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> I use AIM because when I did use ICQ, I couldn't go 15 minutes without getting some goofy chain letter. Most of them came from some weird guy who just added me to his list for no reason other than to send me dumb messages and refute my claims that they would not bring him love, wealth, fame or power. Nothing of that sort has happened with AIM.

That's because AIM doesn't have the roughly 23 million useless features that ICQ does. It's just a messaging program and nothing else. It doesn't support forwarding (which cuts off chain letters) and doesn't have off-line messages (which also helps to stop chain letters). IMO ICQ gets worse with every release as they continue to clutter it with junk. I've been using ICQ for a few years now and it's gone from a very compact and efficient program to an extremely bulky and rather unwieldy application. While I don't mind complex programs, I don't like it when I've got to sift through 20 menus to alter the most basic settings... As such, AIM is my preferred program. The one thing I do like about ICQ is the ability to control people from adding you to their contact list and I hope AIM offers that one soon (in addition to being able to transfer files).