Free irc client windows#

ДЇrom a technical standpoint, Internet Relay Chat is implemented as an application layer protocol to facilitate communication in the form of text. As of June 2021, there are 481 different IRC networks known to be operating, of which the open source Libera Chat, founded in May 2021, has the most users, with 20,374 channels on 26 servers between them, the top 100 IRC networks share over 100 thousand channels operating on about thousand servers. In April 2011, the top 100 IRC networks served more than half a million users at a time, hosting hundreds of thousands of channels operating on a total of roughly 1В 500 servers out of roughly then 3В 200 IRCВ servers worldwide. IRC usage has been declining steadily since 2003, losing 60 percent of its users (from 1 million to about 400,000 in 2021) and half of its channels (from half a million in 2003 to under 200,000 in 2021).

Despite these enormous proportions, the delay in a sent text is usually on the order of tenths of a second and seldom exceeds one second's time.

The largest IRC networks consist of several dozen IRC servers that simultaneously connect over 100,000 users and manage tens of thousands of channels, on each of which several thousand people can simultaneously participate. The disadvantage is the lack of redundancy, which manifests itself in so-called net splits: if any server fails, the network automatically breaks into separate parts until a new connection is established between the parts. Despite limited management capacities, very large вЂњchat landscapesвЂќ were possible. The topology enabled a message from a client on one continent not to be sent individually for each client on another continent, but only once to a local server, which then distributed it to clients. Historically, this ensured efficient communication, because in the early days of IRC, intercontinental data lines had a very limited capacity. The essential feature of this network is its BITNET communication topology, which permits only one communication path between any two participants. mIRC, XChat) or take the form of a special user interface from within a larger program such as an Internet browser the Opera browser, for example, includes an IRC client, and clients such as Mibbit and IRCCloud or the open source KiwiIRC and MIT's The Lounge Chat can work in connection with many popular browsers.ДЄn IRC network of interconnected servers operating as relay stations is used to mediate the calls in the IRC. The IRC client can be either an independent program on the local computer (e.g. In order to establish or join a chat, a network program, called an IRC client, is required for accessing a channel by connecting to a server. Any participant may open a new conversation channel, and a single computer user can also take part in several such simultaneous channels. It enables discussions among any number of participants in so-called conversation channels, as well as discussions between only two partners - for example, in question-and-answer dialogues. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat ( instant messaging) system. Today, IRC is still running strong, though it tends to be used as more of a supplement to web communities that have already been established through websites and forums.The first IRC server,, a Sun-3 server on display near the University of Oulu computer centre. Prior to the current prevalence of Internet forums and message boards, IRC was one of the best ways to foster community and chat with people of similar interests. IRC first arrived on the scene in 1988 and experienced its peak popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s. By doing so, youвЂ™ll be able to chat with other users who have connected to the same channels on those same servers. Using an IRC client, you can connect to a server and join the channels on that server. Channels are hosted on servers, and each server maintains its own network of channels. In the simplest of terms, IRC is a network of chatrooms where each individual chatroom is called a channel. For those of you who have never heard of IRC, hereвЂ™s a quick crash course.

Free irc client windows#

For those of you who are already familiar with IRC, you can jump past the next section to the list of awesome IRC clients for Windows 7. If you're interested in that sort of thing, youвЂ™ll want to look into the IRC protocol. For example, we have instant messaging protocols, email clients, chatroom networks, and more.ДЇor most of us, chatrooms might seem like a relic of the past, but they're still around. In the decades following the invention of the Internet, dozens of programs and protocols have been developed to facilitate communication between computers.