icq, anyone?

Essentially, ICQ (I Seek You), is another program similar to AOL Instant Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. It runs "out of the way" and logs in automatically after you have connected to the internet. It lets people get in touch with you or "seek" to see if you are online. It allows you to send messages, have chats, etc... I have used it in the past and still log on every now and again but I've found that it can be somewhat laggy at times and none of my friends really use it anymore. They all use AOL IM instead. Hope this helps!
 
Yeah, I highly recommend AOL Instant Messenger over ICQ. It's much faster and a bit more simple. And, I've never figured out how to get ICQ to send a message by just hitting "enter". ICQ is good for offline personal messages, though. Anyway, you can get AIM here . Check it out. I'm sure you'll see the difference in ease of use.
 
Actually, just hit ctrl+enter to send in icq. But I agree that ICQ sucks. Almost as much as AIM. I use the built in instant messenger in Opera (ICQ, might support AIM too). Very very fast. Very very good.

When I still used ICQ, there were about 200 tweaks to make it acceptable to use: remove the ads, remove animation and unessecary pictures, remove heaps of menus, unload all unloadable modules, remove all odd buttons, remove all odd 'features', ip-unhider hack, etc, etc.