I have been using ICQ since around 1995 so I have used a lot of different versions of this program (and until recently I wouldn’t have been connected and not had it on). This program is great to
be able to talk to new people and friends from school or work. However, there is one problem with it right now.
<B>Ads</B>
Ads are everywhere in the program now. I refused to use 2000a or 2000b because of all the ads but recently all my messages were not getting to people I was sending them to so I had to upgrade to 2001b (which came out this week). The problem is that at the bottom of every message you send or receive there is an ad and there is no way to remove this ad.
<B>Instant Messages</B>
Like AOL Instant Messenger, MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger you are able to talk to your friends instantly. You can also meet new people by using different look-ups and putting yourself on Free To Chat will allow others with similar interests to find you and start a conversation. I have meet a lot of new people with this program.
<B>Other Features</B>
There are so many features that naming them all in less than 8000 characters is a little hard but I’ll try to do this:
<I>File Sharing
Spell Checker
Access to your contact list from any computer
Send messages to ICQ, Cell Phone or e-mail
Auto Firewall (so you can use it at work also)
ICQ Chat
Send E-mail
Instant Messages (of course)
ICQ Phone
Greeting Cards
Games
Voice Messages
7 addresses for friends to use to get in touch with you</I>
If you want to read about more features you can go to http://www.icq.com/icqtour/advanced/ for more information.
<B>Adding Friends</B>
This is such an important feature and ICQ makes this very simple, you can search for your friends by e-mail address, nickname, first name or last name and ICQ number. If they don’t come up you can also send them an invitation to get ICQ also.
<B>Download and Installation</B>
The download can take about 20 minutes depending on your connection but after it’s downloaded you will be talking to friends and meeting new people within about 5 minutes. They make the installation very simple and if you ever need help there FAQ and help sections are very informative.
They also have more features that you can download to use with ICQ if you want to do that, although I have not done that yet because I feel everything that I need is already included with the program. For a list of these you can go to http://www.icq.com/icqtour/advanced/services.html
<B>Conclusion
</B>
If you want to talk to friends instantly and be able to share files with them this is a great program for you to use. Very simple to use and clean interface.