ICQ, the Veteran Chat Software, Shut Down Officially

TapTechNews June 26th news, the 28-year-old veteran chat software, the big brother of QQ, the ancestor of chat software, ICQ officially shut down its service today (June 26th), and the official website shows Servicestoppedworking.

ICQ is one of the earliest instant messaging software. ICQ was created by the Mirabilis company in Tel Aviv, Israel (founded in July 1996), developed by several Israeli youths (including Chansihou Yair Goldfinger, Sefi Vigiser, Amnon Amir, Arik Vardi and Arik's father Yossi Vardi) in November 1996, and ended its service in June 26th, 2024.

ICQ is the liaison pronunciation of ISeekYou, which can be translated into Chinese as I'm looking for you. At its peak, there were more than 100 million users on the ICQ platform, which was a remarkable achievement at that time.

In 2010, ICQ was acquired by Mail.ru (TapTechNews note: now VK), and the usage of the product has been declining continuously. The latest display on the ICQ official website suggests that users switch to VKMessenger and VKWorkspace for chatting and working.

It is worth mentioning that Tencent QQ was originally called OICQ, meaning OPEN-ICQ, and was later renamed QQ due to an intellectual property dispute in the year 2000. Singer Xu Song once sang in the song Gray Avatar: Open up OICQ, Your gray avatar won't jump anymore, but now it seems more suitable to be sung to ICQ.