mICQ is a free software text-based ICQ instant messaging application that runs on a wide variety of platforms, including AmigaOS, BeOS, Microsoft Windows (using either Cygwin or MinGW)), Mac OS X, NetBSD/OpenBSD/FreeBSD, the Sharp Zaurus, Linux, Solaris Operating Environment, HP-UX, and AIX operating system.
mICQ has many of the features the official client has, and more:
It has support for SSL-encrypted direct connection compatible with Licq and Simple Instant Messenger.
It is internationalization; German language, English language, and other translations are available, and it supports sending and receiving acknowledged and non-acknowledged Unicode-encoded messages (it even understands UTF-8 messages for message types the ICQ protocol does not use them for).
It is capable of running several UINs at the same time and is very configurable (e.g. different colors for incoming messages from different contacts or for different accounts).
Due to its command line interface, it has good usability for blindness users through text-to-speech interfaces or Braille devices.
It can detect contacts who set their status to invisible and thus appear as offline.
mICQ is licensed under the terms of version 2 of the GPL, and it was recently relicensed to include the OpenSSL exception. Versions prior to mICQ 0.4.8 were released by Matt D. Smith into the public domain; however, not much of the original code remains. All later additions were by Rüdiger Kuhlmann; in particular, the support for the current ICQ v8 protocol.
=See also=
List of instant messengers
Comparison of instant messengers
=External links=
[http://www.micq.org mICQ home page]
[http://www.micq.org/ICQ-OSCAR-Protocol-v7-v8-v9/ ICQ protocol page]
[http://www.icq.com Official ICQ home page]