ICQ - Clients

Clients

AOL's OSCAR network protocol used by ICQ is proprietary and using a third party client is a violation of ICQ Terms of Service, nevertheless a number of third-party clients have been created by using reverse-engineering and protocol descriptions. These clients include:

• Adium: supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, Google Talk, XMPP, and others, for Mac OS X
• Ayttm: supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, and XMPP
• bitlbee: IRC gateway, supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, Google Talk, and XMPP
• centericq: supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC and XMPP, text-based
• climm (formerly mICQ): text-based
• Easy message: supports MSN, AIM, ICQ, and Yahoo!
• eBuddy: web-based, supports MSN, AIM, Yahoo!, ICQ, Google Talk and MySpace Chat
• Fire: supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, and XMPP, for Mac OS X
• Jimm: supports ICQ, for Java ME mobile devices
• Kopete: supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, XMPP, Google Talk, IRC, Gadu-Gadu, Novell GroupWise Messenger and others, for Unix-like
• Meebo: AJAX-based, supports ICQ, AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, Google Talk and XMPP
• Meetro: IM and social networking combined with location; supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo!
• Miranda IM: supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Google Talk, XMPP, Gadu-Gadu, BNet and others, for Windows
• Naim: ncurses-based
• Palringo: Supports various protocols such as AIM, Yahoo!, MSN, XMPP, Google Talk, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ, Facebook IM, as well as its own proprietary IM protocol under the same name
• Pidgin (formerly Gaim): supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, Gtalk, MSN, IRC, XMPP, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, Meanwhile (IBM Lotus Sametime) and others
• PlayXpert: supports ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, Sony Station Friends, MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, and Xfire
• QIP: supports ICQ, AIM, and partially XMPP and XIMSS
• stICQ: supports ICQ, for Symbian OS
• Trillian: supports ICQ, Yahoo!, AIM, MSN, IRC, Google Talk, XMPP and others

AOL supported clients include:

• AOL Instant Messenger
• Messages/iChat: uses ICQ's UIN as an AIM screenname, for Mac OS X