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Comment by toast0 | Hacker News Reader

> that time when half the internet switched to ICQ and I'm still not sure how it was better than AIM but I was convinced it was

I had a six digit ICQ, and I knew some people with 5 digits, so you could instantly tell how cool people were. Also, ICQ would say uh-oh when you got new messages, and AIM just dinged.

On a technical side, ICQ did offline messages forever and AIM didn't do offline until after AOL bought ICQ. ICQ also needed UDP to work and did peer to peer messaging when possible (coordinated through the central server) and I think you could send files sooner. Otoh, AIM servers responded on all tcp ports, so if you had a derpy corporate firewall that just looked at ports, and you had any ports open to the internet, you were golden; the java applet client was convenient too.

I think ICQ is still around, AOL sold it to some Russian company a decade ago, but AIM is dead; Verizon didn't want to keep it running, or Yahoo Messenger either.

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> Also, ICQ would say uh-oh when you got new messages

Wow, as soon as I read that, I heard it in my head, exactly as it was. Since I wasn't sure it was a false memory, I looked it up[1], and yeah, it was exactly the same, except in my head it was in a slightly lower voice.

Amazing. Instant audio time-travel just by reading a comment.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iCPIUGnHQ8

For years I’ve had it as a custom SMS/iMessage tone on my phone in the hopes of sparking a conversation with fellow early internetters. Nobody has ever paid the slightest attention but it still makes me jump sometimes. :)

Threads like this are why I love HN.

They might have had a lower voice in a later version? I think it was lower in this clip: https://youtu.be/PA0x60xhusQ

Chat “stickers” aren’t quite as clever as they used to be - there’s a certain 90s whimsy missing from today’s apps and websites: https://youtu.be/pbturFbi-vc

I had a cat who made that noise when she walked in the room

I didn't know they made cats with embedded with an ICQ client. Makes sense though.

Sounds very similar to a Worms audio clip.

ICQ was completely killed on the protocol level (including numerical UINs) by the current owners around 2018 and later was relaunched as a complete rewrite and an easy and direct way of delivering your messages to your FSB curators.

Well I guess I can stop being grumpy about my 6 digit id being canceled for running a bot.

My Neopets account is still banned for running a bot :(.

I still remember my ICQ number, this one is 8 digits, I had a 7 digit but somehow lost the login. I must have been 11.

485358; I had a 7 or maybe 8 digit one I signed up for later as an alt, but I can't remember that one.

I was sure I had a 6 digit number but turns out it was 7. Still, most people I knew at the time had 8…

Ah reminds me of the digits in your Slashdot UID, anything less than 5 digits used to cause a kefuffle in the comments, like as if the gods had descended.

I miss Slashdot, not the same after Malda left.

mid 5000s here ;) (plenty of people with less, surprised I still remember my password, my karma is apparently still excellent).

I had a 5 digit ICQ number and I lost the password!

I used to have a 5 digit one as well, but I was also a cool script kiddie and when someone told me about the dir traversal in the icq web server that was enabled for everyone by default, I went on an icq config stealing spree. I stole a password for a number that was like 12121 or something neat like that.

It turned out to belong to either an icq employee or a friend of one. Needless to say I found that I could no longer log in to any of my stolen and personal accounts.

And that's my story about finding out what karma was in my teens.

I have a three digit Slashdot number, years after it mattered a whole bunch :)

I had a 7 digit ICQ, but still remember it to this day. What a trip down memory lane ;)

I've still got my 3-character AOL name

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