ICQ...Lite!
Written: Nov 09 '02 (Updated Nov 10 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: A lot less bloat than regular ICQ; updated interface.
Cons: Possible random Spamming.
The Bottom Line: If you're tired of the bloat, and you only use certain features in ICQ, upgrade to ICQ Lite today!
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| bsproles's Full Review: ICQ |
ICQ. It's as ubiquitous as Yahoo!, AOL, and IRC.
A Brief History: ICQ was first released to the Internet in 1996 by a small start-up company in Israel called Mirabilis. ICQ was quickly snatched up by the masses, and soon became the premier instant messaging client. Only two years later, however, AOL bought them up (as they tend to do with a lot of small companies) in 1998, renaming the company ICQ Inc.
I Seek You (ICQ): For those who don't go online much, ICQ is an "instant messaging" (IM) client, where you can chat with people from around the world. If you have friends who are already on ICQ, or you make friends as you use it, you can save those people in a contact list that displays on the client.
The list is separated into two halves, "Online" and "Offline". Every time a friend connects or disconnects from ICQ, the list is updated automatically.
Connections: In ICQ, you can choose one of several "modes" to let others in your contact list know your current status.
Available/Connect: This is the standard "online" green flower icon which indicates that you're available to chat.
Away: Use this if you plan to be away from the keyboard for a little while. If you set this option in preferences, you'll be automatically set away after 10 minutes of being idle.
N/A (Extended Away): This option is just a longer version of the above. You can set it manually or, by default, you'll be set N/A after 20 minutes of having been "Away" (30 minutes of idle time total.)
Privacy (Invisible): Use this option if you want to stay online, but don't want people to bug you :) There is an option available where you can allow certain people to see you even when invisible.
Offline/Disconnect: This will allow you to log off of ICQ without having to shut down the program.
The "Lite" Touch: The regular version of ICQ (ICQ Lite now calls it "ICQ Pro") weighs in at a hefty 19.5 megabytes on disk, and a 3.88 megabyte compressed download. ICQ Lite really cuts out the bloat with a mere 1.7 megabyte download, and approximately 5 megabytes of disk space.
So why the big difference? ICQ Lite gives you only the most popular (and I would suspect used) features of ICQ, namely: Instant Messaging, SMS, and File Transfers.
Some of the features lost with ICQ Lite include: Sharing files (not file transfer), multi-user chats, ICQPhone, and checking POP mail.
Overall Pros: A good bit of bloat is dropped without sacrificing the primary uses of an instant messaging client; updated GUI which is still dockable to either side of the screen; and still as easy to use as its big brother.
Overall Cons: I had an issue with ICQ Lite "locking up" on me two or three times - I couldn't access anything on the client, but I was able to right-click the icon in the system tray to shut it down. There's still the possiblity of random people spamming you with weblinks, unless you set the option to not accept messages from people who aren't on your contact list.
In Conclusion: ICQ Lite is a nice change from the complex looks and myriad of options in the full version of ICQ. I don't use even 1/4th of the various things you can do with it, so ICQ Lite is definitely more suited to what I look for in an IM client, and I hope you'll find the same to be true.
Thanks for reading!
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
bsproles
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Member: Bryan Sproles
Location: New Orleans, LA
Reviews written: 67
Trusted by: 67 members
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