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AOL Bridges AIM and ICQ

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the three-letter-acronyms dept.

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.

9 of 486 comments (clear)

  1. Someone's gonna say it... by Alranor · · Score: 5, Informative

    so it might as well be me.


    Use Trillian , it rocks.

    1. Re:Someone's gonna say it... by Jugalator · · Score: 5, Informative

      Not really -- it doesn't support international characters from other IM's correctly, that's said to be due to poor UTF-8 support (which pretty much all other IM's support and use). This bug has been silently ignored by the developers for around a year by now. For example messages received from ICQ Lite has its international characters removed

      This for a commercial software.

      Miranda is both free (as in beer) and open source, and has no problems whatsoever with international characters, while also offering far more plugins than both Trillian and Gaim.

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  2. Miranda by eddy · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
  3. Jabber by wazlaf · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    --
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  4. Or you could go open source... by imtheguru · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... 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.
  5. What's so wrong with ICQ? by Draeven · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  6. ICQ- what happened? by Traderdot · · Score: 5, Informative
    Seven or eight years ago, everyone I knew used ICQ. Gradually, people shifted to AIM. I still don't know how that happened but at some point AIM reached critical mass and most people I knew dumped ICQ entirely.

    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)

    --

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  7. This isn't new by rit · · Score: 5, Informative

    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 =)

  8. Why did you stop using ICQ? by rosewood · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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