
Why is it time to leave with ICQ, where and how to just do it
Today I will tell you why ICQ is bad, how to deal with it, which clients and protocols you should switch to, and which ones not, why many, knowing that ICQ crap, continue to use it, etc.
So, let's start in order:

Why is ICQ bad?
Despite its main plus (namely, huge prevalence), the ICQ protocol has one very big minus - the protocol is closed and not documented. Translated into Russian: no one (except the developers) knows exactly how the client should communicate with the server. This means that changing something in the protocol, all unofficial clients automatically stop working. It is this very recent time that has been happening with noticeable regularity, and it has to be said that this happens not by chance. This phenomenon has a completely understandable reason. AOL (the company that owns ICQ) makes money by displaying ads that run when using an official client; alternative clients (such as QIP or Miranda) do not show ads, thereby reducing the company's revenue. In order to somehow resist this phenomenon, AOL changes the protocol, and all owners of alternative clients are temporarily left without ICQ, until the developers of alternative clients release new versions. Part of the people who do not want to follow the updates do not like periodic falls, etc. decide to go to the official client (read watch ads). We are not entering this part. Rest,

Why is Skype not an alternative?
Many users after several changes to the ICQ protocol went to Skype and did it in vain . I will not say that Skype is more of an IP telephony than IM, this is understandable, something else is important. Skype is exactly the same closed project, you are just not given an alternative to choosing a client, and if tomorrow the Skype owner decides to display ads on the entire monitor screen, you will have only 2 ways: to refuse to use or watch this advertisement. Switching to Skype, you change, in essence, the idea of soap.
Where to go or why exactly jabber?
The main words in this quote are " open protocol ." This means that anyone can develop their own client, and if it is written correctly, it will work and no company will ever be able to make this client stop working. In other words, no crashes, expectations for new versions and panic, why doesn’t it work.

Jabber is easy.
Almost certainly you have a jabber account ! If you use QIP Infium , Livejournal , Gmail , Mail agent , GTalk , Facebook , J.Online , Gizmothen you are essentially ready. All of the listed messaging tools support jabber, are interconnected and accordingly allow you to communicate between services, and their list is constantly expanding.
Which client and account to use is your business, there are a huge number of them, including QIP Infium and Miranda (if you have the appropriate plug-in).
Personally, I chose Gmail as an account, because It has several advantages over the others:
I added my Gmail account as jabber to the QIP client , i.e. the client for communication remained the same as when I used ICQ, in other words, there is no need to get used to the new client, use what you are used to, it simply adds the protocol and the selected account to it.
Why does anyone else use ICQ?
Everything is simple and obvious, the only advantage of the ICQ protocol is the number of users. Almost all your friends use ICQ and do not use jabber. As soon as the bulk of people move to jabber, ICQ will die and this time is just around the corner. I do not urge anyone to refuse completely, the most reasonable solution now is to use both ICQ and jabber. As soon as the majority join the use of jabber, you can forget about ICQ. Fortunately, with every protocol change, the jabber community is getting bigger.
About myself
I understand that it is difficult and practically impossible to transfer the whole world at a time to the use of a normal protocol. It so happened for historical reasons that everyone has ICQ, but personally, I am ready to do a lot in order to speed up the migration process. That’s why I wrote this article. If you have any problem or question about setting up jabber accounts, I am ready to help to solve this problem.
From you, I ask only 2 things:
For any questions related to the described topics, write to:
email: rvnikita@ya.ru
jabber: rvnikita@gmail.com
ICQ: 490404
original article
So, let's start in order:

Why is ICQ bad?
Despite its main plus (namely, huge prevalence), the ICQ protocol has one very big minus - the protocol is closed and not documented. Translated into Russian: no one (except the developers) knows exactly how the client should communicate with the server. This means that changing something in the protocol, all unofficial clients automatically stop working. It is this very recent time that has been happening with noticeable regularity, and it has to be said that this happens not by chance. This phenomenon has a completely understandable reason. AOL (the company that owns ICQ) makes money by displaying ads that run when using an official client; alternative clients (such as QIP or Miranda) do not show ads, thereby reducing the company's revenue. In order to somehow resist this phenomenon, AOL changes the protocol, and all owners of alternative clients are temporarily left without ICQ, until the developers of alternative clients release new versions. Part of the people who do not want to follow the updates do not like periodic falls, etc. decide to go to the official client (read watch ads). We are not entering this part. Rest,

Why is Skype not an alternative?
Many users after several changes to the ICQ protocol went to Skype and did it in vain . I will not say that Skype is more of an IP telephony than IM, this is understandable, something else is important. Skype is exactly the same closed project, you are just not given an alternative to choosing a client, and if tomorrow the Skype owner decides to display ads on the entire monitor screen, you will have only 2 ways: to refuse to use or watch this advertisement. Switching to Skype, you change, in essence, the idea of soap.
Where to go or why exactly jabber?
Jabber is an instant messaging and presence information system based on the open XMPP protocol.
The main words in this quote are " open protocol ." This means that anyone can develop their own client, and if it is written correctly, it will work and no company will ever be able to make this client stop working. In other words, no crashes, expectations for new versions and panic, why doesn’t it work.

Jabber is easy.
Almost certainly you have a jabber account ! If you use QIP Infium , Livejournal , Gmail , Mail agent , GTalk , Facebook , J.Online , Gizmothen you are essentially ready. All of the listed messaging tools support jabber, are interconnected and accordingly allow you to communicate between services, and their list is constantly expanding.
Which client and account to use is your business, there are a huge number of them, including QIP Infium and Miranda (if you have the appropriate plug-in).
Personally, I chose Gmail as an account, because It has several advantages over the others:
- the ability to communicate via the web interface for working with mail without a client at all
- history storage on the server (you have access to history from any computer)
- convenient history search
- audio and video calls
I added my Gmail account as jabber to the QIP client , i.e. the client for communication remained the same as when I used ICQ, in other words, there is no need to get used to the new client, use what you are used to, it simply adds the protocol and the selected account to it.
Why does anyone else use ICQ?
Everything is simple and obvious, the only advantage of the ICQ protocol is the number of users. Almost all your friends use ICQ and do not use jabber. As soon as the bulk of people move to jabber, ICQ will die and this time is just around the corner. I do not urge anyone to refuse completely, the most reasonable solution now is to use both ICQ and jabber. As soon as the majority join the use of jabber, you can forget about ICQ. Fortunately, with every protocol change, the jabber community is getting bigger.
About myself
I understand that it is difficult and practically impossible to transfer the whole world at a time to the use of a normal protocol. It so happened for historical reasons that everyone has ICQ, but personally, I am ready to do a lot in order to speed up the migration process. That’s why I wrote this article. If you have any problem or question about setting up jabber accounts, I am ready to help to solve this problem.
From you, I ask only 2 things:
- Install and configure your jabber account
- Let your friends read this article from the ICQ sheet, and throw the link in your diaries
For any questions related to the described topics, write to:
email: rvnikita@ya.ru
jabber: rvnikita@gmail.com
original article