ICQ is no longer

[Halcyon]

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/icq-messenger-shuts-down-after-almost-28-years/

Despite it not being the same since the Russians acquired it, it still brings back fond memories of dialling up to the internet in the 1990's and chatting with school friends for hours.

[brucehoult]

I never had ICQ.  I didn't use AOL but used AIM (which was released in May 1997, six months after ICQ in November 1996). Eventually ICQ, AIM, iChat, Google Chat were all interoperating.

But that was all more than a decade after I started using BYTE magazine's "BIX" system which had both public chat groups and real-time private chat in 1986. And then usenet and internet email in 1989 when a local BBS in Wellington (Actrix) got a UUCP connection, and then a year or two later a permanent TCP/IP connection.

[ataradov]

It was in decline before it got acquired. It was extremely popular in Russia, so the acquisition made sense.

Same thing with Livejournal. Who in the west even remembers it existed? Yet it is a very active community in Russia today.

Native ICQ client used to have banner ads in the chat window, so it had to be patched out. And then everyone just moved to Miranda IM client, which is still one of the best UIs for a chat application.

[Psi]

Oh oh!               

[brucehoult]

ASL?

It had to be said.

[soldar]

Yup, I had ICQ in the late 90's and early 2000's and used it a lot. Good times. I was younger then.

It was very common and popular in China too.

[PA0PBZ]

For those with a good memory: https://web.icq.com

It certainly brough back memories seeing my contact list after 20+ years!

[SiliconWizard]

I didn't even know that it was still active.
One particular feature that I remember is that it was (AFAIR) the only instant messaging client that would display what people typed, in "real time". (Do I remember right though?)

[soldar]

Yes, keystroke by keystroke

[Halcyon]

One particular feature that I remember is that it was (AFAIR) the only instant messaging client that would display what people typed, in "real time". (Do I remember right though?)

Are you thinking of Microsoft Chat (winchat.exe)? It came with Windows NT 3/Windows 3.x and up from memory.

I don't know if it worked over TCP/IP or whether it was just IPX/SPX, but you would "dial" a computer name on the network, then the chat occurred in realtime.

[Bobson]

Hardly IPX/SPX, since these were Netware proprietary. More probable was NETBIOS, designed by Sytek and heavily obfuscated by Microsoft.

[Halcyon]

Hardly IPX/SPX, since these were Netware proprietary. More probable was NETBIOS, designed by Sytek and heavily obfuscated by Microsoft.

It could have been NETBIOS/NetBEUI, but both that and NWLink (which was the Microsoft implementation of IPX/SPX) were standard features from that time as well, which was installed by default (see screenshot).

If you were using Novell servers, you needed a client application to be installed to support file and print services.