ICQ Starts Blocking Alternative Clients

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."

Miranda still working.

No problems here using Miranda IM. (http://www.miranda-im.org/)

Re:Miranda still working.

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.

ICQ is still around? Wow

That said, the forum thread is interesting. Looks like the ICQ admins are censoring posts.

Re:ICQ is still around? Wow

not for long, they just lost 12 of their 14 users!

Re:ICQ is still around? Wow

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!

Re:ICQ is still around? Wow

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.

AOL

The one thing AOL has always excelled at is cutting off its nose to spite its face. Though I am rather grateful for all those nice, metal disc boxes which I spray-painted in solid colors (for more worthy discs). They really look great.

Wrong title!

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

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.

Adium is already updated

And working just fine at this very moment.

Adium already fixed

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

Kopete fixed this [wordpress.com], well, you have to edit a config file, but once you do that it works fine on Kopete.

Pidgin (GAIM) Already fixed

I was getting this earlier, but the latest seems to connect just fine.

ICQ = EVIL ?

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.

Kinda sad

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.

Re:IC what?

Yes, ICQ is still big in China (Oicq) and Russia. Consider that the IM to first and fully support a character set will probably get the widest use, not to mention Oicq was fully integrated into cell phones long ago.

Re:IC what?

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.

Re:IC what?

QQ dominates the IM market in China.

Funny. QQ also dominates many of the Blizzard WoW forums [worldofwarcraft.com] as well.

In Russia, instant messenging == ICQ

In Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union, ICQ is basically the only instant messenging protocol. (A few tech-savvy Russians have started switching to Jabber, but even they still maintain ICQ accounts to talk to their less technically inclined friends.) Not having an ICQ number in Russia is sort of like not having an email address in the US; people will look at you funny.

Re:IC what?

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?

Re:IC what?

This is also a nonstory. The fix is just incrementing the version number on what is reported to OSCAR.

Re:IC what?

I beat all of you, my ICQ consists entirely of the batman symbol and the symbol for the artist formerly known as prince, alternating.

Re:IC what?

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

Re:Mine is 6

Oh crap. Between my Slashdot ID and my ICQ number, now even I realize how old I'm getting! I bet you kids don't even remember Napster itself!

Re:ICQ?

AIM and ICQ have been the same network for a long time. I use the AIM transport in Jabber, but I use my old ICQ account and so everyone I talk to on AIM is talking to an ICQ user.