No Hiding Online

Every night, Gabriel Hernandez turns on his computer, calls up some friends and plays a couple rounds of the latest shoot-’em-up game.

But the 22-year-old from Irvine never has to pick up a phone or remember a phone number. Instead, he relies on a new communications tool called ICQ--a software program that lets Internet users send instant messages, swap files and locate someone when they log online.

The software--which stands for “I Seek You” and is free to use--was developed by four twentysomething computer scientists from Israel. Their company, Mirabilis Ltd., has offices in Tel Aviv and New York City.

Staff say the company’s biggest fans--as well as its earliest adopters--are people just like Hernandez, avid game players who want an easy and quick way to communicate with online friends and foes. (So far, the service has about 7.4 million subscribers, company officials said.)

Users can create a personal contact list, an address book of sorts that says when a person is signed on. Icons appear next to the names of those online to indicate whether they are chatting with other ICQ users or have put up a “Do Not Disturb” sign. There’s even a “user away from their desk” feature.

And here’s another popular add-on: ICQ records the current Web address a person is viewing, and lets him send the address to another ICQ user. If the person is logged on, she can jump to the same site with a single keystroke.

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P.J. Huffstutter covers high technology for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and at p.j.huffstutter@latimes.com