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Did anyone here use ICQ back in the 90s? I was shocked to learn my UIN actually still works today 🤯
2023-07-12 · 7 months ago · 👍 skyjake, emilis, bacardi55, StanStani, Ruby_Witch, norayr, aRubes
❤️ sugar · 2023-07-12 at 03:45:
I still remember my number but not my password :(
🦂 akrabu [OP] · 2023-07-12 at 03:50:
@sugar It took several guesses but I was actually able to log in on my phone. My contact list was largely missing - I had around 200 contacts back in the day, and only about 17 were showing. But it totally let me in! I was 115208 - one of the early-ish adopters haha
🍄 Ruby_Witch · 2023-07-12 at 05:12:
I still remember my number too, 5211988 ! I was proud to have a 7-digit one, hehe.
🦂 akrabu [OP] · 2023-07-12 at 05:25:
@Ruby_Witch I know there for awhile during the 2000s, lots of hackers were breaking into low-UIN accounts and selling them on eBay haha. My mom actually had a lower UIN than I did, and hers got stolen that way. I see they've mostly done away with UINs now. Nice to know mine still works. Wish I could reconnect with some of those folks though!
📻 solderpunk · 2023-07-12 at 05:56:
Uh oh!!!
🦂 akrabu [OP] · 2023-07-12 at 06:21:
@solderpunk Ha, I actually use that as my text message tone on my iPhone!
🍀 gritty · 2023-07-12 at 14:05:
surprisingly remember my number, just not my password. password reset seems to be only for "ICQ New" accounts
☕️ Morgan · 2023-07-12 at 18:08:
I also remember my number but not the password :) good times.
I used the ICQ sound effects for a falling blocks game, "uh oh" was a good "you dropped a block" sound :)
ICQ had a chat mode where you each got a large text field and you could see each character as it was typed ... much more fun than "line at a time" if it's someone you know well, less waiting. You couldn't go back and fix mistakes, though. I based my own 1-1 chat program on it but also supported editing :)
🚀 StanStani · 2023-07-13 at 00:01:
I shall perhaps display my youth by saying this: I have no idea waht ICQ is. I could use https to find out, but might ye enlighten me?
🦂 akrabu [OP] · 2023-07-13 at 01:29:
@StanStani In a nutshell, it was a popular instant message app back in the late '90s. Everyone I know stopped using it in the early to mid 2000's (a little after AOL bought it out), but from what I read it's still pretty popular in Hong Kong and Russia. My old login still works, too. So it's still around, but I don't know anybody in the US that uses it.
See the links below for more info!
Ps. I was the 105,208th person to sign up for ICQ. I know this because originally, everyone was assigned a number, starting at 10,000 😎
— gemi.dev/cgi-bin/wp.cgi/view?ICQ
🐙 norayr · 2023-07-13 at 01:31:
yes, i used icq. i was very impressed by it. but that was in part because i did not know about jabber/xmpp. i guess i would be equally impressed by gaim (if i remember correctly, pidgin predecessor, which supported xmpp protocol).
i had a pager at that time. and i made an effort to match my pager number with my icq number.
a couple of years ago, i believe in 2019, i logged in to icq with pidgin. saw many offline contacts, and one online contact. not being sure who is that, i didn't write anything.
after a couple of weeks or days i read the news that icq since now prohibits connections from third party clients.
though i believe web should still work.
🐙 norayr · 2023-07-13 at 01:35:
it looks like icq now belongs to mail.ru: https://github.com/mailru/icqdesktop.deprecated
🐙 norayr · 2023-07-13 at 01:36:
i believe i used to like using miranda instead of the official icq client: https://sourceforge.net/projects/miranda/
alas it is windows only.
🦂 akrabu [OP] · 2023-07-13 at 01:37:
@norayr Ah yes, I used Gaim for quite awhile - with my ICQ account too, of course. I believe Jabber cropped up around 1999, so ICQ predates it by three years. I didn't know you couldn't use 3rd party apps anymore, but it's been decades since I've used Gaim. There's an ICQ app for iOS and Android, though!
🐙 norayr · 2023-07-13 at 01:39:
oh, i guess third party clients are still supported. miranga-ng is able to connect to icq.
however [this page](https://wiki.miranda-ng.org/index.php?title=Plugin:ICQ/en) states:
Residents of Ukraine may experience connection problems. Some IP-addresses belonging to Mail.ru are blocked in Ukraine. Use proxy or VPN.
so yes, it belongs to russia now.
🐙 norayr · 2023-07-13 at 01:44:
and then there is this third party client written in russia, named qip(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_Internet_Pager). alas, closed source.
what is interesting for me, it is written in pascal (delphi).
heh, though initially written by sort of indy developer, now bought by 'RosBusinessConsulting media group'. so closed source and belongs to such an organization - i would not use it. though i would not use icq today anymore.
but i love pidgin, and it resembles to some extent old icq clients i loved back then. also psi looks similar.
🚀 StanStani · 2023-07-13 at 02:07:
@akrabu Thanks for the info and links. Others have been talking of Pidgin but I've used Gajim a little bit when I set up a XMPP server to talk with one friend who is rightfully distrustful of lots of communication technology being abused by corporations and governments.
🦂 akrabu [OP] · 2023-07-13 at 22:41:
@norayr Pidgin! I had forgotten all about that one. Used that one for years after Gaim.
🦂 akrabu [OP] · 2023-07-13 at 22:42:
@StanStani Yeah, Pidgin was a good one. I'm intrigued by Dino.im and Profanity now, because of that other post haha
🐙 norayr · 2023-07-13 at 22:49:
still using it. (: my only way of chatting is xmpp. it is pidgin and dino. i don't like dino because it works much slower than pidgin, does more i/o for some reason. and it is sort of 'mobile', shows one window, while i like this many windows interface of pidgin.
pidgin has very useful plugins and feels much more flexible.
nowadays in xmpp world omemo is sort of de-facto standard for e2e encryption, and there is no plugin for it, alas.
oh, i remembered. for some time i had to work in a company that used slack - i connected via pidgin plugin from chroot. same with ms teams. same with skype.
but that was for work and temporarily. i would like to be more aligned with my conscience.
🐙 norayr · 2023-07-14 at 13:45:
you can also bring the friend to the number of interesting chatrooms that exist on xmpp. it is possible to browse and check here: https://search.jabber.network/search
