In the past couple of weeks I have noticed a change in behavior in the ICQ program (ICQ Pro v2003b) that has made it virtually unusable, and I'm wondering if it's just me (did I screw up a configuration setting or something?) or has ICQ shot itself in the foot? [completely irrelevant aside, but that reminded me of one of the best automotive journalism sentences I have ever read. In a comparison test between the Lexus IS 350 and BMW 330i in AutoWeek magazine, the concluding sentence was "Lexus brought a knife to a gunfight and still managed to shoot itself in the foot. The 3 Series is indeed the better car." Cracked me up! Complete review here]

Anyway, the ICQ behavior I am experiencing is this. They have an advertising window displayed below the window where I type messages. This doesn't bother me, except that the advertisement changes every 45 seconds or so, and each time the advertisement changes, the "active window" (the one I am typing in) goes inactive, and I have to click on that window with the mouse in order to keep typing. And just clicking doesn't do it -- that highlights the whole window, so I have to click again at where I want to resume typing, and that doesn't do it either, that highlights the last word, so I have to click a third time to get my insert cursor back.

Do other people have this problem?

tanstaafl.

You could just use one of the many alternate ICQ clients and not have to deal with the ads at all. Trillian is free and popular. GAIM is popular under Unix, and they have a Windows version now. It's also free. Miranda looks nice and is free.

But, as to your problem, assuming you've made no configuration changes, I would bet that it's a change in IE. Have you done any Windows Updates lately?

Yeah, what Bitt said, give Trillian a shot. It's what I use.

It's not without its own set of quirks, but it's ad-free and certainly doesn't have any focus problems.

Incidentally, I'm still on version 2.x of Trillian because it starts up and exits faster than version 3.x, and I don't need any of 3.x's features yet.

But, as to your problem, assuming you've made no configuration changes, I would bet that it's a change in IE. Have you done any Windows Updates lately?

Interesting you should ask... My computer at home is doing this using FireFox. My computer at work is brand new, fresh XP install with all the updates, and it does it also.

Since both FireFox and IE do it, it makes me think it must be some server-side change that ICQ did.

I tried to use Trillian a couple of years ago, and for reasons now forgotten I couldn't get it to work at all and rather than spend a lot of time trying to make it work I gave up on it.

I guess it's time to try it again.

tanstaafl.

Regardless of which browser you use interactively, ICQ almost definitely embeds the IE framework into its program.

Regardless of which browser you use interactively, ICQ almost definitely embeds the IE framework into its program.

Oh. Didn't know that.

I have not made any changes to my IE configuration. Well, maybe I have... I have downloaded Microsoft security updates that quite likely affected IE. Maybe that's it.

tanstaafl.

Trillian has probably changed a lot from the last time you tried it. They let their free version stagnate for the longest time, before finally rewriting it in parallel with their pro version.

Though, if you do look at a replacement to ICQ, I'd say look towards Miranda first. It's a very basic IM program. Trillian has expanded to try and do a lot of things and be very flexible, and to me it seems a bit much for basic IM now.

if you do look at a replacement to ICQ, I'd say look towards Miranda first. It's a very basic IM program. Trillian has expanded to try and do a lot of things and be very flexible, and to me it seems a bit much for basic IM now.

That sounds like what I am looking for. I do not need anything fancy. My ICQ users list has all of five people on it, and just about the only thing I ever do is ask Tony Fabris dumb questions about how to do things on my computer. Once in a great while Rob Schofield pops up and I'll say hello, and Bonzi too. Haven't seen either of them in months, though... (hint, hint...)

tanstaafl.

I'd say look towards miranda first. It's a very basic IM program.

OK, I finally did that -- downloaded and installed Miranda.

Now what do I do with it?

It's probably that I'm just not smart enough to figure out the obvious... but when I bring up Miranda, all I get is a blank box that doesn't appear to let me go online, nor does it show my ICQ contact list.

I had hoped that it would be as transparent a change as when I went from IE to FireFox.

tanstaafl.