Also, it is only good for messages between two users, setting up a chat with lots of people is ugly.

Have you ever tried it? I've had multi-person chats going in ICQ and it works very well when it's set to IRC-style.

Simply start a chat session with somebody (right click on their name and select "ICQ Chat", then drag other users' names from the ICQ list onto the chat window.

When the chat window is set to IRC-style, it's just like IRC.

However, I agree that the always-up status of IRC is nice.

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Tony Fabris