Why ICQ?

Warning, rant ahead. It seems most everyone in the adult industry uses ICQ. I have always disliked it, right from when I first tried it in the mid nineties. The design and UI reminds of something that was cooked up by an evil incarnation of Barbie.

But well, I tried it again this week. It only tried to hijack my homepage and search engine settings during install, but I caught that. Then it bombards you with advertising. So I dive into settings to switch it off. It only takes half an hour to figure it all out, but wow, I can play Tzers. What in the hell are Tzers? Must be something evil Barbie made up.

Worst of all, you still have to use those awkward telephone numbers for IDs. That is so eighties! So why do so many adult webmasters use this piece of crapalocious spamware to communicate? Long live Skype! :-)

I have to say I agree. I really dont like ICQ so much anymore but cant get away from it because I have so many contacts on there that havent moved over to skype.

It was the first messenger I used back in the late 90s and was ok for me for a long time. But since it sold I get about 20 Russian girls trying to add me everyday and all these spambot messages.

I keep pushing everyone I talk to on a regular basis to get skype, it is just so much better.

LOL I have heard this many times before. ICQ is the chosen method for chatting because it was the only reliable method when many of us first started in the biz, and now its like a hangover that just won't go away.

I know a few people who removed ICQ out of frustration, only to install it again within a week or two. I used to run ICQ 2003b up until a few months ago in order to avoid all the advertising, you can still download it and it works fine for chat...maybe that's a solution for you?

By the way, the reason I upgraded a few months back to the latest version was because the old 2003b version could only handle a limited number of contacts, and I was over that number!

I'm on a mac and use Adium to connect my various chat programs and I have no problems with ICQ. I don't get any ads, and the only thing I deal with are the occasional spambots that somehow find my number and try to get me to click on cam sites.

Unless I specifically know somebody is trying reach me there, I log into ICQ about once a month.

ICQ has become a mess. It's a nightmare to add new people or get them to add you. People who've been online day after day for years seem to disappear from the contact list, but when you contact them by other means, they say they are online as always. Just the Russian girls are reliable as ever.

Same thing happened to me. So I switched to a messenger thingy called Pidgin. It integrates with ICQ, Yahoo Msgr, AIM, MSN, and one other I can't think of off the top of my head. What you do is create your account with ICQ. Don't download the messenger. Then download Pidgin. It'll ask you for your ICQ number and password. Add your contacts, it'll ask for another authorization.

There you go, problems resolved ;) I've been using Pidgin for a very long time now, never any problems. :)

agreed never really liked icq I Like skype

Well, i can't say i like it, but i still use it very often.

I was just looking for my old ICQ number today and apparently I have been banned from ICQ because I didn't log on for a year so lost my number and will now probably have a ridiculously long number. Ha!

Hi Guys,I havnt used ICq for years and I am afraid that Skype is going the same way since Microsoft took them over. Spam , Russian girls wanting me to look at their flappy bits and log in problems Grrr! I now use a service called Viber that is attached to the addressbook on my mobile phone, onle avaiable at the moment for android or Iphone but should be available soon for Blackberry. The beauty of Viber is that being attached to your address book you dont get spam or unwanted messages only people you put in yourself. Try it you get free calls to anyone else round the world to anyone else round the world on viber (you can find it through google) just as you do with skype.

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Originally Posted by pandaman

I now use a service called Viber that is attached to the addressbook on my mobile phone, onle avaiable at the moment for android or Iphone but should be available soon for Blackberry.

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Can you also get it on your desktop? I need to look into this. Hopefully it gets added to Adium soon since I like the all-in-one service.