Learning IRC
This page is focused on helping people begin to use Internet Relay Chat. You may have seen or heard about this basic chat service created in 1988 for real time chat. I hope this page will help fill in the gaps between what you know and what you want to learn. IRC is a powerful way to connect with other people. The main URL for this page is https://www.grantbow.com/irc.html. It was started in May 2013. Thank you to all the contributors who have helped me keep this page updated. Email is encouraged to Grant Bowman <grantbow@grantbow.com> I am very grateful to participate in the libera.chat and oftc.net IRC Network.
IRC was the first and still one of the most efficient ways to chat on the Internet. It has had a surge in popularity. IRC itself is only a protocol. To use it you must connect to an IRC network and a channel using some kind of software. Many open source projects have chosen the libera.chat network to host their channels which often provide a place to talk about both development and support. If you are very interested in any large open source project there is often a channel ready and waiting for you.
Getting Started
You can chat live on the #ubuntu-us-ca channel on irc.libera.chat by typing in a nickname and typing in the two words of the captcha. Please be patient, we aren't always around! After watching for 30 seconds to see if a conversations is in progress, click in the box at the bottom and say hello. Discussions flow upward from the bottom. There are many other channels you can try as well. You can connect using Libera's WebChat through your browser by clicking here or signing in below:
kiwiirc software
qwebirc software
What to Expect
There are a number of things to keep in mind when getting started. ...
IRC Client Software
As you get more advanced you may want more features from your IRC client. Wikipedia has a good comparison of IRC clients. Here are my top choices.| Link | Comments | Updated |
|---|---|---|
| web hosted client like web.libera.chat | By far the easiest way to use IRC is to go to a web page instead of installing a client. The hosted webchat software aka qwebirc like kiwiirc and gamja are the easiest ways to get started. This software is installed on and runs on a webserver so no installation is required. While the UI/UX could be improved for beginners web.libera.chat is the best way to start. For a single channel this is more than adequate. For more features you can use IRC client software. | 20130512 |
| pidgin | A very nice, graphical IRC client for Windows, Mac and Linux. It handles many different chat networks. I recommend this one if you are just getting started. The Mac version is called adium. | 20130512 |
| chatzilla | A cross platform irc client implemented as a firefox extension. This is another good client to get started with since many people already use firefox. | 20130512 |
| irssi | A text based, fully customizable client for Linux. As IRC is a mainly text only experience a text only client is quite suitable. I use this on a server with tmux or GNU Screen to keep a persistent presence in IRC. There are ways to do this that are more involved for other IRC clients. | 20130829 |
| scrollz | The grand-daddy of them all, scrollz is an optimized version of the IrcII text client. I use this on occasion to dig a little deeper. | 20130829 |
| xchat | A featureful IRC client for Linux and Windows. There is also an Mac Aqua version | 20130512 |
| colloquy | A popular IRC client for MacOSX. Requires the purchase of a license. Trillian was another popular one. | 20130829 |
| mIRC | A popular IRC client for Windows. Requires the purchase of a license. | 20130512 |
| Slack | An instant messaging social platform created for professional and organizational communications in 2013 now owned by Salesforce. (wikipedia) It was originally based on IRC but the gateways were closed in 2018. | 20230817 |
| Discord | An instant messaging social platform created in 2015 for gamers. (wikipedia) | 20230817 |
Please email inquiries & suggestions to Grant Bowman <grantbow@grantbow.com>
Last update: 20230817