Farewell to ICQ: The End of an Era for the Iconic Messenger!
VK Announces the Official Shutdown of ICQ After Nearly Three Decades.
Russian company VK announced that ICQ will stop working from June 26th. Users are really sad about the news, as many say they are going to miss the sounds it made and the moving image when it was connecting with other users, as well as listening in Winamp to one of the few dozen songs they had carefully downloaded. Many also say that ICQ was the chat tool of the democratic internet.
ICQ is a cross-platform instant messaging and VoIP client. It was first developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis in 1996 and was written in C++. In 2001, ICQ had more than 100 million accounts, and at that time, it was in its prime. ICQ was among the early instant messenger services, which continued to exist until its shutdown on February 26, 2024. To connect with another user, you needed to assign users a number they would use to connect to one another. It also had excellent features like SMS messaging and the ability to send or receive messages from those who were offline. I was not even born when it was launched, but I retain a soft spot for it. Many users still know their identification numbers. Users are happy that their identification numbers and names remain in the ICQ database.
Twenty-eight years ago, ICQ was launched to be the best instant messaging app, unlike other messengers. It didn't have features like new messaging apps, but for that time, it was enough. People also say they remember and liked the ID and address system. The modern versions of ICQ appeared to have worked and functioned like other messenger apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram. ICQ was a pioneering instant messaging program, finally shutting down after nearly 30 years. Making it to 30 years is a great deal for ICQ and its teams. ICQ means "I seek you," implying that you are making communication with someone you want to seek. A new version was updated in 2020, but after that, it could not gain immense popularity, so on June 26th, it is going to shut down.
