I can only recommend this product because it is the defacto in online communications! I can not recommnd you use 2000b! With the release of ICQ 99a (shorly after AOL bought ICQ Inc.), ICQ slowly started
to become overcrowed with useless features you could not custumize (or take out), yet classic features like the ’’history archive’’ are removed from the standard install, and are now required as plug-in’s! Meanwhile, features like SMS messaging services, and ’’ad-banners’’ come with every install, and not all people will use these (honestly, CNET should hold a poll about weather or not people click ICQ add banners)! Instead, ICQ hogs more memory then it ever has! Most of my friends aggree that ICQ is becoming an unoptimized and ’’bloated’’ program! What ICQ Inc. needs to do is move to an almost ’’total’’ plug-in style format with their next release of ICQ! That way you can install only the things you want, and none of the things you don’t want (If I wanted the option to make ICQ work like AOL IM, I would use AOL IM,not ICQ!)! Less RAM is used on some of the ’’older and less capable machines’’ that many of ICQ’s users are still using today. I know people that still, to this day, install ICQ 98 on there Win2k machines (even with 256MB’s of RAM+) simply because it is more reliable and effient then any release of ICQ after it! ICQ also lacks true multiplatform support, a big bummer for Linux users. :( ICQ is wanted on this and other platforms (which can be seen in the many attemps at a ’gerneric’ ICQ for these platforms)! ICQ Inc. needs to make a new release of ICQ that cleans up its 99 and 2000 mistakes, or a new competitor will come and steal the market away from them!