Of course, AOL does not want you to use any other client:

Hence, the original client for the ICQ network is Adware. They want to make money-which is OK, I suppose. You should also think about this: ICQ is owned by AOL. It makes life easier, because you can still maintain your ICQ account (I am doing this, for example, because there are some people who simply refuse to use anything but ICQ. If you are not yet using a multiprotocol messenger, you should consider using one. Chances are, you already use a multiprotocol messenger, such as Trillian Pro or Miranda for Windows, Pidgin or Kopete for Linux/Unix, Adium or iChat for MacOS X. Why should I want to use another protocol?īecause you will need it, eventually. Wikipedia to the rescue! My short suggestions: Use Pidgin (Windows, Linux, BSD) or Adium (MacOS X). Let me try to convince you to create a Jabber account. However, game theory shows us that “superior product” does not imply “market dominance”. Jabber/XMPP is clearly superior to ICQ for a many reasons. I do not want to make any boring, technical comparisons between the two protocols.

Most of them are still regular users of ICQ, despite of all its shortcomings. Almost every person I know has an IM account.

Add password to icq account