<story><title>ICQ will stop working from June 26</title><url>https://icq.com/desktop/en#windows</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bayindirh</author><text>ICQ was the chat tool of the democratic internet, or internet of the people if you prefer the term.&lt;p&gt;After companies started dominating the internet, it was never be the same. We thought that any company would play by our rules, but they poisoned us with their research, gamification, single way information flow, and walled gardens.&lt;p&gt;This is why I moved to small web.&lt;p&gt;I miss the old internet dearly.</text></item><item><author>dkga</author><text>I will forever treasure my ICQ memories.&lt;p&gt;The sounds it made. The moving image when it was connecting. Listening in Winamp to one of only a few dozen possible songs that I had carefully downloaded.&lt;p&gt;Being able to randomly connect to people you would filter. Yes, I want to talk to someone more or less my age but in Iceland. Or any other country.&lt;p&gt;But most of all, the feeling of being connected. As a teenager in the autism spectrum, that was one of the best feelings I had at that time.&lt;p&gt;Most people don’t get it when I say this, maybe someone here will, but to me it all started going downhill when people all of a sudden switched to a worse alternative, MSN. I see a direct line from there to the annoying easy-to-accept-while-hard-to-reject-but-always-there-anyway cookie pop-ups.&lt;p&gt;And no, this is isn’t some form of Ostalgie where we long for past days of hardship with tender feelings. ICQ just had a great user experience as far as I am concerned and to this day I prefer it to existing alternatives from WhatsApp to Webex chat (don’t mention Teams please, I’m having a poetic moment). It was rather a feeling that perhaps other Brazilians will share: a longing, saudade, for the simpler (yes) but better and more poetic 90s, when ICQ connected you to a world that watched Brazil win the fourth World Cup, Ayrton Senna was inspiring generations to be healthier and their better selves and Mamonas Assassinas could only make us laugh, not cry…&lt;p&gt;So long, ICQ. You will always be part of why I love the internet.&lt;p&gt;PS: I realize the timing of those events doesn’t necessarily align. But sentimentally they do.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>kazinator</author><text>&amp;gt; &lt;i&gt;ICQ was the chat tool of the democratic internet&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It was proprietary client software released in 1996 and bought by AOL two years later.&lt;p&gt;It relies on a service operated by a single party, which is now sunsetting it.&lt;p&gt;According to the Wikipedia article, when ICQ was under AOL&amp;#x27;s stewardship, &amp;quot;AOL pursued an aggressive policy regarding alternative (&amp;quot;unauthorized&amp;quot;) ICQ clients.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;The article details all the tactics that AOL implemented in the service to break unofficial clients.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t see where the word &amp;quot;democratic&amp;quot; connects with ICQ.</text></comment>
<story><title>ICQ will stop working from June 26</title><url>https://icq.com/desktop/en#windows</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bayindirh</author><text>ICQ was the chat tool of the democratic internet, or internet of the people if you prefer the term.&lt;p&gt;After companies started dominating the internet, it was never be the same. We thought that any company would play by our rules, but they poisoned us with their research, gamification, single way information flow, and walled gardens.&lt;p&gt;This is why I moved to small web.&lt;p&gt;I miss the old internet dearly.</text></item><item><author>dkga</author><text>I will forever treasure my ICQ memories.&lt;p&gt;The sounds it made. The moving image when it was connecting. Listening in Winamp to one of only a few dozen possible songs that I had carefully downloaded.&lt;p&gt;Being able to randomly connect to people you would filter. Yes, I want to talk to someone more or less my age but in Iceland. Or any other country.&lt;p&gt;But most of all, the feeling of being connected. As a teenager in the autism spectrum, that was one of the best feelings I had at that time.&lt;p&gt;Most people don’t get it when I say this, maybe someone here will, but to me it all started going downhill when people all of a sudden switched to a worse alternative, MSN. I see a direct line from there to the annoying easy-to-accept-while-hard-to-reject-but-always-there-anyway cookie pop-ups.&lt;p&gt;And no, this is isn’t some form of Ostalgie where we long for past days of hardship with tender feelings. ICQ just had a great user experience as far as I am concerned and to this day I prefer it to existing alternatives from WhatsApp to Webex chat (don’t mention Teams please, I’m having a poetic moment). It was rather a feeling that perhaps other Brazilians will share: a longing, saudade, for the simpler (yes) but better and more poetic 90s, when ICQ connected you to a world that watched Brazil win the fourth World Cup, Ayrton Senna was inspiring generations to be healthier and their better selves and Mamonas Assassinas could only make us laugh, not cry…&lt;p&gt;So long, ICQ. You will always be part of why I love the internet.&lt;p&gt;PS: I realize the timing of those events doesn’t necessarily align. But sentimentally they do.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>incompatible</author><text>It was commercial, wasn&amp;#x27;t it? And only worked on Windows? IRC was the open alternative.</text></comment>