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Hannover. My first attempt to register with ICQ after more than ten years is slow. Amazingly, I know my nine-digit ICQ number still by heart – rather, it fails because of the password. Apparently, an email address was not linked to the service at the time – it is therefore not possible to reset the password.
After several unsuccessful attempts and a lot of guesswork, it finally works: I’m in, in good old ICQ. Whereby the term “old” is not correct. The app, which in pre-smartphone times was still used stationary on one’s computer, is now a full-fledged smartphone messenger that is in no way inferior to Whatsapp and Co.
ICQ-Boom in Hongkong
And word of that seems to get around: in Hong Kong, for example, they should according to a report in the “Wall Street Journal” Recently the number of downloads of the ICQ messenger has skyrocketed. These have increased up to 35 times in January, ICQ is even being used in schools, reports the newspaper. The users of the messenger are mainly former children of the nineties, who are now, decades later, returning to the once popular messenger.
Meanwhile, ICQ does not yet play a major role in the German app charts. The time for a comeback could hardly be better: Messenger Whatsapp has been exposed to massive criticism for weeks due to new data protection guidelines, users are switching in droves to alternative messenger services such as Telegram, Signal or Threema. Actually the perfect time for an ICQ comeback. Would the Messenger dino really be an alternative? A look at the app – and at its security features.
Dissatisfied with WhatsApp? Why Telegram is not an alternative
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Because WhatsApp has announced new data protection guidelines, users are switching to the alternative messenger service Telegram in droves. Why this is not a good idea. © RND
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How does ICQ look today?
Those who register at ICQ today usually no longer do so with their nine-digit number, but with their mobile phone number. Immediately after installing the app, the user is prompted to specify this and to synchronize his entire phone book. In terms of data protection, this is at least as questionable as with Whatsapp – but it also has the advantage that you no longer have to exchange complicated ICQ numbers.
Shortly afterwards you get to the main menu of the messenger. Today this consists of three categories: on the far left in the menu you can find video chats, on the right you get to the text chats, which have apparently destroyed themselves within ten years. Old conversations from bygone times can no longer be found here despite the old login data.
The button in the middle is obviously new. It is called “interesting” and is evidently a collection of public groups such as those from Telegram. For example, the “German Chat” with 22,000 members, which according to the description can be joined to meet new people, is suggested to me.
A digital ruin
This is followed by other groups such as “Travel & Lost Places”, “Fantasy & Art” or “Music and Sayings for Reflection”. However, the users in these groups don’t seem to be particularly active – the last posts often come from October.
There seems to be a lot more activity in Russian-speaking groups, which are also recommended to me on the home page. There is, for example, a Nirvana fan group, in which only nature photos are posted. In the group “Best Pictures on Web” everything is posted at random, from animal pictures to erotic photo models.
Meanwhile, the function of private chats hardly differs from other messengers. With one difference: nobody chats here anymore. My contacts from back then are all still there, but they all have exactly the same pixelated profile photos from back then, sometime in the late 2000s. Here at ICQ time stopped at some point, my contact list from back then is a digital ruin.
„I can‘t hear you“
This is also clear when you look at the additional information on the contacts. Here you can see when they last logged in. Almost everyone says “a long time ago”. Only when I get in touch with the nickname “Benjamin” do I get suspicious: He apparently logged in on December 18, 2020. I briefly toy with the idea of writing to Benjamin until I realize that I don’t even know who he is anymore.
I wonder how ICQ came to an end in the first place. Why did we leave Messenger at all? The fact is that ICQ still played a fairly large role in the early years of the social web, i.e. in the times of StudiVZ and MySpace.
They chatted more about ICQ than about the creepy “chat box” at StudiVZ. Not least because, in addition to many funny emojis (were legendary especially those in ICQ 5.1) also had the opportunity to chase bizarre creatures across the screen of the other person. For example, the cat that scratches across the screen once or the little man who sang “I can’t hear you” all the time. Part of the unspoken ICQ etiquette was that these effects were only used rudimentarily. Not only because they were terribly annoying – but also because they brought the computing power of the computer to its knees.
User numbers collapse
ICQ was only replaced by Facebook and its own messenger. I can remember that in the beginning it was even possible to combine ICQ and Facebook chats in one messenger. Since nobody talked about ICQ later anyway, the function became unnecessary over time. And a few years later, smartphones and Whatsapp came along, which made the ICQ messenger superfluous. Despite similar functions, ICQ never managed to get the status of an “SMS replacement”, as Whatsapp had long carried out.
At about the same time, ICQ changed hands. While the messenger initially belonged to the American Internet giant AOL, it was sold to the Russian Mail.Ru group in April 2010. While Messenger had around 100 million users in the early 2000s, at that time it was only 42 million. By 2013 the number of users had even dropped to 11 million.
ICQ was never discontinued – on the contrary. The Russian company tinkered with new functions again and again, and apps for iOS and Android have also been available since 2010. The last relaunch took place in April 2020, since then ICQ has been called “ICQ New”.
How safe is ICQ today?
The question still needs to be clarified whether ICQ today could not actually be an alternative to the now much criticized Messenger Whatsapp. After all, the Messenger Dino now offers everything that Whatsapp and Co. can do.
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Because when it comes to security, the messenger has stuck with the level of the 1990s. Chats are not encrypted at ICQ, reported “Golem” last year at the start of “ICQ New”. This was even explicitly pointed out in the international terms and conditions, the passage was missing in the EU version. The fact is: What exactly ICQ does with the chats is completely opaque. This makes the messenger far more insecure than Whatsapp, for example, which is equipped with end-to-end encryption as standard. At ICQ, this apparently only applies to voice and video calls.
But if you just want to try ICQ again for fun, you can definitely experience a certain retro feeling here. The cat and the “I can’t hear you” man seem to no longer exist today – but the typical messenger tones from back then are all still there. For example the characteristic popping when a contact goes online. And of course the legendary “A-oh”, even in two different versions: with reverb and without. Now someone just has to write.
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