Today I was browsing some of the top downloads over at Download.com, and I noticed something really interesting. The number 4 most downloaded application is an instant messenger that has spent a whopping 268 weeks (5+ years) on their Top 50 Most Downloaded chart. With 326,000 downloads last week alone, and 155 million downloads overall I expected it to be Windows Live Messenger or AIM, but it wasn’t.
Get this, there are three instant messenger applications in the top 50 most downloaded: Windows Live Messenger at number 38, Trillian at number 39, and at number 4…ICQ! I haven’t used that program in like 10 years, and all I really remember was the nightmare of remembering your ID number to share with your friends. I don’t even know anyone that still uses ICQ.
I’m sure it is popular in other parts of the world, but that left me wondering what service(s) you talk to your friends on. We’re not asking which application you use because many of you probably have friends on multiple networks. So this time around here are your options in our poll:
The poll is setup so that you can select multiple choices, and I’m really interested to see what our readers’ choice is for messengers. Feel free to vote in the sidebar on the site, or if you have Flash enabled you can vote right here:
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Tags: Freeware, Polls, Software, Applications, Downloads, Messengers
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You should add QQ, the most popular Chinese messenger client in Asia, and the third most popular in the entire world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QQ
I use Xfire, it’s made for gamers… (www.xfire.com)
A couple of days ago I fired up AOL messenger from my computer as for you can now chat with your AOL friends from the Gmail built in chat. I would really appreciate if GTalk could interact with both MSN and Yahoo! Messenger.
I use pidgin…but I mainly just go on AIM and IRC with it. None of my friends use Yahoo, and MSN messenger confuses me (I can’t even get a damn account).
For me it’s not so incredible, coz in Russia we used to ICQ service. Actually it’s so popular (you may think it’s a monopolist service) that for millions basic users and housewifes it equals the meaning of instant messaging (we even have tiny-name for this service and app - Asya (not sound like Asia) or Asechka, because it’s a russian woman name), like for many people all over the world Windows equals PC. And we like to buy or get or steal
short ICQ-numbers (I had a number with 7 signs instead of 9). But last time fortunately or not the popularity of instant messaging service of our the biggest mail host http://www.mail.ru grows extremely fast.
As statistic shows the most popular instant meassaging app in Russia is mentioned in your article official ICQ client. The next is thing calles QIP (Quiet Internet Pager - ICQ client from russian devs) and third is Miranda being used as ICQ client.
As for me personally i use Miranda as client for MSN, Yahoo, IRC, GTalk and Mail.ru. I am not using ICQ service since someone stoled my number :D:D
I’ve also used ICQ up until someone stole my (6-digit) number. The weird thing is that the profile on ICQ.com is still correct, but the ICQ support desk did not want to help me get it back.. *sigh* So that was bye-bye to ICQ for me.
Now I’m using Google Talk mainly, sometimes Skype. Windows Live I only start when it’s really necessary, so I didn’t select that one in the poll.
why isn’t
irc on the list?
I use pidgin, too. I have 6 birds, and only let two fly out at a time. One time, one got sucked into a jet
I use Pidgin, as friends and family use differnt protocols, and I have been using it since the days for Gaim so I am well acustomed to it.
I use xfire mostly, but for my other none gamer iming I use Pidgin. Most of my none gamer buddies are on MSN.
Even today, Google Talk isn’t very full featured.
I use Pidgin as i find it better then WLM Messenger
Pidgin — for my gtalk and 2 seperate MSN (one work / one personal)
ICQ is preposterous.
Somebody must be downloading it, but i have no idea who.
Meebo for me and mostly yahoo or jabber networks.
I have to say that I’m pretty surprised at how many people use Pidgin here. I expected most people to be sticking with the standalone clients, but that’s not the case at all.
What’s even more surprising is that the largest share of the votes right now is given to Skype, which I knew people used but I didn’t think the largest portion of our audience would be using that.
Avid Sykpe user here and very pleased with its integration.
IRC isn’t an instant messenger as such - its a chatroom program.
I like Google Talk but since a lot of friends use Messenger (which everyone annoyingly refers to as MSN still, no idea why M$ hasn’t dropped that failed brand altogether by now) I use Pidgin, which handily compressed contacts on multiple networks into one and easily connects to both services. I just find it a shame that things like group chat, voice conversations and file transfer don’t work through it. If Google released a transport for Messenger the same as they have done with AIM I’d be very happy.