The ICQ app is no longer available on the Google Play app store. This indicates that its development for Android has been abandoned. So from now, the official version can only be found in Huawei's AppGallery. Its last update was released back on January 26, 2021.
The iOS app has seen a slightly more recent update, three months ago.
ICQ was originally developed by the Israeli company Mirabilis in 1996. Over the years, ICQ was available on Windows, Windows Phone, Symbian, J2ME and S40 platforms.
Its popularity peak was in early 2000s when ICQ coexisted with MSN Messenger on many computers all around the world. By 2001, ICQ had more than 100 million accounts registered. AOL acquired Mirabilis on June 8, 1998. The later versions are known for displaying annoying ads in the UI, causing a galore of alternative non-official client apps to appear.
The current ICQ owner, the Russian VK Group, has abandoned the project. Despite a reboot performed by Mail.ru, ICQ failed to restore its popularity, with users moving to WhatsApp, Viber, and Skype instead of using the new app version.
The VK Group has shifted their focus to VK messenger, with the VK social network being their main business. It already successfully serves as an in-place replacement for both ICQ and MRA apps.
Support us
Winaero greatly relies on your support. You can help the site keep bringing you interesting and useful content and software by using these options:
If you like this article, please share it using the buttons below. It won't take a lot from you, but it will help us grow. Thanks for your support!
Advertisеment
I see that, when i wanted to use it with my samsung tablet (usually don’t use apps in general, but i didn’t had the choice this time, i needed it). As it didn’t worked, i went on “icq web”, so like that you could reach for the internet icq version on your tablet, even android.