Hey Now, Hey Now... Don't Dream It's Over

Well, I guess publishing my ICQ number (82XXX58) in here is not a very smart thing to do and especially, it is basically the only page that I published my icq number before.

My ICQ account 82XXX58 is offically stolen today by an Russian hijacker and I have decided to leave it and leave another icq account of mine altogether. I recommend everyone to do the same: to boycott and stop using icq from now on . Reason? Well...

[1] Security is definitely a major issue in icq, even until today, spamming is still a common problem and hijacking account is just a little bit too much to bear for everyone.

[2] Lack of support by icq is another major issue. ICQ has little support in this area, despite the problem of account hijacking have been killing icq for the pass six to seven years. If you loss your account and cannot access using your own password and no luck of retrieving your own password, don't bother to ask ICQ, they won't help and they won't do anything either. You are wasting your time and waiting for an automatic message response from them only. (My guess is, the ICQ founder may have already make tons of cash out of it and found that it is no longer required to support ICQ the way it was anymore and that AOL acquire ICQ with the purpose of only to kill it off from the market really)!

[3] Poor progam design and update which ICQ has stayed pretty much the same for the past ten or so years and that is impossible to compete with other competitors like skype, yahoo and windows live messengers.

I have googled and search all over the places and found that ICQ is basically completely ruined and taken over by the Russian hijackers. If you google "icq russian hijacker", you will found tons of information and that ICQ hijacking is not a first day problem apparently. It has been happening since as early as 2001. Of course, I am sure there are plenty other countries have hijacker sitting around at home with nothing to do just to hijack worthless ICQ number these days. Also, ICQ also to be blamed for its kindergarten level security and kindergarten level support for users who encountered this problem. Denying the problem and saying it as an isolated incidents cannot be used to explain thousands of ICQ users losing their account everyday.

At the moment, all I know is... anyone with a small number ICQ, you are likely being hijacked. Before you lose any friends over ICQ because god know what the hijacker will do and chat using your own account impersonating you, I suggest you send messages to all your ICQ friends and ask them to switch to MSN or Yahoo or even Google and Skype chat for that matter.

Having said that, I have many years of fun with ICQ, from the first day I joined dated back in 1996, I have never stopped using it until today. However, finally, I have to stop because of hijacking problem. What a pity! Thank you though, thanks ICQ provided us with that many years of fun .

Still remember back in the old day, when Opera Browser 4.x or 5.x had once incorporate ICQ as its messenger system instead of IRC today! I remember I secretly used it at work and using Opera Browser was my excuse for being a safer faster and smaller browser in comparison to IE and Netscape back then

I have always thought that ICQ (back then the biggest instant messenger program in the world) would never end or if it ends, it would at least ended with proud, just like Netscape.

However, one would never thought that ICQ, would finally run itself to an end, in such a disgraced way...

ICQ is dead, ICQ has finally run itself to an end .