this is the real reason ive never moved past ICQ99b, the people on my contact list all run ftp servers and there ip's are constantly changing, I need to be able to update my url's.

Trillian (www.trillian.cc) gives this directly in a tooltip in the buddylist.

There are little hack programmes for this.

Well, I have been on ICQ since 1997 and I really think that the sellout to AOL was the death of the product. AOL has integrated all sorts of advertising crap that you never saw before the sellout... like AOL does with all their products. My CD with the old version of ICQ pre-AOL got scratched and I have to use the latest BETA version of it (And what's up with that? It's been in beta for waaaaay too long.) But, I will say that some good features have been added and upgraded, like SMS messaging and paging... and the improvements to file transfers. Still, however, it is just a glorified text messaging system, always has been and always will be... I just wish AOL didn't throw in all that advertising crap as it really takes away from the experience. DOWN WITH THE ADS!!!

You are so correct. I have been using ICQ for a while and then these AOL commercials started coming up and I was like-what's up with this?? Without even knowing that they had been bought out I knew there was some link. After reading the article above it confirms my thoughts. AOL is crap. I work at a bank and I have so many people calling me about how AOL has messed up their bank accounts by overbilling their visas and visa check cards. It's pretty sad when some of these people call me because they are trying to make ends meet as it is and then AOL accidently takes out $100.00 extra from their checking accounts. Well, this is way off from the subject but it just goes to show you who owns ICQ. This story is fact and I cannot believe the billboard ICQ has become with AOL propaganda. Lose the adds and market your crap elsewhere.

Down with AOL/TimeWarner/Any other companies they bought out!!! Those greedy SOB's make sooooo much money from soooo many different ways with their damn AOL 'service'... and I use that term loosely... I don't know why they couldn't just leave ICQ alone. Oh, and I have some comments to make about the above paragraph:

Comments are in parenthases:

Originally a bare-bones (But functional, stable and not full of useless crap and advertising) Windows application to simply (WITHOUT ADS!) send text messages across the Internet, ICQ has evolved into a complex (=Unstable), multimedia communication (=product/service marketing)tool. Today's ICQ clients contain features such as file transfer(Always has..), voice chat(Over 56K??), SMS paging(Whoopie!), post-it notes(Who the hell uses those?), to do lists(Again... who the hell uses those?), greeting cards (That's a feature?), birthday reminders(Okay... might be useful once in a while.), and links to ICQ's portal homepage where you can (CLICK ON BANNERS AND MAKE AOL MONEY!)find the latest in sports, traveling, movies, and more. In addition, numerous clones have appeared for a variety of operating systems. (That are now far better (merely cause they're not full of BS) and that everybody would use if ICQ didn't already have the client base that AOL purchased.)

Might I say that the buy-out of ICQ was a very smart business move for AOL... now they have one hundred and twenty million people that they can advertise to virtually for free... but have turned a once decent program into an insideous, RAM eating registry demon... It's the AOL way and I don't like it.

You do realize that to use ICQ, you must connect to the ICQ network and servers. Believe it or not, it costs ICQ/AOL money to run those servers, especially as ICQ has grown so big. How do you think offline messaging works?

Would you rather ICQ start charging for its service to keep it going? If small ads (mostly just for ICQ) are going to keep ICQ up and running, then I'm all for them.

Unfortunately we live in a world where everything can't be free. If ICQ can't make money then obviously there is no incentive to keep it running. How can you complain about small ads in a service you voluntarily use and do not pay for? Sounds like you've been reading a bit too much Karl Marx.

I understand that it does cost money for AOL to run the ICQ severs and probably costs quite a bit... however, AOL is NEVER just out to provide a good service or to make just a LITTLE bit of money... they are out to gauge every single person for every red cent they can get. It's not just the ads... it's the 'channels' and all that crap that AOL adds to ICQ and calls them 'features', not saying that AOL makes money from every banner you click and takes a cut from every sale produced from a click. I can understand the banners... everyone has to make money, right? But all the other crap, such as the 'channels' as AOL likes to call them, comprimises the functional stability of your product, then one should consider making a little less money and not putting in so much crap. Mark Twain once said, "Any knowledgeable idiot can make something bigger and more complex, however, it takes a genius to move in the other direction." Having said that, NASA must have lost alot of rocket scientists to AOL. And back to AOL making money for a service I don't pay for... how about the service I do pay for... AOL internet access... I pay for that, and guess what... their browser is slow, it jacks my registry beyond all recognition, it displays ads constantly and I have to actually click "No thanks." to say that I don't want to buy their crap, managing windows in their 'browser' is hell, I have gotten more illegal op's from AOL in the last 2 weeks than I have ever had from IE in my entire life... AND THIS... THIS IS A SERVICE I PAY FOR... from the same company. Now again, I iterate, I don't have a problem with people making money, but when it comes to the point where you're basically marketing a billboard to a consumer, and selling through the indoctrination of people who just plain don't know any better... that is when you need to make less money and produce a decent product.

Ummmmmm you do realize that AOL's browser *IS* IE, right? If you're going to bash a product as easy to bash as AOL is, at least know what you're bashing.

The AOL client is buggy, it has a great deal of problems and slows down a computer way more than it should.

As for the ads, it's easy to set up the marketing preferences to kill most ads. I never get an AOL pop up ad.

Also, just as a general comment, if AOL had not bought them out, ICQ today would either be dead like other chat products from 96-97 (Powwow, IChat Pager), or would have ads. Most of the bloat you can credit to AOL, but ads are a reflection of the internet these days, not just AOL.

time flies when you chat so long on the net...

Still happy with ICQ98, and I ain't changing until I'm forced to...

Wow five years and it still isn't out of BETA that is amazing

Mozilla isn't out of beta yet either and that's been going for 5 years =)

I know, I wish I could be able to remain with ICQ 98b, but like 4 months ago, it crashed so bad, that I was not even able to maximize the ICQ window, and I reinstalled it several times, so, I was forced to change to ICQ 2000b *sniff*

...than with a crash!

damn that windows 95a :)

I'm not a big fan of ICQ, but i'm forced to use it to talk to my Quake 3 buddies since they can't be arsed to change to a better product. I hardly use ICQ myself, but i think i will more now since the latest version is a GREAT improvment, its faster and less bloated, plus it has all the little cool new features that ppl happy with ICQ 98 don't have! ;). My fav IM is and will always be Yahoo Messenger, simply because its more personal and more fun, not to mention it offers everything ICQ is useful at and has had it long before hand. Windows Messenger is nice too, that i agree, its simply the best for sending files where ICQ sucks at and yahoo has some problems with. Only problem i have with WM is NO OFFLINE MESSAGES! Grrr, whats that about? Anyone, good on ya ICQ, keep on rocking! ;)

Well MSN mess. just got drag and drop files (onto contacts handle) before you had to go find the file open ect. that was ASS! ICQ was better for sending files until just about a month ago....

MSN the best for file transfers? Hardly. ICQ beats it hands down. If you're transfering a large file to a friend or vice versa and for some reason get disconnected, with MSN you have to start over. With ICQ you can actually resume the download from where you left off. MSN can't compete with ICQ. It's featureless and a week second to Yahoo.

I would gladly move to Windows Messenger, but unfortunately no one on my ICQ list has moved, oh well people will probably just stay on ICQ because they're too lazy to switch.

its a shame too, WM has a lot of great features

But no offline messaging or SMS/mobile messaging, which are perhaps the most important features of ICQ. Windows Messenger is a great product (well, 4.5 is), but it still has a long way to go if it wants to take over IM from ICQ, especially in Europe.

My point was that even if WM was the most awesome IM ever, it would probably not be adopted by most ICQ users unless somehow forced on them

I agree. Many people are scared of change and having to learn new things. Right now ICQ is sufficient for most and it was the first real program of its kind to take off, so there isn't a real point to switch if it works. ICQ will always have this as an advantage over AIM, WM, Yahoo, etc.

I moved to WM and I love it! It uses less resources that ICQ, you can use it with almost any computer with a Internet connection and oh and no more "repairing the database" everytime a new version comes out. Which reminds me ... has ICQ ever got past the beta stage.. just wondering

It's all relative, what ICQ calls beta Microsoft calls final. It just means that ICQ is constantly in development and allows the company to change its policies if it ever does go final -- for example charge for an ad-less version or added features.

Thats funny, I'd pay money for a version of ICQ with *less* features. Enough of this bloatware crap.

With 2001b you can choose not to install the features you don't want, and even make the interface look like the old ICQ 98 versions, with the added important features like SMS. When running, ICQ uses the same amount of RAM as AIM or MSN does, or even less.

The reason ICQ gets big sometimes is because people have immense history databases. I can assure you if AIM or MSN logged all of your conversations and loaded them up with the program, they would also use a lot of memory. Turn off your history logging and your ICQ will use about (or less than) 2MB of RAM when minimized and 7 when open. If that's bloatware, then 99% of programs today are bloatware.

128MB of RAM costs 15 bucks these days. Thus 12.8 MB is $1.50 cents. So spend an extra $1.50 -- a decent price to pay ONCE for a program you use every day.

For me it's not a question of being scared of change. I have all those messengers and I have played with all of them. ICQ is simply the best. Follwed closely by Yahoo which could be the best if it were more stable. MSN and AOL are simply too featureless to compete for now.

The problem of the database does not exist with the last version of ICQ excpet if you want ot keep the history !

Anyone know where you can download the beta of Trillian (.64), It's supposudly released since Nov 15 but trusty betanews didn't pick it up like they usually do ;(.

Have you checked www.trillian.cc?

On a side note, is anyone getting spammed with pop-ups on this site? It's REALLY begining to piss me off, as if the banner ads aren't enough.

We are trying to work with DoubleClick to cut down the pop ups. They are only suppossed to occur once every 24 hours, but it seems a few different ads are causing pop ups.

Nonetheless, we have kept ads off the site for 8 months, and doing it any longer is not a real option at this point. But as we start to get more content up and expand other avenues of the site, we will present other options instead of banner ads -- but we haven't had the time to dedicate as of yet. If you have any opinions, let us know. Would you rather pay a small fee and see no advertising at all?

Nate Mook
nmook@betanews.com

I could care less about banner ads, it's the pop-up ads that annoy me, and probably everyone else on the face of the planet.

Like opening up the BetaNews home page, and getting up to 3 popup ads at once? I am really gettng to like the "grouping" feature of WinXP, as I have *4* occurances of IE open, and 3 are ads just from Betanews!

James Wheat
http://belprecomputerwizard.com

I'm going by the word in the forums...Tril team seems to be censoring the boards for even screenshots, been waiting a long time for this version (includes file transfers...etc...etc) and they refuse to even give us a taste! uhg

So far I've had 5 popups to close in just the last few minutes. VERY irritating...

Very odd. DoubleClick suppossedly fixed that problem before we went live with the ads, and I have not seen more than one popup occuring at one time. Make sure your browser is accepting the DoubleClick cookies, as that is how they limit.

Nevertheless, we will continue trying to cut down the popups. If I had the option they wouldn't be popping at all, but alas that's not how ads work these days.

It is however bit ironic how we are all to blame for this new "in your face" advertising. People get sick of ads, use ad-blocking software, etc. and advertisers have to find new ways to make money. So bigger ads appear and annoy people even more so then they don't get clicked. So popups become standard because advertisers think people cannot ignore them. Now sites are starting to use the "view ads before we show you content" method because even popups are being blocked/ignored. It's a vicious circle unfortunately.

I get a separate popup for each story I go to. Cookies are enabled (default settings, IE6).

Also, I get a new popup window each time I hit Refresh.

Just now, I got 3 when I came onto the site, and then I got another one when going to this article.

3 Loaded at once? There are only two ads on the page, I wonder how it could load up three popups. Nonetheless, one per page is ridiculous -- it should be one per 24 hours. We will do our best to resolve this ASAP.

- Nate

haha ... so funny, I was just going to reply and say I'm not getting the popups when I realised I needed to register - and then they kicked in! Platinum Cards, credit checks .... all great when you're not in the world called the US! Thanks!

I use PopUpStopper - it's great, and you can turn it on and off whenever you want!

The guys are right though - first MS did it with the tiny crappy spyhole camera popup that drives me mad and now you guys have done way too many within 24hours ... one a day, I can live with, adverts on your page, provided they don't take more than 5% of the page I can live with :-)

still a great site that I visit EVERY day without fail!

Marky in the UK

I get atleast ONE and on average 2-3 ads every time I open ANY betanews.com page... so if i go from the main page, close them all then to an article they all 3 come back... is the most annoying thing in the world!

BAH! to Popups!

Nate,

Every time I go to ANY page I get at least 1 ad. Normally I get 3. That is not only insane, but its obsured. I have seen porn sites with less popups than beta news. I have been comming here for years, but these popups annoy me so much that latley I have been visising only once every 2 or 3 days because it just pisses me off to have to close 32904732984739487 popups... Sprint, Discover platnium , visa gold.. BAH! If I cared I would go to them, they dont need to come to me.

Brandon

Look at version 1.1 950k 1.2 installed
Look at version 2001 5.3m 15.7 installed

I dont think there has been a ore stable version then the first one. It didn't carry the crap the 2001 does either.
Another nice move by AOL. When something works great, they have to make sure it don't. This is most likely why there has never been a final version build. Since day one it has always been in beta stages.

Still an awesome program, Just leave it alone when it's working fine.

The older versions also did not support online contact lists, file trasnfer, group chats, SMS/mobile messaging, detailed history for each user. They also had VERY weak security and did not work well behind a firewall or proxy. And finding someone with similar interests was tough because user preferences stored very little detailed information.

I guess it all depends on how you define "working fine."

I'd say the old versions worked fine sending messages back and forth for most users -- but that's about it.

ICQ may have tons of features - but it is the user who allows the "bloat".. It's easy to turn off and remove any of the features that ICQ installs - my 2001 version looks more similar to 1.111 - no ICQuick or Topics menus, and I removed all the email crap and anything I don't use. It's now fast, and streamlined. No clutter. I even replaced the "Whats new in ICQ 2001b?" add with a pretty picture.. hehe.. Yes there are TOO MANY FEATURES in ICQ for ME, so I therefore turn off the ones I don't use - everyone else can do the same.

Craig

I agree. Plus, if you turn off message logging (which AIM and MSN do not have on by default), ICQ will use far less RAM and take up far less space on your hard drive. It really is the user who allows ICQ to become bloated.

Look at version 1.1 950k 1.2 installed
Look at version 2001 5.3m 15.7 installed

Read it again!! It's bloated already before the user touches it!! AOL likes to produce bloatware. I'm a master PC tech and have to work on PC's with AOL all day long. You can't get rid of AOL once it's on your PC. The 'uninstaller' still leaves your registry and file systen riddled with crap... I tried to manually remove it all after an uninstall one day... 8 hours later I gave up. Why does everyone have to defend AOL? Everyone knows they write bloatware, so why try to fight it?

Did you ever USE the older versions?? They DID support online contact lists AND file transfer AND group chats AND detailed history AND worked VERY well behind firewalls and proxy servers. And if you are really lame and trying to find women (or 'people with similar interests as you like to call them') on ICQ, you could have used the ICQ Whitepages... been there for a LONG time. However I thing you're missing the point. AOL didn't screw up ICQ instantly... they even made a few really good improvements before they screwed it up royally. So, yes, they did work fine... in everyone's sense of the word. And damit, just cause you run the site or whatever, doesn't mean that you have to defend AOL or ICQ... it's okay to say that something 'sucks' if it does. This ain't Bambi here; if you don't have anything nice to say... you can go right on ahead and say it. That's why it's called a discussion board.

oops... made a couple typos... I haven't slept yet... my bad.

Now if they would just FIX the security issue! People getting their UIN stolen. They don't want anyone to know about it, but if you search their site you will find tons of people that are complaining to them about someone stealing their UIN number :( It's a shame because you loose all your contacts too. Before you use to get it back if you had your old email address, but now the "Kids" just steal it and unregister it for kicks. They told me to install a firewall. I told them It's not my responsiblity to pay for a firewall because they don't want to fix the security HOLE.
It's funny because AOL is so protective about security, but will not fix this issue. Personally ICQ has gone down hill since AOL took it over like everything else they do or touch.

the latest build of icq is pretty good I think, it is pretty solid and doesn't seem as "bloatie" as previous versions.
go icq go I have been with you since pretty much the beginning

my first number was around 267,000 can anyone beat it?

I'm in the 109,000 area ;oP

wow... thats pretty low.. :P lowest I've ever hear of. I think the lowest possible is like 47,000 or something... anyone know?

Don't post your ICQ number... they will steal it. They like low numbers and then sell them back to you or either someone else depends who will pay the most. I lost a low number too :(

"They"? An ICQ UIN-stealing conspiricy? :)

It's always "they" and "them", no-one works alone anymore.
And WHO the hell wants to steal 'low' icq numbers? Really....who cares what your UIN is! In the end they're still branding you as a number and it's not as if they give the better people lower numbers!

I wish they would start using letters already. These numbers are getting too long.

"Really....who cares what your UIN is!"

Easy answer. Easier to remember and for others to remember. A lower UIN (ie 6 or 7 digits) is a heck of a lot easier to memorize. Don't we have enough numbers to remember these days? I have about 30 UINs that I registered at one time or another. My 109,xxx UIN is far easier to remember than my 10x,54x,xxx or 1x0,14x,xxx UINs.

But people don't need to remember your uin, they can *usually* (not always but usually) find you if they know your name or email address ... given that you've put your actual name and email address in ... or told them the fake name/email you put in =)

And whereas I take your point that smaller numbers are easier to remember, I would think that it would matter more on the actual numbers, e.g. 11111111 is easier to remember than 78038. I have a 2,2**,*** uin that i have no problems in remembering.

I guess some people do care as you can buy low UINs on eBay for $30 bucks - it's a bit scary. But I agree, it shouldn't matter what your UIN is, especially how easily you can find someone via their e-mail address or other information.

It would be nice if they held of on new features for a while and worked at makeing it bullet proff.

Yeah, nice and bolet proff lik me slepping!!

I agree that ICQ has always been a great program for IM. Sure, it has had its quirks and bugs, but overall, it has been a stellar application. I do wish that some features were slimmed down or eliminated but it will not get me to switch to a less powerfull client just because they are there.

Mine's in the 1,2xx,xxx range; not quite as early as some of you guys, but I believe I did sign up within the first couple months...

Is it me, or should we start a petition to get them to use nice version numbers?

Something like ICQ XP Version 1.00 or something like that?
I mean, it takes me about 5 minutes, when BetaNews posts a new version of ICQ to work out if I've got something newer or older.

I'm running version 2001B Beta 5.15 Build 3634

Now, I only got taught about major, minor and minor version numbers and this taxes me!

mr naive

Marky in the UK

I dunno, two of my UIN's are lower than that, and I didn't get the second registered until mid to late '97 I believe. My first number (low 200,000's) was registered in December '96.

But still, it's kinda cool to have a 6 or 7 digit UIN, if for no other reason than it's a status symbol in geekdom.

Any way to see the last ICQ # assigned by ICQ (without registering a dummy account)? Just so when it gets to something like 149999999 then register :)

-Dheera