OICQ
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| Developer(s) | Tencent Holdings Limited |
|---|---|
| Initial release | February 1999 |
| Stable release |
8.9.4 (Microsoft Windows) / August 3, 2017
|
| Development status | Active |
| Operating system | Cross-platform |
| Available in | Chinese, English, French, Japanese, Korean, Spanish |
| Type | Instant messaging |
| License | Proprietary |
| Alexa rank |  9 (Global, December 2017[update]) |
| Website |
Official portal Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese International |
Tencent QQ, also known as QQ, is an instant messaging software service developed by the Chinese company Tencent Holdings Limited. QQ also offers services that provide online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, and group and voice chat software. The logo of the software is a penguin wearing a red scarf.
As of April 2014, over 200 million simultaneous online QQ users were recorded. At the end of June 2016, there were 899 million active QQ accounts.
Tencent QQ was first released in China in February 1999 under the name of OICQ ("Open ICQ", a reference to the early IM service ICQ).
After the threat of a trademark infringement lawsuit by the AOL-owned ICQ, the product's name was changed to QQ (with "Q" and "QQ" used to imply "cute"). The software inherited existing functions from ICQ, and additional features such as software skins, people's images, and emoticons. QQ was first released as a "" real-time communications service. Other features were later added, such as chatrooms, games, personal avatars (similar to "Meego" in MSN), online storage, and Internet dating services.
The official client runs on Microsoft Windows and a beta public version was launched for Mac OS X version 10.4.9 or newer. Formerly, two web versions, WebQQ (full version) and WebQQ Mini (Lite version), which made use of Ajax, were available. Development, support, and availability of WebQQ Mini, however, has since been discontinued. On 31 July 2008, Tencent released an official client for Linux, but this has not been made compatible with the Windows version and it is not capable of voice chat.
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