IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat and it is a highly popular web chat that has a complex setup. Internet users first connect to a specific channel in a server, and the servers are all separate and make up the entire IRC network. There are rooms, private rooms, and even private chats. The rooms and private rooms have multiple users, whereas the private chats are simply from one user to another.
What most clients like the best about IRC is the fact that the rooms, private rooms, and even their names can have various features that are customizable. Rooms can be ‘hidden’ which means they cannot be searched for or found, they can be private indicating they need a password to get in, or there can be a variety of other features.
Another great thing about IRC is its widespread popularity. There are many servers all around the world and many different chat rooms; you can find chat rooms for games, countries, general chatting, and much more! Various languages are supported, with even specific rooms for those languages! On top of that there are thousands of people on making it exciting to go into various rooms and talk with various people.
How Do You Get On IRC?
This is a complicated question to answer without first knowing about the different IRC clients available. There are many out there, each one enables the user to get on to an IRC server in various ways. For Microsoft Windows there is about sixty or so clients, for Java there is about fifteen, about twenty or so clients for MacOS, thirty some clients for UNIX, and still many more not mentioned already.
Here we’ll simply cover a few of the more popular clients: PJIRC, Mibbit, Leafchat, and mIRC.
PJIRC – This is a popular Java client that is generally integrated for games and in other websites. Their main website is here (http://www.pjirc.com/main.php) . From there you can view demos, and even download the latest version of PJIRC.
Mibbit –This unique client has tons of features. You can create chats for your web pages via widgets, you can connect straight through the web via the Mibbit website and so much more. It gives you unlimited options and is very simple to use! Their website is here if you would like further information: http://www.mibbit.com
Leafchat – As an open source client this is one of the best by far. It’s got a clean and simple interface that allows you to not only connect efficiently without a lot of clutter, but you can also connect to multiple servers as once which is very useful. It is a free client and you can download it from the leafdigital website at http://www.leafdigital.com/software/leafchat/
mIRC – Last we have mIRC, an IRC client for Windows. It is by far the most popular out of all of the clients and is used by millions. It’s a little difficult to setup but overall it’s worth it because it has a ton of customizable features and addons. Visit the mIRC website here at http://www.mirc.com
Do to the fact that there are simply so many different IRC clients you need to find out which one is best for your computer and fits your personal preferences. They all vary drastically but you are sure to find one that fits your needs perfectly.