ICQ, considered the first instant messaging service, is closing its doors after almost 28 years. The Russian company VK, which has been managing ICQ since 2010, announced last Friday that “ICQ will stop working from June 26th” and urged its users to migrate to other chat apps from the company.
The service was a pioneer in the world of instant messaging along with AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger, and stood out for assigning users a number instead of aliases or email addresses, as well as offering unique features such as SMS messaging and the ability to send messages to offline people.
ICQ was launched in 1996 by the Israeli company Mirabilis and was acquired by AOL in 1998. At its peak, ICQ had 100 million registered users, however, the service experienced a decline and in 2010 it was sold to Digital Sky Technologies, now known as VK.
The modern version of ICQ resembled contemporary apps like WhatsApp or Telegram, but its presence in digital stores has been uncertain. A Internet Archive screenshot from March 2023 showed it in the iOS App Store, although the app is no longer available in the Apple store or the Google Play Store for months.
