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What's the deal with ICQ?
ICQ (I Seek You) is a little program designed to let you know when your friends are online. By itself, the program is a good product... BUT because of its popularity, it has become the weapon of choice for many hackers and other mischievous types. Don't take our word for it, click here to check out what you can get from the Alta Vista search engine.
Problem #1: ICQ runs all the time and constantly checks for your "buddies" to see if they are online. If you leave your computer to go out or to bed even, it will keep your connection going. This is a violation of many ISPs usage policies, including ours. Why would you need to know who is online when you aren't even at your computer? Make sure you turn off ICQ when you get up from your computer!
Problem #2: Hackers have figured out ways to get access to your computer when you have ICQ running. We have had reports of:
- Users being identified and passwords stolen
- Files being deleted from hard drives
- Files being downloaded from hard drives
- Users being forced offline completely
- Computers being caused to crash (nuked)
There are more reasons to be wary of ICQ but this should be enough. We do not recommend using ICQ until these issues can be resolved. An alternative is AOL Instant Messenger. Not that we like AOL, but we haven't had any complaints from users who use their product.
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