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ICQ Starts Blocking Alternative Clients
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jul 02, 2008 09:58 AM
from the well-that's-not-how-friends-play-nice dept.
from the well-that's-not-how-friends-play-nice dept.
An anonymous reader writes "It appears that since yesterday ICQ has blocked access to the ICQ network to alternative clients. Users of QIP, Adium, and other clients are getting a 'The client version you are using is too old. Please upgrade'. No comment yet from ICQ or AOL."
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Submission: ICQ Blocks Alternative Clients by Anonymous Coward
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IC what? (Score:4, Insightful)
In other news... people still use ICQ?
Re:IC what? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:IC what? (Score:5, Informative)
QQ dominates the IM market in China.
OICQ was a rip-off of ICQ but was never compatible or even the same network as ICQ.
Parent
Re:IC what? (Score:5, Funny)
QQ dominates the IM market in China.
Funny. QQ also dominates many of the Blizzard WoW forums [worldofwarcraft.com] as well.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Yes, ICQ is still big in China (Oicq) and Russia...
So when the invasion happens, we Americans will have to start using ICQ again? Noooooooooooooo!
Re:IC what? (Score:5, Funny)
So when the invasion happens, we Americans will have to start using ICQ again? Noooooooooooooo!
"Uh oh!"
Parent
In Russia, instant messenging == ICQ (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:In Russia, instant messenging == ICQ (Score:5, Informative)
This probably explains why my ICQ account gets at least one or two random spam add requests in Cyrillic every day.
Parent
Re:IC what? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:IC what? (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously. The last time I used ICQ, I remember my geeky friend named Devin inviting me over to his house. We were talking about the hot new character on the current Star Trek show named Seven of Nine.
So, for what it's worth, if ICQ reminds me of Jeri Ryan... it can't be that bad, right?
Parent
Re:IC what? (Score:4, Informative)
well, I had not used it in a while, so I fired up my old pidgin client and I can connect just fine.
Yep, it's working.
Parent
Re:IC what? (Score:4, Funny)
Working (as) flawlessly (as possible) with pidgin 2.1.1 here. Just tried.
What is all this fuss about ? Maybe people are really using old versions and the server is right ?
Oh ? You mean ICQ server are refusing your 5 years old client ? Shocking.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
ICQ is irrelevant. It will be absorbed.
-jcr
Re:IC what? (Score:5, Funny)
Assimilated. Sweet Jesus, man...I'm not even a Trekkie and I know that.
The gentlemen at the door will be taking your geek card. Open enrollment is in 2 months, you may reapply then.
Parent
Re:IC what? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:IC what? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IC what? (Score:5, Funny)
I beat all of you, my ICQ consists entirely of the batman symbol and the symbol for the artist formerly known as prince, alternating.
Parent
Re:IC what? (Score:5, Funny)
Three digits, starting with a '6'.
"Please allow me to introduce myself...
I'm a man of wealth and taste..."
[collective gasp]
C'mon, c'mon! Just kiddin!
Cheers!
Strat
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
99501, please report to central for re-education.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Miranda still working. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Miranda still working. (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary is wrong. They don't block alternative clients but an old version of the protocol. Alternative clients that emulate the current version are fine.
Parent
ICQ is still around? Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, the forum thread is interesting. Looks like the ICQ admins are censoring posts.
Re:ICQ is still around? Wow (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:ICQ is still around? Wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Once upon a time ICQ was de-facto standard in Turkey. You know what they did? (AOL shareholders, listen)
They banned the TURKISH CABLE IP BLOCK, the _country_ from reaching their servers. They actually banned Cable ISP monopoly but it was like banning all active, high profile users.
People looked to alternatives, tried proxies (yes,pathetic but needed) and they stared at something which is already installed to their system. Windows (MSN) Messenger. The outcome will amaze you. Microsoft execs are at absolute shock because Turkish MSN _active_ users exceeds 25 million. That is 1/4 of country using a single service.
Hope the idiots banning a country because of couple lamers read this message. Yes, MSN has 25 million users... Thanks to you!
Parent
Re:ICQ is still around? Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Is that Turk-Telecom that got banned?
Because, I gotta say, wow, that netblock generates a LOT of spam. Seriously. Like 25% of my spam comes from there.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, cable ISP. They didn't ban Turk Telecom. Turk Telecom seems to care for spam reports lately (their mail spam rate going lower along with Poland) but they banned the Cable ISP. Imagine there is only Comcast in USA for Cable ISP and rest are 56K running people. You are banning entire Comcast from your network, they did something similar to it.
I still suspect some racial profiling etc. since it is really possible to hunt the individual spammers and if you are at a point of banning an entire ISP block, it i
AOL (Score:5, Funny)
Re:AOL (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I always thought they always made good alternatives for clay pidgeons when you have nothing else to shot.
Wrong title! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, they're forcing windows users to upgrade.. It has nothing to do with blocking alternative clients.
In other news, GnomeICU [sf.net] still works and pidgin has just made a new release with sends a newer version number.
Maybe they could just "un-retard" it (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, on the topic of forcing people to upgrade... maybe if the newer software wasn't so retarded, more people would upgrade. Just a thought.
Admittedly my anecdote isn't comprehensive marketing data and isn't that new either, but just to illustrate a point. So at one point I wanted to communicate with someone who supposedly had only ICQ.
The last version I had used before was, IIRC, 2002a. Or something. At any rate, it was a relatively clean interface, with just the two text-fields needed, and the minimum of buttons that one might need. All in the Windows configured colours, and with sensible icons that are there, but don't scream for attention and don't look like someone flew an airplane into a clown makeup factory. I'm not necessarily a fan of ICQ or AOL, but I could respect that interface.
Well, I figured, wth, let's get the newest version. You know, what with potential security holes and whatnot in older versions. I think the version at the moment was ICQ 4. "With Xtraz!" The l33t (ok, SMS-speak) spelling in a product name should have been warning enough. It was everything that the old version wasn't: retarded and annoying and looking like a desperate scream for attention. IIRC with an ad banner thrown in for good measure too.
I actually went "oh, fuck the security holes, that's why I have an anti-virus and data execution check turned on." I actually uninstalled it and dug through old backup CD-R's to find my trusted old version.
Well, I uninstalled it completely after a few days and never looked back. So I wouldn't know if the even newer versions fixed that or continued down that slope towards software-Alzheimer's.
But just saying... if you find that you have to _force_ people to give up their old versions and use the newer one, even when it's for free (as in beer;)... there may be some subtle hint in there.
And yeah, I know there are other programs one can use instead of the official client. They're just kinda irrelevant for the point I was trying to make, which is about AOL making the users of its official client upgrade.
Parent
Adium is already updated (Score:5, Informative)
And working just fine at this very moment.
Adium already fixed (Score:5, Informative)
I got the "your client is too old" message today, did a manual "check for updates" and found that a new version of Adium (1.2.6) was released and after upgrading ICQ works again.
Kopete works (Score:5, Informative)
No, you don't. :) (Score:4, Informative)
Kopete updates its version file automatically, so no need to edit anything. Kopete will do it for you.
Parent
Pidgin (GAIM) Already fixed (Score:5, Informative)
Adium 1.2.6 fixes it (Score:4, Informative)
ICQ = EVIL ? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I like is if you go to the tech forum on ICQ referred to in initial post you'll see that most if not all workarounds have been edited out by ICQ....nice.
Less people can access ICQ... (Score:3, Insightful)
And nothing of value was lost
Kinda sad (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll miss ICQ when they shut it down. I haven't gotten a real message from it in years (I think - I don't really pay attention to which service in Kopete I'm getting messages from), but I can't bring myself to stop connecting.
I have a very low 7-digit ID from right after it came out. It was pretty cool to be able to randomly chat with friends without having to log into an IRC channel and wait for them to remember to come online. One time I even bought a girl a computer for Valentine's Day just so I could talk to her while I was at my ISP tech support job; we ended up getting married.
ICQ sucks and it's spammy and doesn't do anything cool, but there's a lot of nostalgia in that crusty old system. I'll be sad the day when my login stops working for the last time.
ICQ, the socially conscious IM (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, you can configure your clients differently, but I'm talking about the default behavior. And even if you are courteous enough to not set it to send your message every time you press enter, your friends won't, and you'll still be getting one-liners that could have waited until they were finished typing their whole idea.
Oh come on (Score:4, Informative)
This is just an incremental version update. For the licq client at least, it's a one-byte fix in /usr/bin/licq [licq.org]
Re:ICQ? (Score:4, Informative)
My recent usage, on only one machine but my main workstation for the past 2-1/2 years, gives the following reports from du for my Adium log folder:
Note that I only used MSN and Yahoo for a long time, and added AIM just a few years ago when I moved to a state where apparently everyone is on AIM. I think that there are regional trends for one network to be more popular than others. This probably has to do with the first few people in a particular high school or college starting with one IM network and nobody in that school bothering with the others since they all told their friends "Get X!"
Parent
Re:ICQ? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
You != Everyone (Score:3, Insightful)
I thought ICQ died years ago. Apart from MSN, which I use very rarely, what other IM clients are in common use?
Depending your geography and demographics, then you will find the popular IM network is not the same. For example ICQ still has a certain popularity in Eastern Europe, QQ in China and South Africa. Avoid basing global statistics on your own usage habits.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I stopped using ICQ earlier this year when my low-seven digit account number was hijacked. ICQ provides ZERO methods of getting hijacked accounts back.
Re:Mine is 6 (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)