# IRC Clients - what's everyone using these days?



## Irreverent (Apr 16, 2009)

Been a long while since I've used IRC.  I grabbed a copy of Visual IRC, mostly because its what I used a few years back.  Functional, I guess.  I need a lite, windows client, ideally with spell check. 

What's everyone else using these days?  What's the best of the best on the wintel platform?


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## Aden (Apr 16, 2009)

Colloquy (OS X).


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## Runefox (Apr 16, 2009)

=D! I use Pidgin! And everyone on IRC _hates_ me for it when they try to do something like DCC stuff to me or ask me to use a client-specific (irssi) command.

It's actually rather well-done, aside from the obvious lack of support for the protocol's features in general. It does allow you to create running lists of buddies from IRC and combine them, as well as keep track of your chats, have them auto-connect and stay open in the background when you close the window. I enjoy using it, anyway - Much more integrated. It's just a pain when Pidgin crashes.

Other than that, you're going to get a few saying irssi, some saying mIRC, maybe one or two with XChat.


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## Carenath (Apr 17, 2009)

irssi (thank you net-cat), which has its advantages over the other clients.
I run it screened on my linux server, which is handy. It is always connected, and I am always signed onto the channels. I can login from my phone, or any PC, Mac, or Linux machine with an internet connection and pick up where I left off. If someone sends me a message when I am away, I get it. There are a few nicities that it lacks, but I bet most of those features can be added in with scripts so not a biggy.


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## Runefox (Apr 17, 2009)

Yeah, if I had a server to let it sit on, I'd probably be using irssi, too, but such is not the case. Besides, I'm rarely connecting from anywhere but my desktop anyway.


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## net-cat (Apr 17, 2009)

irssi

Only good if you're a console wonk, though. Bonus points for running it in GNU screen.


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## Surgat (Apr 17, 2009)

ChatZilla. 

If Firefox crashes it crashes with it, but the upside is that it can utilize the browser's spellchecker.


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## Rayne (Apr 17, 2009)

XChat.


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## Runefox (Apr 17, 2009)

Surgat said:


> ChatZilla.



Now there's an oddball I didn't predict. I had been under the impression that project died long ago.

... Mm. It did, more or less. Last update just over two years ago.

EDIT: Whoops, maybe not. The official site's release was last updated over two years ago; The plugin itself on Mozilla.com is from Nov. 2008.


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## valkura (Apr 17, 2009)

Pidgin, with IRC Helper, IRC More and Nicksaid plugins.  Was using Miranda, but I think I'm going to change that when I get back to my own comp.


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## Takun (Apr 17, 2009)

Chatzilla. :V


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## CyberFoxx (Apr 17, 2009)

irssi, in screen, on my desktop.


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## ToeClaws (Apr 17, 2009)

People still use IRC? :shock:  Wow.  Haven't used that for about 12 years.


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## WarMocK (Apr 17, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> People still use IRC? :shock:  Wow.  Haven't used that for about 12 years.


Guess what: I used it just a few hours ago. ;-)


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## LizardKing (Apr 17, 2009)

mIRC.


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## Shino (Apr 17, 2009)

Geez, 'rev, I haven't used IRC in years. Talk about a throwback.

Nope, I'm an old-fasioned e-mailer and forum-er. For chatting purposes, I used to use MSN messenger, and I use Skype, but the fatal flaw in this is they're no good without someone to chat with. Everyone I know is either techno-phobic or too broke to have i-net.

Just for the hell of it though, if you'd like, I can dig out my old VT-100 terminal and keep you company.


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## Irreverent (Apr 17, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> People still use IRC? :shock:  Wow.  Haven't used that for about 12 years.



Me neither....at least 8-10 years.  This is that demonic bunny's fault!  

Thanks gang.  Irssi looks a little basic in its windows implementation.  I'll have to d/l the rest and and have a look at them.  But if it spell checks on the fly, ChatZilla's gonna win by default. 



Shino said:


> Just for the hell of it though, if you'd like, I can dig out my old VT-100 terminal and keep you company.



Heh.  Up until my last house move, I had a DEC LA100 teleprinter (132 character wide) in the basement.  Now _that_ was old school.


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## Carenath (Apr 17, 2009)

Runefox said:


> Yeah, if I had a server to let it sit on, I'd probably be using irssi, too, but such is not the case. Besides, I'm rarely connecting from anywhere but my desktop anyway.


My server is my router/gateway sitting on my home network, I just login remotely over SSH to use it even when Im at home. It has the advantage that because I run it in GNU-Screen, if I get disconnected, all I have to do is reconnect, and then type 'screen -r' to go back to my irssi session.


net-cat said:


> irssi
> Only good if you're a console wonk, though. Bonus points for running it in GNU screen.


*points to his previous post and grins*



ToeClaws said:


> People still use IRC? :shock:  Wow.  Haven't used that for about 12 years.


That was my reaction when I first used Rashan's IRC (ask Rhainor about it), turns out Draconic, Dragon-Realms and Draconity, all maintain their own irc server's, and they are quite popular. Of course there is also FurNet and AnthroChat.. what I find more amazing is how these people can run IRCd's when the vast majority of VPS, and quite a large number of dedicated server providers, ban IRC from their networks. I run a small one of my own off my home internet connection, because its cheaper than paying more money to another datacenter. I quite like the one that hosts my sites, they host FAF


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## ToeClaws (Apr 17, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> Guess what: I used it just a few hours ago. ;-)



Yes well... WarMocK is everywhere, at all times... <_<  >_>  

Hehe... seriously, I'm surprised IRC survived after the increase in popularity and sophistication of IM clients.  I used to use mIRC back when I used it, but like I said, been a good 12 years since I did.


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## WarMocK (Apr 17, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Yes well... WarMocK is everywhere, at all times... <_<  >_>



Look behind you! :twisted::twisted::twisted:



ToeClaws said:


> Hehe... seriously, I'm surprised IRC survived after the increase in popularity and sophistication of IM clients.  I used to use mIRC back when I used it, but like I said, been a good 12 years since I did.


Oh, IRC still is pretty common, but I usually stay away from it. All I need is to read the best posts collected on (german-)bash.org, that's the best entertainment you can possibly get these days. xD


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## Grimfang (Apr 17, 2009)

I used to use ChatZilla, but then I found X-Chat. It's user friendly enough, while giving you some cool options. You only get a 30-day trial until they want you to pay. Oh, and I think X-Chat 2 had a spell checker in it.

But yeah, I hadn't used IRC for several years until I found out that it's still commonly used last summer, heheh.


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## ToeClaws (Apr 17, 2009)

WarMocK said:


> Look behind you! :twisted::twisted::twisted:



AHHHH!  Get out of my window!


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## net-cat (Apr 17, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Hehe... seriously, I'm surprised IRC survived after the increase in popularity and sophistication of IM clients.  I used to use mIRC back when I used it, but like I said, been a good 12 years since I did.


No IM service in existence has been able to replicate the chat room experience of IRC. While most support group chat, they tend to be transitory with no concept of moderators beyond "the guy who started the group chat session."

That and all popular services, with the possible exception of Jabber, are locked down, proprietary applications.



Grimfang said:


> I used to use ChatZilla, but then I found X-Chat. It's user friendly enough, while giving you some cool options. You only get a 30-day trial until they want you to pay. Oh, and I think X-Chat 2 had a spell checker in it.


silverx

Hurrah for unofficial builds of open source applications where the people responsible for them charge money.

Here's looking at you RHEL and CentOS.


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## WarMocK (Apr 17, 2009)

Using IceChat on Windows and BitchX on my Linux system, or Pidgin. Depends if I have X installed or not. ^^


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## ToeClaws (Apr 17, 2009)

net-cat said:


> No IM service in existence has been able to replicate the chat room experience of IRC. While most support group chat, they tend to be transitory with no concept of moderators beyond "the guy who started the group chat session."
> 
> That and all popular services, with the possible exception of Jabber, are locked down, proprietary applications.



That's a *very* good point.  I only use IM once in a bluemoon, but from the little I've seen of "chatrooms", no IM has much control like IRC did.  That and things like the actions alone were a neat idea for the time.  Back when I last used it, one thing we all thought would be the death of it were all the elaborate scripts that people were creating to hijack channels, flood people and so on.  Used to use BitchX on my FreeBSD box, but it was pretty basic at the time (no idea what it's like now).


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## Runefox (Apr 17, 2009)

Yeah, IRC is one of the oldest communications services still running, and it's going to continue to do so for some time. It has a minimal server footprint, small bandwidth requirement, and it's just rather awesome. It's not going away anytime soon, and if it does, it'd be to make way for a more modern protocol. I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon, either.



> but it was pretty basic at the time (no idea what it's like now)


IRC is still basic, unless you're talking about BitchX, in which case, I used that a couple years ago, and it was OK. If you were talking about IRC, though, like I said, it's still very basic. However, newer bots tend to be a lot more intelligent. =D


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## net-cat (Apr 17, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> That's a *very* good point.  I only use IM once in a bluemoon, but from the little I've seen of "chatrooms", no IM has much control like IRC did.  That and things like the actions alone were a neat idea for the time.  Back when I last used it, one thing we all thought would be the death of it were all the elaborate scripts that people were creating to hijack channels, flood people and so on.  Used to use BitchX on my FreeBSD box, but it was pretty basic at the time (no idea what it's like now).


All major IRC networks now run nick and channel services to prevent channel and nick hijacks. (Nominally, they are users that have O:lines that are controlled by the server, but these days they are more and more integrated into the ircd itself.) Several revisions to the IRC protocol have been published since then that add new features like "half-ops" or marking a channel as being for registered users only. 

Interestingly, most of these changes are completely backward compatible and even a well written* client from ten years ago would be able to connect to and use most networks. (For example, the "half-op" feature is simply channel mode +h, rather than +o. User mode +r indicates that a user has registered with NickServ and setting a channel to mode +R will only allow users with mode +r to join or talk.) 

* Well written just means "able to handle modes that weren't part of the spec at the time."

Even hard-line traditionalists like the folks that run EFNet have some form of services. (CHANFIX and OPME)

IRC, like most things on computers, has come a long way in the last decade. It's still hard to beat for persistent, public, group chats, though.


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## valkura (Apr 17, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> But if it spell checks on the fly, ChatZilla's gonna win by default.


Forgot - Pidgin has spell check too.


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## Toaster (Apr 17, 2009)

pidgin


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## LizardKing (Apr 17, 2009)

net-cat said:


> All major IRC networks now run nick and channel services to prevent channel and nick hijacks.



Except Quakenet, which still has its own crazy system.


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## Grimfang (Apr 17, 2009)

net-cat said:


> silverx
> 
> Hurrah for unofficial builds of open source applications where the people responsible for them charge money.
> 
> Here's looking at you RHEL and CentOS.



Oh.
Wow.
That's really good to know. I always wondered what the big difference was between XChat and XChat 2, haha.
I'm going to switch to the latter, since I think I had a better experience with that in the past anyway.


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## net-cat (Apr 17, 2009)

LizardKing said:


> Except Quakenet, which still has its own crazy system.


Well, it probably has something, right?

Like I said, even old school networks like EFNet have some form of channel protection.


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## Eevee (Apr 17, 2009)

irssi within screen


also I would frankly rather see an IM client combined with an email client before an IRC client combined with an IM client.  IM and email are peer-to-peer; IRC is client/server.  they are fundamentally different and clash terribly when people try to combine them.  either one is going to suffer or you're just going to have two applications glued together.


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## Runefox (Apr 18, 2009)

> email are peer-to-peer


I'm guessing you mean in function, not in how it actually works. 

IRC isn't much different, to an IM client, than a group chat. That's how Pidgin, for example, handles its IRC implementation, and it handles a lot of the basics, though it won't do formatting ("because there isn't a standard way to do it", so they say), and doesn't have some shortcut commands (like a one-command part/rejoin) nor does it have graphical menus for operator/other commands like most GUI IRC clients do. Not a huge problem for me. The biggest benefit for me to use Pidgin is that it keeps my logs in one place, and means that's one less app I'm running at any given point in time.


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## Armaetus (Apr 18, 2009)

On Windows OSes, mIRC. (been using it since 1996)

For *nix, XChat or Pidgin.


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