Personally, so far I found ICQ much easier to configure through firewalls than IRC. Obviously that depends on how the fw are configured, but I more than once could not let an irc client go thorugh a firewall, whils, still so far, i ALWAYS managed to configure ICQ to go thorough firewalls. I would say FW are a problem for both. All you say regarding Peer to Peer is correct, still that does not make ICQ less versatile than IRC.

Taym
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MK II BLUE/RED 12GB #923