In 2003, however, this decision was reversed due to pressure from other instant messaging services such as Windows Live Messenger and Sina UC. In 2002, Tencent stopped its free membership registration, requiring all new members to pay a fee.

Tencent QQ holds the Guinness World Record for the highest number of simultaneous online users on an instant messaging program with 210,212,085 users online on July 3, 2014. In response to competition with other instant messengers, such as Windows Live Messenger, Tencent released Tencent Messenger, which is aimed at businesses. 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. Development, support, and availability of WebQQ Mini, however, has since been discontinued. Formerly, two web versions, WebQQ (full version) and WebQQ Mini (Lite version), which made use of Ajax, were available. The official client runs on Microsoft Windows and a beta public version was launched for Mac OS X version 10.4.9 or newer. Other features were later added, such as chatrooms, games, personal avatars (similar to 'Meego' in MSN), online storage, and Internet dating services. QQ was first released as a ' network paging' real-time communications service. The software inherited existing functions from ICQ, and additional features such as software skins, people's images, and emoticons. Īfter 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'). 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). As of March 2022, there were 563.8 million monthly active QQ accounts.

QQ offers services that provide online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, and group and voice chat software. Tencent QQ ( Chinese: 腾讯QQ), also known as QQ, is an instant messaging software service and web portal developed by the Chinese technology company Tencent.

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