After 28 years, ICQ says “goodbye”

Russian company VK announced that it will end the activities of ICQ. ICQ, operated by VK since 2010, will be shut down on June 26. VK appealed to users to switch to other messaging solutions. ICQ was founded in 1996 by the Israeli company Mirabilis. At the time, ICQ was one of the first instant messaging services to offer real-time chat. Users used an assigned number to connect with each other, rather than email addresses or aliases. ICQ offered many unique features at the time. SMS messaging and the ability to send messages to offline contacts are just a few. Also, “Uh oh!” notification of incoming messages. The warning sound was also among the unforgettable ones. In 1998, AOL purchased ICQ, further increasing the service’s popularity. According to a statement made by Time Warner in 2001, the number of registered users of ICQ reached 100 million. AOL sold ICQ to Digital Sky Technologies in 2010. Today, ICQ worked similarly to modern messaging applications such as WhatsApp or Telegram. However, according to an Internet Archive snapshot from March 2023, it appears that ICQ has been removed from the iOS and Android app stores. This shows that ICQ has been effectively closed for a while, and VK has now made it official. Place and importance of ICQ ICQ was an important communication tool for many users, especially in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Users choose ICQ to connect with friends and family around the world.

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