Use ICQ instead of MSN Messenger!

[elty]

I have no idea why people would use the inferior MSN Messenger. Consider the following ICQ advantage

a) Can send offline message to anyone. MSN Messenger is really an INSTANT messenger as you cant even send an offline message! How inconvinient is that?

b) Can send message when you are invisible. You cant send any mesage to anyone if you are invis. TRhis is so stupid again, cuz maybe you want to be invis so no one can bother you, but you still want to send out a message when you feel the need to msg someone.l

c) Send multiple files. No need to zip it by yourself or send it one by one.

d) Send large files. try to send some large file (500MB+) in MSN and you will see it drains like 300MB memory, wow!!!! Of cuz your computer will be frozen until you close MSN by force. Also ICQ will let you resume the file if you lost connection in the middle

e) Change the name in contact list. For example, can you really know who is *~c@ndi ~*? or Intel P4 600 welcome to 64bit age? This person exist in my MSN yet I have no idea who is he or she now. In ICQ I can simply rename it to his/her real name so I dont have to keep track of 200 different nick name

f) No wink in ICQ. Less annoyance.

g) ICQ do not try to sell you emoticon package....

i) You have the ability to change your email address in ICQ. In hotmail you are stuck with the hotmail which 99% ppl wont even use

g) the personal info is much more powerful and detail in ICQ. In fact you can even add notes yourself, something like "nice chick I met in bar but I spend 2 minutes talking about school thing before she left"

h) Unique setting for different users. For example I can set on auto receive file for some ppl, or stay perma visible to some important ones.

i) maybe more.. welcome to add some

I hope people who havnt use ICQ give it a try. Dont be trick by those emoticon or winks in MSN!

[Jokez Guy]

Msn Is Just The Fashion!

[UrbanPoet]

icq is sooooo 2002.

[hyperion]

I just use MSN because 90% of my school friends seem to use it, and not ICQ.

[ainsane]

I agree with you. ICQ is better in general. I wish more people still used it. The 1 thing that bothers me about ICQ is that the file transfer never seems to work because so many people are behind routers and firewalls these days.

Other than that, everything about ICQ is better.

My UIN is 59536875 ;)

Oh, plus MSN drives me crazy by always putting me in online mode whenever I touch my computer. Oh yeah, and ICQ you can add a personalized AWAY message! Man I love ICQ.

[JimG]

ICQ is way too bloated, too many features, too many buttons, does too many things. And I don't like the shape of its message windows. FYI, you can use any e-mail with MSN Messenger.

Jim

[ainsane]

FYI, you can use any e-mail with MSN Messenger.

Jim

Yeah, but you can't CHANGE your e-mail once you have an account. Even if you have a .NET passport with a regular e-mail, you can't change the e-mail address. When I cancelled Sympatico, I had to create a whole new .NET passport with my new gmail account and add everyone again.

[sonick]

ICQ is way too bloated, too many features, too many buttons, does too many things. And I don't like the shape of its message windows. FYI, you can use any e-mail with MSN Messenger.

Jim
bingo

[Immortal]

Beta is better than VHS.

[kogepan]

icq is better there's more u can do compare to msn..but most of my friends were intro to msn...now they dun wanna change...too bad :|

[asim99]

i like my yahoo messenger the best

[d_jedi]

add another point:
can access ICQ from ANY java-enabled web browser.

ICQ has a lot of nice features not found in other programs.. thing is, very few people use it nowadays. As well, they had some serious security flaws that they were very very reluctant to patch (this was a year or two back..).. I haven't used it much since then.

[elty]

ICQ is way too bloated, too many features, too many buttons, does too many things. And I don't like the shape of its message windows. FYI, you can use any e-mail with MSN Messenger.

Jim

ok, I double click on someone name in ICQ. DO I really see a lot more buttons? No. ICQ and MSN act in the same way if you want to do those simple stuff. No one ask you to go dig inside to find the hard thing. ALso, many feature from ICQ is built in. For example do I really need to find some secret menu to send an offline msg? Or to execute some secret pif file to make large file transfer nto eatting up 200MB of memory?

[MTL-TechY]

icq was for all the snobs in my class in high school (most of jewish faith) and i find it was a trend from 1997 to 2001

[aquariaguy]

ICQ takes too long to load. Too many pointless features. MSN is fast, simple. Only thing i dislike is that you can't send offline messages.

I hope google becomes popular with the Hello! messenging program.

[elty]

icq is sooooo 2002.

and MSN function wise is worse than ICQ alpha which is like 1996? At least teh First ICQ I use back in 1997 or so can let me send offline message.

[JimG]

ok, I double click on someone name in ICQ. DO I really see a lot more buttons? No. ICQ and MSN act in the same way if you want to do those simple stuff. No one ask you to go dig inside to find the hard thing. ALso, many feature from ICQ is built in. For example do I really need to find some secret menu to send an offline msg? Or to execute some secret pif file to make large file transfer nto eatting up 200MB of memory?

If I cared about offline messages, I would send e-mail. My point is proven simply by the fact that they felt it necessary to release a "lite" version.

Right now, ICQLite is taking 17.8MB of RAM, while MSN is taking 6.1MB. That's almost 3x the memory and it's just idling. If this is the "lite" version, WTF is in the full version?

Jim

[NG]

icq was for all the snobs in my class in high school (most of jewish faith)

I fail to understand the point of the last part of the sentence in any way.

[steve.m]

skype for me, too lazy to type for 1/2 hour at a time.

[d_jedi]

If I cared about offline messages, I would send e-mail. My point is proven simply by the fact that they felt it necessary to release a "lite" version.

Right now, ICQLite is taking 17.8MB of RAM, while MSN is taking 6.1MB. That's almost 3x the memory and it's just idling. If this is the "lite" version, WTF is in the full version?

Jim

Probably because a lot of the MSN dlls are not included in that..
Offline messages are actually very useful and convenient.. you have to have used ICQ for a while (and then go to MSN) to see how limiting the lack of this feature can be..

[rdtx2002]

i use both

[Headhunter]

ICQ's a better program, but unless I want to talk to myself, I have to use MSN. Sad, but true. :(

[GangStarr]

www.e-messanger.com also allows you to go online on comptuers that wont let you download stuff.

[elty]

If I cared about offline messages, I would send e-mail. My point is proven simply by the fact that they felt it necessary to release a "lite" version.

Right now, ICQLite is taking 17.8MB of RAM, while MSN is taking 6.1MB. That's almost 3x the memory and it's just idling. If this is the "lite" version, WTF is in the full version?

Jim

ICQ is taking 8MB while MSN taking 10Mb on my computer.

[Gee]

If I cared about offline messages, I would send e-mail.

Jim

Then why use MSN at all? Just send email all the time.

I use ICQ exclusively. No MSN. Even though everyone I know has migrated. I tell them the same thing, send me email or use ICQ. Of course, I don't get to my email as often as I should and ICQ is always there for me.

Other points elty forgot to mention.

ICQ allows unlimited contacts.

Microsoft is telling me that I am only allowed to have 150 friends. What is with that?

ICQ can also communicate with AIM users

ICQ also can send SMS

I have been using ICQ since 98, tried Yahoo, Trillian, MSN. Nothing comes close.

So, call me arrogant, but if you want to chat with me, it is ICQ or email.

The only reason MSN is so popular is because Microsoft rams it down your throat with XP and all the brainless people (present company excluded) use it simply because it is there.

Do yourself a favour, do what I did.

Hit Start
Run
RunDll32 advpack.dll,LaunchINFSection %windir%\INF\msmsgs.inf,BLC.Remove

And remove it from your system forever.

[Twism]

ICQ's a better program, but unless I want to talk to myself, I have to use MSN. Sad, but true. :(

Same situation for me. I've been using icq since the beginning and still have my 6 digit icq number. I hated msn from the beginning at first because it didnt have many features and many of the above reasons people already posted. but going to school and when u meet people they usually give u an msn address so now i pretty much use msn but use the icq account once in a while.

[Amourek]

It would be great if you could convince everyone to dump MSN. But you can't, so use Trillian or Miranda.

[kingsley]

You can draw stuff in MSN and you can have custom animated emoticons. :D

I used ICQ before in high school, but in university everyone uses MSN so I was forced to switch.

[CSR]

ICQ's a better program, but unless I want to talk to myself, I have to use MSN. Sad, but true. :(


Verry sad and very true.... o well...

[simms]

1. No one uses ICQ anymore. No point of being on a network that none of your friends are on, so you can't even talk to them.

2. Bloat. ICQ takes forever to startup and has ads, and a lot more junk.

3. d_jedi, http://webmessenger.msn.com does the same thing for MSN. And you don't need Java either.

Case and point - Use Trillian if it bugs you that much. Otherwise stick to MSN (or AIM, for our American users).

[Kazaam]

Man, back in the day ICQ was prime. I like all too many, switched over because the masses were switching.

God, I cant tell you how many thousands of times Ive heard that ever familiar "Uh Oh"
So much better than MSN's stupid jjunk garbage. All they need to do is introduce and ICQ that can send messages to MSN users, and Ill be over it like a.......lampshade?

I think Im going to log into ICQ just to hear that sound :)

[Xtahse]

Trillian! aol, icq, msn, and yahoo all in one
no more fighting!

[gilboman]

nobody uses icq anymore, i find icq too bloated and crashes a lot more than mesenger. ICQ takes too long to load, has way too many pointless features and for plain IM, i like messenger better. but anyways, its a moot point comparing features btwn the two, even if icq was 10x better, there's no point when nobody's on it. I dont even have icq installed on the computer's ive reformatted. icq was good back in like 1998 but since 2000 its all downhill, they try to put too much junk into it.

[chickenbones]

With plug-ins and addons, I get all the features I need with MSN. I really like the regular sized display pic plug in, which let you quickly share your snap shots with friends in their original size, very cool!.

No need being so uptight about a tool. It's main purpose is to communicate with people. If everyone's using MSN just use MSN, because it serves the purpose of communicating.

I think the main reason people switched is because MSN is basically on every machine, so you don't have to keep downloading stuff. And don't you lose your contacts easy with icq? I'm not sure with this tho, it's been awhile.

And you CAN use msn on the web, it's called web msn or something.

[Bob_123]

ICQ is way too bloated, too many features, too many buttons, does too many things. And I don't like the shape of its message windows. FYI, you can use any e-mail with MSN Messenger.

Jim


I agree.

I used to use ICQ in high school, but it was just so slow. Then everyone made the move to MSN (at the same time).

[doraemi]

You can draw stuff in MSN and you can have custom animated emoticons. :D

I used ICQ before in high school, but in university everyone uses MSN so I was forced to switch.


bingo! i tried hard to resist the trend....but...i needed communication of some sort

[Ducky]

msn really sucks....icq rules...

but decide between this....message yourself or message your friends/family/lovers...

so i'm stuck with msn....even though it sucks.

it's an unfair world out there...

[Ducky]

i tried using trillian...it sucks...

it crashes...

it's an eye sore to view...

everything is messy...

default colour is hard to read.

Trillian! aol, icq, msn, and yahoo all in one
no more fighting!

[felix]

yup, another ICQ fan here! Most of my contacts are on ICQ, although I have a few on MSN and Yahoo. Really wish ICQ would come out with a new version with the features of ICQ pro but also works with MSN/Yahoo/AIM, etc. That would be what I'd use. :D

[mintchoco]

I love ICQ.

Another great feature of ICQ that hasn't been pointed out is that while your contacts are online and you send a message, there isn't any word limit. So you can cut and past an entire passage no problem. MSN messages have a limit and I am forced to cut and paste in chunks.

UGH!

[Absolute]

I haven't really used ICQ since 2000; most of my friends moved to MSN so I use it now. I see maybe 2 out of 70 people on ICQ when I do log in; I dislike ICQ because of it's large overhead, I prefer a basic client.

[laptop-tech]

I dont use computers at all....

[CSR]

I love ICQ.

Another great feature of ICQ that hasn't been pointed out is that while your contacts are online and you send a message, there isn't any word limit. So you can cut and past an entire passage no problem. MSN messages have a limit and I am forced to cut and paste in chunks.

UGH!

This, and offline messages has lead to spam on icq.. "now believe that playa"

[CodecX81]

a) Can send offline message to anyone. MSN Messenger is really an INSTANT messenger as you cant even send an offline message! How inconvinient is that?
||||you can still email people, which is the exact same thing....and if they have their cell setup for msn you can txt message them as well. (I know you can also SMS in ICQ..)

b) Can send message when you are invisible. You cant send any mesage to anyone if you are invis. TRhis is so stupid again, cuz maybe you want to be invis so no one can bother you, but you still want to send out a message when you feel the need to msg someone.
||||I'll agree with this point, but being invisible to everyone is so childish anyhow :)

c) Send multiple files. No need to zip it by yourself or send it one by one.
||||I've sent multiple files before.. in the range of 3-5 simultaneously.

d) Send large files. try to send some large file (500MB+) in MSN and you will see it drains like 300MB memory, wow!!!! Of cuz your computer will be frozen until you close MSN by force. Also ICQ will let you resume the file if you lost connection in the middle.
||||I agree with this as well. Not sure about the memory sucking, but not being able to reliably resume files in msn is sortof a drag.

e) Change the name in contact list. For example, can you really know who is *~c@ndi ~*? or Intel P4 600 welcome to 64bit age? This person exist in my MSN yet I have no idea who is he or she now. In ICQ I can simply rename it to his/her real name so I dont have to keep track of 200 different nick name
||||Messenger Plus! Just be careful to not install the optional spyware package...read the EULA.

f) No wink in ICQ. Less annoyance.
||||Redundant point, it depends on the person you are chatting with. People can just as easily annoy you in MSN if their chat habits consist of one liners..
"uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh"
... *strangle*

g) ICQ do not try to sell you emoticon package....
||||ICQ has like banners and garbage in your face on the contact list which you cannot get rid of. At least this emoticon thing is somewhat out of sight-out of mind.

i) You have the ability to change your email address in ICQ. In hotmail you are stuck with the hotmail which 99% ppl wont even use.
||||Don't use hotmail then.. Sign up for a .NET account with your gmail, or yahoo... or ISP email.. easy peasy.


g) the personal info is much more powerful and detail in ICQ. In fact you can even add notes yourself, something like "nice chick I met in bar but I spend 2 minutes talking about school thing before she left"
||||Again..Messenger Plus!

h) Unique setting for different users. For example I can set on auto receive file for some ppl, or stay perma visible to some important ones.
||||Again..Messenger Plus!

MSN also has superior support for multi-user chat IMO.. its usage of uPNP allows me to get past my proxy at work, so I can get online.. ICQ--don't even try.. port 5190 is totally blocked :)

Messenger and Messenger Plus! addon is really robust, I think you need to see it and actually use it for a bit.. You might not be impressed enough to use it regularly, but at least you can say "I've seen it on both sides of the fence".

----------
Of course, all this is completely thrown out the window by just downloading Trillian :) and $10 sez if google launched a gooogle IM, everyone would instantly want that due to the popularity of gmail. It would probably be superior to all the IM's anyhow.. they're probably indexing this conversation in google as we speak!!

hehe

[TigerEROS]

I have no idea why people would use the inferior MSN Messenger. Consider the following ICQ advantage

a) Can send offline message to anyone. MSN Messenger is really an INSTANT messenger as you cant even send an offline message! How inconvinient is that?

b) Can send message when you are invisible. You cant send any mesage to anyone if you are invis. TRhis is so stupid again, cuz maybe you want to be invis so no one can bother you, but you still want to send out a message when you feel the need to msg someone.l

c) Send multiple files. No need to zip it by yourself or send it one by one.

d) Send large files. try to send some large file (500MB+) in MSN and you will see it drains like 300MB memory, wow!!!! Of cuz your computer will be frozen until you close MSN by force. Also ICQ will let you resume the file if you lost connection in the middle

e) Change the name in contact list. For example, can you really know who is *~c@ndi ~*? or Intel P4 600 welcome to 64bit age? This person exist in my MSN yet I have no idea who is he or she now. In ICQ I can simply rename it to his/her real name so I dont have to keep track of 200 different nick name

f) No wink in ICQ. Less annoyance.

g) ICQ do not try to sell you emoticon package....

i) You have the ability to change your email address in ICQ. In hotmail you are stuck with the hotmail which 99% ppl wont even use

g) the personal info is much more powerful and detail in ICQ. In fact you can even add notes yourself, something like "nice chick I met in bar but I spend 2 minutes talking about school thing before she left"

h) Unique setting for different users. For example I can set on auto receive file for some ppl, or stay perma visible to some important ones.

i) maybe more.. welcome to add some

I hope people who havnt use ICQ give it a try. Dont be trick by those emoticon or winks in MSN!

True.

But let's not forget that ICQ has no webcam capabilities that MSN has.

Also, way too much spamming on ICQ ... those stupid P*RN ppl that have nothing better else to do in life.

[akito925]

I have no idea why people would use the inferior MSN Messenger. Consider the following ICQ advantage

a) Can send offline message to anyone. MSN Messenger is really an INSTANT messenger as you cant even send an offline message! How inconvinient is that?

b) Can send message when you are invisible. You cant send any mesage to anyone if you are invis. TRhis is so stupid again, cuz maybe you want to be invis so no one can bother you, but you still want to send out a message when you feel the need to msg someone.l

c) Send multiple files. No need to zip it by yourself or send it one by one.

d) Send large files. try to send some large file (500MB+) in MSN and you will see it drains like 300MB memory, wow!!!! Of cuz your computer will be frozen until you close MSN by force. Also ICQ will let you resume the file if you lost connection in the middle

e) Change the name in contact list. For example, can you really know who is *~c@ndi ~*? or Intel P4 600 welcome to 64bit age? This person exist in my MSN yet I have no idea who is he or she now. In ICQ I can simply rename it to his/her real name so I dont have to keep track of 200 different nick name

f) No wink in ICQ. Less annoyance.

g) ICQ do not try to sell you emoticon package....

i) You have the ability to change your email address in ICQ. In hotmail you are stuck with the hotmail which 99% ppl wont even use

g) the personal info is much more powerful and detail in ICQ. In fact you can even add notes yourself, something like "nice chick I met in bar but I spend 2 minutes talking about school thing before she left"

h) Unique setting for different users. For example I can set on auto receive file for some ppl, or stay perma visible to some important ones.

i) maybe more.. welcome to add some

I hope people who havnt use ICQ give it a try. Dont be trick by those emoticon or winks in MSN!

I still use icq because of all the above features.. hehe

msn is such inferiour..

[ainsane]

i) You have the ability to change your email address in ICQ. In hotmail you are stuck with the hotmail which 99% ppl wont even use.
||||Don't use hotmail then.. Sign up for a .NET account with your gmail, or yahoo... or ISP email.. easy peasy.

I signed up for a .NET account with my Sympatico e-mail address. But when I cancelled Sympatico, I realized that you can't change your e-mail on a .NET account! What kind of garbage is that. I had to create a whole new .NEt accounr and add everyone on my MSN list to my new account.

[akito925]

If I cared about offline messages, I would send e-mail. My point is proven simply by the fact that they felt it necessary to release a "lite" version.

Right now, ICQLite is taking 17.8MB of RAM, while MSN is taking 6.1MB. That's almost 3x the memory and it's just idling. If this is the "lite" version, WTF is in the full version?

Jim

the amount of ram of peoples computer at least 1 gig of ram.. not really worried about it..

yeah.. and checks their e-mail that much if you gonna just send a simple offline message???

[aquariaguy]

a) Can send offline message to anyone. MSN Messenger is really an INSTANT messenger as you cant even send an offline message! How inconvinient is that?
||||you can still email people, which is the exact same thing....and if they have their cell setup for msn you can txt message them as well. (I know you can also SMS in ICQ..)

b) Can send message when you are invisible. You cant send any mesage to anyone if you are invis. TRhis is so stupid again, cuz maybe you want to be invis so no one can bother you, but you still want to send out a message when you feel the need to msg someone.
||||I'll agree with this point, but being invisible to everyone is so childish anyhow :)

c) Send multiple files. No need to zip it by yourself or send it one by one.
||||I've sent multiple files before.. in the range of 3-5 simultaneously.

d) Send large files. try to send some large file (500MB+) in MSN and you will see it drains like 300MB memory, wow!!!! Of cuz your computer will be frozen until you close MSN by force. Also ICQ will let you resume the file if you lost connection in the middle.
||||I agree with this as well. Not sure about the memory sucking, but not being able to reliably resume files in msn is sortof a drag.

e) Change the name in contact list. For example, can you really know who is *~c@ndi ~*? or Intel P4 600 welcome to 64bit age? This person exist in my MSN yet I have no idea who is he or she now. In ICQ I can simply rename it to his/her real name so I dont have to keep track of 200 different nick name
||||Messenger Plus! Just be careful to not install the optional spyware package...read the EULA.

f) No wink in ICQ. Less annoyance.
||||Redundant point, it depends on the person you are chatting with. People can just as easily annoy you in MSN if their chat habits consist of one liners..
"uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh"
... *strangle*

g) ICQ do not try to sell you emoticon package....
||||ICQ has like banners and garbage in your face on the contact list which you cannot get rid of. At least this emoticon thing is somewhat out of sight-out of mind.

i) You have the ability to change your email address in ICQ. In hotmail you are stuck with the hotmail which 99% ppl wont even use.
||||Don't use hotmail then.. Sign up for a .NET account with your gmail, or yahoo... or ISP email.. easy peasy.


g) the personal info is much more powerful and detail in ICQ. In fact you can even add notes yourself, something like "nice chick I met in bar but I spend 2 minutes talking about school thing before she left"
||||Again..Messenger Plus!

h) Unique setting for different users. For example I can set on auto receive file for some ppl, or stay perma visible to some important ones.
||||Again..Messenger Plus!

MSN also has superior support for multi-user chat IMO.. its usage of uPNP allows me to get past my proxy at work, so I can get online.. ICQ--don't even try.. port 5190 is totally blocked :)

Messenger and Messenger Plus! addon is really robust, I think you need to see it and actually use it for a bit.. You might not be impressed enough to use it regularly, but at least you can say "I've seen it on both sides of the fence".

----------
Of course, all this is completely thrown out the window by just downloading Trillian :) and $10 sez if google launched a gooogle IM, everyone would instantly want that due to the popularity of gmail. It would probably be superior to all the IM's anyhow.. they're probably indexing this conversation in google as we speak!!

hehe


I think the new MSN beta you can talk to people while "offline"
I do agree, it sucks if you want to send large files which you need to resume. I think high school was popular with ICQ, once you hit university, its MSN. I've never seen a single people log onto ICQ lite from campus. Not one. But almost everyone you see them typing on webmessenger.

[old_old_7]

I can't hit "return" key to send a mesenge, that's the only thing I dislike ICQ, other than that, I love to use it.
MSN, ever like it, hate it first time I use it, for no reason, may be it's microsoft thing.
Yahoo is still most often use.

[gilboman]

I think the new MSN beta you can talk to people while "offline"
I do agree, it sucks if you want to send large files which you need to resume. I think high school was popular with ICQ, once you hit university, its MSN. I've never seen a single people log onto ICQ lite from campus. Not one. But almost everyone you see them typing on webmessenger.

i dont see anybody using icq on campus either. I think its the older you get, you realize you dont need all the crap that comes with icq and you want a simple, clean and fast loading client like MSN for just chatting. its really just about chatting. for plain IM, MSN blows icq away. but its funny how icq tried to copy the emoicons and come up with the lame and very ugly icons

[devious9191]

The last time I used ICQ (and it's been a couple years now I'm sure), I was literally bombarded with spam.. which I couldn't find any sort of solution for.. so I quickly switched back to MSN. I always thought that that was related to ICQ #'s, and someone could easily set up a script to just mass message ICQ #'s...

Has this been resolved somehow? Without having to use 'do not accept messages from people not on my contact list', or whatever it is for ICQ.

[Degenerate]

ICQ was the shiznit when I started using it. HArd to imagine I've been on it for like 8-9 years now. Stupid mass messages piss me off that I'm rarely on it. Each night I get home I see about 10 messages. Is there a way to block these?

[felix]

I get no spam to my ICQ account, even with an old 7 digit UIN. Just hide your email address and set your country to Canada, etc.

I also like how it's Tab+Enter to send a message. Makes it more user friendly so you can type and indent and type fast without having to think like normal email + word applications.

[Kakashi]

Use Trillian or Miranda for ICQ then you'll see it's much better :)
One thing that annoys me with MSN messages is
that almost everyone
likes to type
like this
because
they're enter-button happy

And at least with ICQ, the server won't go down every week for "maintenance" like MSN...:D

[kornstar369]

i heard of icq but never bothered to use it...i guess cause almost everyone uses msn now-a-days...its so user friendly...

[Newt]

Honestly, it doesn't matter which one has "more features". The fact of the matter is that you are going to use whichever one your friend are using.

ICQ's features are usesless to me if there is nobody on my list..

[chak]

I've been using ICQ since 1997~
and stop using it last year when everyone no longer use ICQ...and MSN is also faster...for a P3 comp that I got...it's really make a diff!

there are also a lot of web version... like e-messagener some of u mentioned..and Iloveim.com which u can log on to either msn or icq or another im

My frd sent me GAIM which is similar to Trillian...I haven't try it myself not sure how good that is

Oh one thing I love about MSN is the game..haha~i love minesweeper and Solitaire~~~they kills time~

And somehow I feel that sendin MSN thru SMS is faster than ICQ~it's like instant...ICQ sometime will take a little bit longer~

But i still rmb all those good memories back then with ICQ~where frds and I spent like all our hours outside school chatting on net~

[Kinki]

Quote me on this!

Google is going to come up with it's own version of ICQ/MSN! Just watch... huge profit to be made.

[MTL-TechY]

I fail to understand the point of the last part of the sentence in any way.

well they were a lot of them of jewish faith who had icq and didn't stop chatting about it in class. Us catholics didn't even know what icq was, and therefore thats what i meant. Im not being racist in saying that only jew use icq, or vice-versa, just saying in my particular situation, this was the norm.

ut that was a few years ago, everyone uses msn now

[nuropa]

In MSN you can send people offline messages via SMS to their pager/cellphone if they setup mobility option. not sure if ICQ has this feature, I stopped using it few years ago. I like old version of ICQ, simple and fast, not bloated with useless features in the newer versions.

[Lonely Soldier Boy]

ICQ = Bloat.

[grant]

Stupid ICQ every time you re-installed it, it would erase your contact list. What a joke! What, am i supposed to write down the "UIN" of all the people I wanted to talk to??

and every time ICQ-lite starts up, that idiotic FOGHORN blares through my speakers. It's impossible to turn off. Like, uh thanks for the update there program I had no clue i was starting ICQ until i woke up my neighbour :P

[cheukiecfu]

Stupid ICQ every time you re-installed it, it would erase your contact list. What a joke! What, am i supposed to write down the "UIN" of all the people I wanted to talk to??

and every time ICQ-lite starts up, that idiotic FOGHORN blares through my speakers. It's impossible to turn off. Like, uh thanks for the update there program I had no clue i was starting ICQ until i woke up my neighbour :P
ICQ RULES!!!!
it's stupid that nobody use it anymore..
actually.. u can turn that "FOGHORN" sound off from the preference dialog..
and like MSN, ICQ stores your contact list in their server too.. I don't know why u lost your contact...

anyway.. how come nobody mention this... ICQ has a WAYY better history management than MSN does...

[kornstar369]

are there any kind of thrid party cokies or anything that downloads with icq?

[canook]

I've been on ICQ since '97. I even still have my 7-digit ICQ number. I've gotten spammed maybe 10 or 15 times in those 8 years.

I used MSN for a while because so many of my friends were on it. That became the problem - I couldn't just sit there invisible and chat to the people I wanted to. I'd end up bombarded by too many messages to do anything else worthwhile on the computer. So I ended up blocking everyone by default and unblocking people as I wanted to talk to them. Trouble was, everyone else did the same thing, so I'm back to no one on my list. :)

Here's the kicker, though. I can access ICQ through a simple command-line interface (mICQ) via ssh. In my life, that makes ICQ a clear winner. I've never gotten MSN to work the same way, and I think they keep changing their protocols to lock out other clients anyway.

Obviously my needs are not the same as everyone else's, but I don't mind that. The people I need to talk to are on ICQ.

[CodecX81]

As soon as Mirabilis was sold to AOL, it went to ****. end of story.

Now.. if they were smart, they'd merge the two lists so you are able to have AIM people and ICQ people talk with their program of preference. But AOL are too idiotic to see that..

[careener]

icq is sooooo 2002.

Don't you mean it's so 1998? That's when I started using it..
Now use Trillian but most everyone on my contact list has swtiched to MSN.

[cheukiecfu]

As soon as Mirabilis was sold to AOL, it went to ****. end of story.

Now.. if they were smart, they'd merge the two lists so you are able to have AIM people and ICQ people talk with their program of preference. But AOL are too idiotic to see that..
actually i think they are planning to do this with a new AOL software... called QICQ or sth... forgot

[garbun0629]

I agreed.
ICQ is a lot better than MSN.

However, MSN is a small program with many cute and fun functions.
I'm using MSN 7.0 beta, they have animated cartoons , which you can send it to ur frds instantly. Yes, it's a fashion and the most important thing is that
MSN messenger is a built in program for all windows. No d/l required.

One time, a 1st year university girl said that I'm out dated and old fashtion because i'm still using ICQ. :(

[cheukiecfu]

I agreed.
ICQ is a lot better than MSN.

However, MSN is a small program with many cute and fun functions.
I'm using MSN 7.0 beta, they have animated cartoons , which you can send it to ur frds instantly. Yes, it's a fashion and the most important thing is that
MSN messenger is a built in program for all windows. No d/l required.

One time, a 1st year university girl said that I'm out dated and old fashtion because i'm still using ICQ. :(
those animated cartoons.. aka WINKS.... has lots of security holes in there......

[kornstar369]

those animated cartoons.. aka WINKS.... has lots of security holes in there......


security holes such as ...what?
what do you mean?

are they that dangerous?

thnks

[MrDisco]

i used to use icq but now all i get is porn spam on it. i hate spam.

[mrmoe]

icq is crap.
msn rules.

[Jokez Guy]

icq is crap.
msn rules.

TRU DAT

[kornstar369]

i used to use icq but now all i get is porn spam on it. i hate spam.

so do you think msn users are going to be getting that?
cause i will uninstall it be the case

...but i think other companies pay microsoft to allow their cookies to be through onto our comp?

[Gee]

I get no spam to my ICQ account, even with an old 7 digit UIN. Just hide your email address and set your country to Canada, etc.

I also like how it's Tab+Enter to send a message. Makes it more user friendly so you can type and indent and type fast without having to think like normal email + word applications.

Why would you use Tab-Enter? It is awkard to use that combination.

Use ALT-S instead.

As soon as Mirabilis was sold to AOL, it went to ****. end of story.

Now.. if they were smart, they'd merge the two lists so you are able to have AIM people and ICQ people talk with their program of preference. But AOL are too idiotic to see that..

ICQ has done that already. I can easily add AIM users on my ICQ list and I can also add SMS users only. They don't need to have an account with ICQ.

This has been available since 2003

[akwok]

icq is sooooo 2002.

You mean ICQ is soooo 1998. Eheh.

[cheukiecfu]

security holes such as ...what?
what do you mean?
are they that dangerous?
thnks
if u do a google search on "msn wink security holes", you will get some info...
i don't know exactly why these flash animations make the messenger vunlerable.....
that's why they have disabled sending Winks to older beta version if u are using the latest beta test build (632)... or they may have fixed it already.. i dunno
an article that talks about the winks: http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/10/06/HNmsnbeta_1.html

[siriuskao]

add another point:
can access ICQ from ANY java-enabled web browser.

ICQ has a lot of nice features not found in other programs.. thing is, very few people use it nowadays. As well, they had some serious security flaws that they were very very reluctant to patch (this was a year or two back..).. I haven't used it much since then.

Web version of MSN
http://webmessenger.msn.com

[coolpc]

i think microsoft purposly make windows run icq program slower.. cuz when i use to use windows 95, 98 before msn was build-in ICQ runs with lighting speed and never hangs, now!! ICQ just always have glitches and stuff!! but i still like icq better!!

[solarv]

i use sms

[HangTen10]

I use Miranda because it loads way faster than ICQ or MSN. Login to both with Miranda in seconds before either program even loads. No frills = good thing.

[gilboman]

i think microsoft purposly make windows run icq program slower.. cuz when i use to use windows 95, 98 before msn was build-in ICQ runs with lighting speed and never hangs, now!! ICQ just always have glitches and stuff!! but i still like icq better!!

no..its cause icq got bloated and filled with all types of crap such as adware and advertisment. why do you like a program with glitches and slower?

[sfu_lifer]

I prefer MSN since EVERYBODY on Windows has it. Far easier to use and less cluttered esp when you do voice chats and video conferencing. I was on ICQ for a long while before MSN but had to switch since everybody started moving to MSN messenger.

[felix]

Stupid ICQ every time you re-installed it, it would erase your contact list. What a joke! What, am i supposed to write down the "UIN" of all the people I wanted to talk to??

and every time ICQ-lite starts up, that idiotic FOGHORN blares through my speakers. It's impossible to turn off. Like, uh thanks for the update there program I had no clue i was starting ICQ until i woke up my neighbour :P
You are probably using an older version of ICQ. I forgot which version, maybe 2003b, from that point on, it saves your contact list to the ICQ servers. :)

[MADster123]

I can't understand how some people would go backward and abandon the more advanced ICQ for something more primitive like MSN... can't send offline messages...
The original post is very well put and well written!!! Thank you so much!!!
PS... I met my current honey (and my ex-es) through ICQ!!!! ICQ helps my relationship so much because it allows me to leave him offline messages whenever I want! :razz:

[stooker]

ICQ released a new version today!

www.icq.com

[kornstar369]

ICQ released a new version today!

www.icq.com

it was all 89 pages of bickering,lol

[cerebrate]

I use both icq and msn, although my preference is still icq.

I can't understand how some people would go backward and abandon the more advanced ICQ for something more primitive like MSN... can't send offline messages...
The original post is very well put and well written!!! Thank you so much!!!


I prefer MSN since EVERYBODY on Windows has it.

IMO, this is one of the main reasons why msn is more popular than icq. People who have never tried out instant messaging before already have access to msn pre-installed (in the form of Windows Messenger on WinXP). They probably find its feature set to be "good enough" for them not to bother with trying out another program like icq (although they would be more easily persuaded to switch from windows messenger to msn messenger).

[JeiJei]

Sorry if this is consider off-topic

Does anyone know if there is a way to change the folder of ICQ's "Share Folders"?

Like instead of being C:\Program Files\ICQ\Share Folders to D:\Shared Files

Thnx for any input!

[grant]

You are probably using an older version of ICQ. I forgot which version, maybe 2003b, from that point on, it saves your contact list to the ICQ servers. :)

Too little, too late, i only have the patience to re-enter my friend's list 3 times... sorry icq, you lose.