The Fall of ICQ and rise of MSN

Personally, I dumped ICQ because AOL was adding useless new feature after useless new feature while bugs that had existed since day 1 were never fixed. It became a real hog. 12MB ram to just sit there waiting for messages! It's probably higher now.

Since trillian allows for the use of all of these services I wonder what user percentage uses what service within trillian more?

I use ICQ/AOL and MSN pretty much equally through trillian.

I use mostly AOL through trillian and MSN takes a close second. I have my ICQ account in trillian but rarely use it.

I lost my ICQ password, but its been so long since somebody ICQ'd me I haven't been bothered to startup a new account.

Trillian -> MSN and IRC is all I need.

Rather use trillian. Does what its supose to and your connected to all the big boys in the same amount of memory that ICQ by itself used. I must admit however, that if I had to choose, it would be MSN however, never have liked AIM, and no one uses Yahoo.

Hmm... that's completely different than the people I talk to. I use AIM exclusively as do most of my friends, although a few of them have either ICQ or MSN as well. I don't think I know anyone that uses Yahoo.

I now use trillian, this is mainly because of it's compatibility with all networks, though my personal choice would be ICQ, simply because I've been using it for so long. It's a shame to see MS's self-promotional tactics finally paying off, since MSN Messenger is undoubtedly one of, if not the worst of the available networks. While it offers some neat features and a pretty interface, the inability to leave offline messages for a user is a huge drawback.

AJC

I have been using ICQ for about 5 or 6 years now. My ICQ number is less than 1 million, just to show you how long I have been using it. I have always gotten the newest version of it when it came out, and I have noticed that there are more and more useless features and bugs that come with every new version! The reminder feature, which I actually used, got kicked out of the program, and they added a new stupid feature that when you hit the x button, it now minimizes to the systray! That is feature is EXTREMELY ANNOYING! Ever since AOL took over, ICQ has been going downhill. I am considering switching to trillian to use my ICQ account to get away from the piece of junk ICQ program.

Don't you agree that a poll handled on wincustomize is likely a "geeks survey" (I admit being a geek and proud of it too) and does not reflect the general opinion of the public at large.
Offensive terms aside, I am certain that the general public has almost no idea what Trillian is, even though I use it myself. What I am saying is, your sample is extremely tainted. You are not reflecting the "people who buy the Sims/Myst", if you know what I mean - or the average computer user. I think you would find if you did, a much greater number of people using MSN
messenger because of its ubiquitous nature, and yes - fewer using ICQ, but almost nobody using Trillian. Trillian is a geek's paradise, but useless to a casual user. And lest we forget, casual users make up most of the user base still.

After all, if you asked who used Linux or had computer jobs, you'd find the
amount here were more common, because casual users don't answer online
polls.

Ah, oops. Yeah, you mentioned "However, its numbers may be higher since the poll was taken on a Windows customization site (WinCustomize)"

Don't I feel the dope!