When logging into an account, the chat can be accessed from any device thanks to cloud synchronization. Private chats are a conversation between two users. The number of downloads for the application increased 35-fold in the region. ĭuring the second week of January 2021, ICQ saw a renewed increase in popularity in Hong Kong, spurred on by the controversy over WhatsApp's privacy policy update. In 2022, ICQ had about 11 million monthly users. The updated messenger was presented to the general public on April 6, 2020. In 2020, the Mail.Ru Group, which owns ICQ, decided to launch its new ICQ New software, based on its messenger. At the time of the Mail.Ru acquisition in 2010, there were around 42 million daily users. Īt its peak around 2001, ICQ had more than 100 million accounts registered. ICQ became the first widely adopted IM platform. ICQ was among the first stand-alone instant messenger (IM) - while real-time chat was not in itself new ( Internet Relay Chat being the most common platform at the time), the concept of a fully centralized service with individual user accounts focused on one-on-one conversations set the blueprint for later instant messaging services like AIM, and its influence is seen in modern social media applications. The ICQ client application and service were initially released in November 1996, freely available to download.

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