This year, ICQ turned 19 years old. During this time, tens of millions of users passed through her “hands”. In fact, ICQ has shaped our understanding of such a class of applications as instant messengers. During its history, ICQ has repeatedly changed owners, gained dozens of alternative customers and outlived many competitors. There was a time when it seemed that it had finally turned into an Internet story. And yet, in spite of everything, the legend continues to live.

Let's try to remember how the interface of ICQ changed, starting from the distant 90s.

1996–1997

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One of the very first versions, under PowerMac.

At the same time, the client appears under Windows 3.11, but, unfortunately, I could not find its images.

1998

ICQ 98

The triumph of asceticism. All the necessary minimum (and even a little more) functions and settings are present in the application.

1999

ICQ 99b

The interface does not change much, but the functionality of the application is rapidly expanding. There was a message history, stealth mode, sending email from the messenger and other features.

2000

ICQ 2000b

The interface becomes a bit more accurate. The ability to call phones and other computers, send SMS and messages to pagers was added.



Integration with IRC in the form of channels / rooms appears. By the way, now in the mobile clients of ICQ there is also an opportunity to communicate in large groups (live chat).

2001

ICQ 2001b

The most important innovation of this version was the ability to share files. Contacts are now stored on the server and synchronized between other devices. Appeared hated by all the ads. :)

2002

ICQ 2002a

You can customize message styles. Mail can now be viewed and deleted directly in the client.
New advanced user search based on free queries and keywords.

2003

ICQ 2003b and Lite

As a result of the rapid growth of additional opportunities, ICQ has turned into a real combine. This led to the emergence of a simpler and thinner client - the Lite version.

A complete set of functions with all the additional features was introduced in the Pro version.

2004

ICQ 4

Appeared Xtraz. These are games or web applications that extend functionality or use ICQ as a platform.

2005

ICQ 5



Starting with this version, ICQ began to support skins. In general, skins were incredibly popular at that time - everyone probably remembers how they looked for new skins for Winamp.

2007

ICQ 6

The application has been heavily reworked. Now you can quickly reply directly from the pop-up notification in the corner of the screen.

2009

With great delay, the first mobile version for Windows Mobile appears. At first, it was much inferior in functionality to alternative clients, but over time this was corrected.



ICQ 6.5

Added support for OpenXtraz. Now third-party developers could create their own applications and games for ICQ.

2010

ICQ 7

There is an integration with social networks. Now you can read the tape, chat and add news to the social network directly in the client.





mobile version

At the beginning of the year, a client for Java phones finally appears.



With the release of the second version of Android, the platform is becoming increasingly popular, and the emergence of ICQ did not take long to wait.

Quite an interesting implementation of switching between active chat rooms. Something similar we can now see on Facebook - Chat heads.



Also there are versions for the iPhone and BlackBerry.

2011

ICQ 7.5

The interface received minor cosmetic changes. Now you can send audio and video messages.

2012

ICQ 8

Completely new client, based on the Messenger Agent. The design and format of notifications has been significantly redesigned. Integration with several more social networks has also been added.

2015. Our days

ICQ 8.3

In the latest versions of the application, you can transfer files to offline contacts. The message window has got a vertical panel with several tabs: "Home", "Messages", "Phone" and "Games". You can express your emotions not only with the help of emoticons, but also with the help of large and high-quality drawn stickers.



mobile version

ICQ for Android switches to Material Design and implements an adaptive interface that supports phones and tablets. Support appears to work with Android Wear and Android Auto. The app gets editors' choice .

There is support for Touch ID and split-screen in the latest versions of iOS.

Implemented advanced privacy settings in ICQ for iOS and Android: now you can hide notifications and set a password to log on.



Almost 20 years is a huge time by the standards of IT. And the more pleasant that ICQ is not just alive, but also developing. In this article, we remembered not a complete list of versions and changes, but only the most significant releases. And what is the first version of ICQ you remember?