I’ve been on ICQ since 1998 when I finally got the Internet at home. And I must admit that I have mixed feelings about this product I use so often.

ICQ is basically a glorified chat program where users login to chat with other users. Apparently the makers of ICQ have also worked hard to create this into a community, where I can seek out and find other users with similar interests (thus the name, ’’ICQ’’ or ’’I seek you.’’).

But to the first time user, they may easily become confused by its setup, and have difficulties looking for menus and options that they can use to use ICQ. It’s not set up like a traditional GUI window, with menubar, followed by various kinds of toolbars, followed by the main body which in this case, like all contact management programs (like Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger and AOL Pager). Instead, when you first load it, you have menus on the side, on the bottom and on the top, all of which are represented by different graphics. It can be a bit overwhelming seeing all this stuff, and in fact since I hardly use any of the programs I did find in the preferences options for hiding these menus.

When you do click on the menus that are on the bottom, the windows they open are large with many tabs of possible options for you to use. I use probably about 5% of all the options available to me, mainly, the chat feature, the instant messaging feature, and the ability to put myself into invisible mode when I’m online. I also like the part in invisible mode that I can select different users and allow them to see me online even if I’m invisible (invisible means that if you appear to be offline to other people who have saved you on their contact list - they can only see you if you select them to see you). Don’t ask how to make them see you, you have to click on a number of things to get to the spot where you can do it.

And considering I only use 5% of the options available, for all the stuff I don’t use, ICQ sure does suck up a lot of system resources. I have an Antec motherboard and AMD 400Mhz processor (recently upgraded to an ASUS motherboard, with P3 800Mhz and 512MB RAM). I also use two great programs called MemTurbo (that defragments my RAM -thereby freeing it up for use by other programs), as well as NetTurbo (which helps speed up my Internet Connection Speeds) hooked up to my computer, and inspite of this the resources do drop quiet a bit. Too much, in my opinion for a program of it’s nature. It won’t crash your system as it’s not a totally incredible amount, but it is at least twice as much as other instant messaging programs like Yahoo! or MSN Messenger. ICQ also takes a long time to start up when you first click on it in Windows.

Apparently ICQ also has a huge online website, with specific communities and reference groups people can join up to meet other people with similar interests, whether the interest is in trading cards, watching sports, painting pictures to seeing movies, if you like it, you’ll probably find a club online at ICQ that deals with it.

So all in all, ICQ isn’t a bad program. But somebody should write a book - ’’ICQ for Dummies’’ because the program can be very confusing and complex at times. My biggest wish for future versions of this program is just for someone to go and sit down from the start and redesign it so that it’s easier to use. To be honest, the only reason I got it was because everyone else I knew had it too. But since then, I’ve met some great new people, that I wouldn’t have met without the program.

And as a chat and instant messaging program, it can be so good, it’s great. But as for everything else it tries to be, I think it’s too complex and could be redesigned with simplicity of use in mind. So for now, that aspect remains so bad.

Grade: B

Software version:

ICQ Version 2000b Beta v4.65