ICQ ver. 2000b - This is one Annoying Piece of Software
Written: Aug 08 '01 (Updated Aug 09 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Read the Review at the bottom
Cons: Read the Review at the bottom
The Bottom Line: Read the Review
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| Destinys-Child's Full Review: ICQ |
Ah, the world of online chatting. For those people who can type quickly and in a coherent way online chatting is the perfect way to chat with friends and family in real time without the phone bill. For the rest of us who use the ol’ “Two Finger Typing method” online chatting is a lesson in speed typing and grammatically appalling messaging.
ICQ or “I Seek You” is one of the older instant messaging [IM from now on] programs out right now. A couple of years ago I downloaded and attempted to use a very early version of this and was met with errors galore. It seemed every time I tried I sent a message and sometimes just receiving a message would garner a page fault error resulting in the program shutting down.
ICQ like most other IM programs allow you to add friends and family to your lists and whenever they sign on you can chat in real time. This program also lets you send files, pictures whatever back and forth. You can also sign up for ICQ mail and this program will alert you as to when you receive mail.
I never bothered re-installing ICQ until last week when a few friends wanted to chat and I was the only one without ICQ. I reluctantly went out and downloaded it and proceeded to install it.
Download / Installation
The file is free and available at icq.com, download.com and many other download sites. The latest version ICQ 2000b 4.65 build #3281 is 5 MBs in size.
The installation went smoothly enough, you need to supply a name, password, and check or uncheck whether or not you want junk mail.
One feature I have never liked about ICQ was you couldn’t pick your user ID. You actually get assigned a number such as 125390294 and this number is the number that people use to find you online. Kind of sound like a prison “number 129483821 you have a visitor”. This also makes it very hard to remember a friends ID. Thankfully you can add additional info to your friend’s number so you can tell who it is that is online.
One this it does not say is you must reboot your machine after installation. If you don’t and you attempt to use the program it will just keep freezing. The program doesn’t say you need to reboot and I attempted to use it right away with no luck.
ICQ User’s Log – Day 1
This program is annoying!!! First thing I noticed is it threw an icon on my desktop for a free trial to AOL, I deleted it. Next thing I noticed was it was in my system tray [next to the clock] The options you are given are “disable” and “sign on”, no option for stopping it from starting up with windows.
I then signed onto the internet and immediately ICQ signed me on as well. I did a search on the program after some searching I found the option to shut that off. Now it stays in the system tray but doesn’t sign on immediately when I sign onto the net. I then opened up IE and it started going out to some ICQ news page. When I looked at my Home Page info it taken out my home page and put in its own. Now that is annoying. What is even worse is that EVERY time you start ICQ it changes the homepage; I have yet to find the option to stop this.
Yet another annoying feature is the window that pops up every time you start ICQ. The window features ads and news and other junk that I could do without. I have yet to find a way to stop this feature as well.
I had to reboot the machine for whatever reason and when I got back into windows the first thing I noticed was low and behold the AOL icon was back on my desktop. Talk about being persistent.
Once you do get into the program you have to decide whether or not you want to use “Simple” or “Advanced” mode. I saw very little difference between the 2. It defaults to simple mode so I left it there for the time being. I added all my friends’ numbers without a problem. One person happened to be on so I sent him a message letting him know my new ID number. I get a message back saying I cant chat with him until he approves me first. Interesting feature [Yahoo Pager has the same one so I’m used to it]. He apparently approved me and we started chatting. It works like any other chat program, nothing special about it. The chat window however is about twice as big as AOLs or Yahoo Pagers. ICQ has this huge banner ad [about the size as the one at the top of this page] on every chat window.
One quick note, I noticed that this program uses up quite a bit of memory to run. I don’t know why it needs as much as it does. Seems strange that a simple messaging program needs to use up as much memory as it does.
I am happy to say it has never crashed on me so obviously it has been improved upon since I used it last. Also please be aware that this is the first version I have used in a long time.
The UnInstall
Before I uninstalled the program I deleted the AOL icon from my desktop and reset my homepage on my browser.
As soon as I started the uninstall the AOL icon reappeared and my browsers homepage was changed back to the ICQ startpage.
Talk about being persistant
Pros and Cons [Just in case you missed them]
~~Pros~~
-It works
-You send files as well as messages
-If you sign up for ICQ mail it will alert you when you receive mail as well
~~Cons~~
-Cannot choose a ID, Instead you are assigned a random number ID
-Insists on putting an AOL icon on your desktop every time you reboot.
-Opens a pop up window when the program is turned on.
-Changes the “homepage” on your browser every time you run the program.
-Uses up a large amount of system resources.
The Lowdown
The program isn’t bad for chatting, but all these annoying little pop-ups, AOL Icons, and home page swapping features made me uninstall after only 2 weeks of use. I don’t mind if a program does it once and then has an option to shut it off, but ICQ does not have any such options. Forcing me to go to the ICQ news page every time I open my internet browser got very annoying very fast. I would also rather be able to use my nickname as my ID rather than a random number.
If you are in desperate need of a chat utility and for some reason AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Pager or MSN is not an option than go ahead and use ICQ.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
Destinys-Child
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Location: Sagamore Beach Ma.
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A fool and his money were lucky to be together in the first place.
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