If ever a piece of software was not only just-plain-annoying, but primitive, stupid and no fun, it was ICQ. ICQ ("I-Seek-You") is a piece of software that lets you communicate with other users, via phone, messaging, email, and chat. It might seem pretty cool, but with all the other messenger services (AIM, AOL, Yahoo, MSN) this is hardly a necessity.

ICQ has a lot of cool features. Games, email, chat, messaging, phone, birthday reminders...None of which is exclusive to ICQ. Games are on AIM, AOL and Yahoo. E-Mail is with AOL, Yahoo, MSN...Chat is with Yahoo, MSN, AIM and AOL. Messaging, needless to say, is also part of all four. Phone is included with AIM, and AOL has a calender for the birthday reminder aspect. Seeing as all other messenger services offer the same things ICQ offers, ICQ is totally not necessary.

They offer a wide variety of annoying sound affects that take a little bit of skill to turn off, the interface looks like something from a computer of the early 90's, and you constantly get bombarded with messages and website links to pornography.

ICQ is used by almost everybody. Most people I've met have an ICQ #, and for that reason alone, it gets one star. It's OK to have as a backup on your computer as an extra service, but if you use it daily your mind will turn to mush.

If my review ceased to sway you, you may get your own copy of this mindmelding software at www.icq.com. Why you would want to is beyond me though :)

Recommended: No