Let me begin by saying that this is my first review at mouthshut.com and I am glad to be there and I already recognize some names from the Internet world which is great, ... I already feel welcome!
ICQ has been around for a half decade now and has created a plague throughout the internet world. It might be the dominating chat program on the net yet I dont have those numbers to display as of yet. Similar programs that compare to ICQ are Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger etc.
All of these programs carry most of the same features but the one that is present across the table is the ability to send instant messages.
ICQ is available for download at icq.com and can be an interesting asset and feature for your computer. The file is an easy download - not a huge file - and is easy to install into your computer. Setup takes only around 5 minutes. Some other features that you will find on icq are file transfering (great for sending pictures, music files, text files, games, movies, anything that you want).
The ability to voice chat to your friends and family is awesome. You can send a voice message to someone in Australia and have a conversation with them. The only downside to this is if one person has a less than 56K connection than this will be quite tedious and picking up a telephone would be most imminent.
Unlike some programs such as MSN Messenger, ICQ keeps a log of all of your instant messages with someone and therefore you can always refer back to something if you need to know it. For example if they gave you their pager number and accidentally you pull the plug on your computer and are forced to reboot, you can easily check the message history for the message.
Have a cellphone? Set up your cellphone to receive instant messages! This is a feature that will become popular as soon as they can easily explain to their users how to use it, as well as tell their users (advertise it somehow) that there is such a feature.
You can find different ICQ members around the world with one of the features. Looking for a 16 year old female from Afghanistan ..... type it into the quick and easy search and it will list you all the available matches.
Group chats?! You bet, just start a chat with someone and then start inviting, inviting, inviting!! Choose from IRC style chat or even Real Time chat! Real time chat is much cooler because you can see someone type ’’hahahahah’’ character for character.
ICQ also has an address book that allows you to set up reminders, make notes of things to do, and even store names and addresses of different people.
Overall Thoughts
I have tried each of the programs and I must say that ICQ is definitely my favorite and most recommended. I have never had a problem with ICQ and constantly go to their website every few months seeking upgrades for it. If you are looking for an instant message program then ICQ should and WILL BE (cause I said so :)) your primary choice. ICQ gets my thumbs up!