourself.
Double the bloat!
Your number was so low I can't believe it!!!! That was totally a cool story, thx. I bet you tell it to everyone that you give your number out to, so that they understand that you are actually an über-geek and it's just a big misunderstanding that your number isn't über-low.
So what went wrong that caused your Slashdot ID to be a lame 6 digits long?
"Use of ICQ has declined as it has became more and more annoying to use, and key features, which where the reason to use ICQ in the first place, where removed in favor or other worthless features which never worked and often crashed computers."
you can send a message to an offline user and they will get it when they login. You can't do that with AIM. AIM says it has that buddy bounce feature, but you still have to BE there to send a message when they get back. With ICQ you just send te message, leave your computer on, and even if you aren't there, ICQ will send the message to the recipient when they log in. I know my ICQ number. It's in the early 2 million range, I've been using it for a while. MOST of my friends are on AIM, but a sizeable minority are on ICQ.
:) Hopefully they will now take the best of both worlds and make a kickass client once and for all.
AIM is just like any other stupid tech that won out. It won because people who didn't know better used it (because they have AOL). Except in this case there is no winner because AOL owns and operates them both
And this time I hope they clean up ICQ. Who the fuck thought up all those features!? Too many menus, too many stupid options. Emails, pagers, groups, retardedness. They should have just made it clean and simple.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Here's a good chance to mention the Gaim-Encryption plugin project. For self-compiling people you can grab the plugin source, (get the gaim source too, they have to match), and compile the plugin. Then enjoy.
:)
Sadly, there's a licensing issue with the Win32 plugin. The author, Bill, was distributing an installer with the Gaim binary, the plugin binary, and the OpenSSL-for-Win32 dlls in one package. Apparently that's a GPL No-No (does this mean GPL is evil now??). So he ceased the distribution of the Win32 port.
However, you can still get the Gaim source, Gaim-Encryption plugin source, the OpenSSL-for-Win32 package, and follow the instructions on the plugin project page to compile it all yourself under Cygwin + MinGW. (That was a huge sentence)
It all uses RSA through OpenSSL to make it work. It works with Gaim so it will do crypto over all of Gaim's IM networks it supports (AIM, ICQ, etc). It's fantastic and open source
Enjoy!
the only possible way we can get an im protocol that is universal and open is to think of it like e-mail. e-mail works by having servers for a certain domain's e-mail and its also in the dns servers as well so it knows where to go. Now I like the icq approach of assigning someone an identify based on a number. Sort of like how telephone numbers operate now. But to distribute it to different servers through out the world will include adding it to dns servers or pointing dns servers to where to look up information on a various icq number so that it isn't all owned by aol.
second approach is to build it on top of e-mail. not as saying that your e-mail on that domain is your im account but rather that your number @ domain address can be your im contact info storing all your contact information as well as your list. this kind of information for routing will be needed to be added to dns servers. now these e-mail/im servers will store the following: contact info including nick name, name, e-mail address, age, etc. It will also store your contact list and who has added you to their list. now just like e-mail this server will have a server that recieves messages but that any server could be used to send out messages.
These 2 approaches I believe will make the im system a decantralized system instead of a centralized system the way it is today. now as for backup in case this information is lost, the client systems will also keep a local copy available which it will synchronize the info on the server with.
i know ninjas. ninjas are good personal friends of mine. and you, sir, are no ninja!
Two words, "invisible mode". Something AIM has needed for a long time.
Let's go back to 1887 when this was a wrthwhile idea
...and that's all there is to it.
I remember there was a time when many of my friends used icq instead of aol, and I liked it better. ICQ was/is more flexible and is just better all around. I'm glad to see that AOL is going to integrate the two. Now I could use ICQ to keep my aol buddy list!
Of course, trillian has made all of these things moot, I think. Trillian offeres almost all of the same features that ICQ offered and integrates more than just AOL/ICQ.
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
I'm Norwegian, that is northern Europe. I've never met anyone that says they've used AIM. Just about everyone still uses ICQ or MSN and from what I've heard that is also true of most other European countries.
Slashdot have lots of readers from other places than the US, and it seems the editors either forget about that or do not care. The rest of the world does not mimic the US in all regards.
When the editors add comments like "I can't remember the last time I used ICQ, or even what my number was." it is obviously to suggest that nobody uses ICQ. This might be true in the US, but it is probably not true of the rest of the world.
Europeans obviously still stay here despite of this, but it is quite annoying at times. There are other places in the world than the US.
so what does this mean for iChat ?
Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
I use gaim on Linux at work and sometimes at home (depends on what machine I'm using). The tabbed chatting feature is great. Kiss those 12 windows goodbye when you're IMing a bunch of people, the tab system is implemented very well.
I've never used the Win32 version, but a friend uses it and likes it. I use Trillan on Windows boxes myself.
On OS X, I use Fire, although it doesn't support proxies yet, which makes it a pain at work with our fascist firewall. Fortunately, I can just log on with the Linux box on Gaim instead.
Overall, I'd rate Gaim the best IM client around because of it's numerous protocol support and tabbed chatting. Works well, efficient use of space and usually not very buggy at all.
AIM has ~33 Million users. ICQ has ~6 million users. According to ComScore Media Metrix at least.
Go register for an ICQ account. The numbers are far beyond the 6 million mark. As far as AIMs ~33 million users? Yeah, with people still dumb enough to pay that kind of price for shoddy dial up, it makes sense there'd be so many AIM users.
Fact is, AIM is less functional. It lacks many of the features that made ICQ superior. Of course if you're smart and use Trillian, this is all moot anyhow, as you've had "cross network compatibility" long before any of the big comapnies pulled their heads out of their posteriors. ~33 million users, the largess of which are lame wanna be 5c|21p+ |1dd13z.
If I remember correctly, Proteus was using GPL'd code w/o releasing source for quite a while before the author must have realized he'd have to open up ALL of the intermingled code. But instead of doing that, he made the GPL'd code run in a seperate process and kept his contribution closed.
He should have released the code that had been intermingled up to that point. Instead he just seperated out his wrapper code from the GPL'd "daemon", runs it as a seperate process, and never released squat.
That pissed me off. Hence I will never use Proteus. Fire is too awesome anyway, and it's GPL'd and the source is available.
I agree with your first and second reasons, but I don't think having a permanent "file" of every one on one conversation you have with somebody is a good idea. Especially considering how many people use the AOL network. This is the network most people use to talk to friends/family and even co-workers. And don't forget about all the high school shit--a lot of these same people that would use AOL/AIM are from the click happy bunch that install kaaza or anything else that will get them "free" music aka same people who will share their whole HDD. Next thing you know your girlfriend is downloading conversations you are having with her best friend real time on kaaza. :-(
3) I rarely use AIM logs to quote people's mistakes, and am not paranoid about others quoting mine. I know my friends are logging me -- and I don't say things that I want off the record via IM.
Well like I said I don't know about you but I have somewhat personal conversations on AIM. Chat at your own risk!
I'm sticking to Media Player 6, the last good media player.
All the others are bloatware and lack even simple resizing features.
What our ancestors would really think, if they were alive today, is: Why is it so dark in here? (Terry Pratchett)
861107 I have no idea why I can remember that, you have me beat by a bit...but not too much. And yes I agree...back then it was a much better product. I vaguely remember a company buying it back a long time ago and from there it went to shit.
======== In the future, everything will be artificial. ========
There are many clients that have many features and can speak different protocols but I haven't seen a good UI yet. Most of the clients have a window for each user they are talking too and the text is presented awkwardly and you know all those bells and whistles. Changing skins. Mmmmm. couldn't care less. I like to chat in irssi. Clean interface that should be enough for ICQ as well. I currently use irssiq.pl which tries to integrate ICQ into irssi, and although it works it could be better. Does anyone know of a good ICQ/AIM/Whatever messaging client? Or are there any good IRCICQ gateway out there?
Did you know that many Jabber servers have AOL, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, IRC gateways? I.e. if you have Jabber you already have all existing protocols "integrated".
Why the hell do I remember it's 6701135?
:)
God Damn. Some useless shit just sticks in the brain.
Yo Grark
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
Canadian Bred with American Buttering
even with the WinXP "i can't uninstall it!" scam. :)
But you can, if you have the intuition to look into the Windows Components (which MSN is, fitting with the scam) section of Add/Remove Programs.
Since .63 Gaim has turned into a big, bloated, flickery piece of shit, this includes an AIM file transfer dialogue (that doesn't work and crashes it) in a "stable" release, buggy font support, and mandatory gtk2. There's better alternatives at this point. GAIM Dev's please pull your head out of your ass. You're giving OSS a bad name.
Maybe this game can rival Doom (and you'll have to be an AOL subscriber to play online)
Announcing.......
ICQ (I Seek You) and Aim (hmmm let's see, what would one aim, oh I don't know, maybe a Sub Machine Gun?)
Or we could have a gadget,maybe a black box, market it as a "Must Have" if you send alot of bulk mail (aka Spammers) and the new AIM interface will include a button that will shoot a paintball at all Spammers currently online.
This could work!
ROFLMAO
Hahaha This is fucking great !
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
America Online did not respond to requests for comment.
Why is this the last sentence of the article? Instant messaging interoperability will never be fair unless the major players participate in the creation of and implement open standards.
The shareholder is always right.
I've been hoping AOL would do this for a long time. All they have to do to abide the FCC/FTC regulations is to open up AIM to one single competitor. Now that AIM and ICQ will be sharing messaging, AOL should spin off Miralibis (sic) and AOL instantly escapes the stupid regulations placed upon it at the behest of "fair competitor" Bill Gates and his Republican campaign contributions. ICQ becomes a competitor. AOL should keep the IM patents and give a perpetual license to ICQ, however revoking it if ICQ opens up to Microsoft without AOL's permission. Surely a European cell phone company would like to have ICQ's brand since it is so big over there. Or perhaps ICQ could become the preferred instant messaging client bundled with SuSE Linux distributions...or even fit in Sun's plan of offering corporate instant messaging via Solaris... With AOL escaping regulators, this sets up a powerplay with Microsoft over intellectual property and the eventual payoff to get MSN to interoperate with AIM. I smell more than $750 million this time around...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Seriously; I use ICQ - every day - and I enjoy the features that it has. It lets me keep in contact with family and friends who have scattered to all points of the globe. Features like the birthday reminders and off-line messaging have been mentioned several times; yes, they come in darn handy. I've never had a problem with it crashing, and it's less of a memory hog than Unreal Tournament, IMHO. I can look at the message history for that important something that a friend told me, but I forgot. ("Oh, yeah! Book reccommendation!") And, if nothing else, it allows me to keep my brush-offs in practice.
You have 5 minutes to impress me, or I'm hitting the "ignore" button...
Doing my level best to piss off the religious right wing...
There is an option in ICQ to unregister your number, if you can be bothered that will kill that account permanently.
I don't understand why anyone uses IM. I can't log onto it for more than a few minutes before everyone thinks I'm avalible to bullshit with them. I can't get anything done.
I like email, I can answer it when I feel like it and people don't get all bent out of shape because i dont feel like dropping everything to get back to them