What is an IRC Client?

A IRC client is a piece of software that runs on your computer that allows you to connect to a server. Everybody that connects to the IRC network will be using some form of IRC client to do so. There are many different clients out there that you can try. Some are free, others are not. Some are better than others. Which one you choose to use will largely depend on which operating system you are running on your computer.

Recommended IRC Software

Web-Based

  • Java (PjIRC) chat — If you are on a computer that does not allow you to install an IRC client, or just wish to chat without any hassle, you can use our web-based chatroom right here on the site!

Windows

  • mIRC — Probably the most popular client in the world, with over 150 million downloads worldwide. Available in a wide variety of languages. Great for beginners and for experts alike due to a wealth of configuration options.
  • XChat — A very full-featured multi-platform client (also available on Linux & Mac OS X) with a strong following and regularily updated.
  • Bersirc — An Open-Source IRC client for Windows (that, like XChat, runs on other platforms as well) that revolves around being as user-friendly as possible.

Macintosh (OS X)

  • Colloquy — A modern IRC client for Mac OS X that allows for add-ons and customisable user inferface (via XSLT and Apple WebKit).
  • Ircle — A slightly older and more mature chat client for Mac. Due to this, it can run on very old versions of MacOS (7.0 — OS X).

Linux

  • XChat — See above (in the Windows section). XChat is probably your first port of call if you use a windowed linux system and would like a fully-featured IRC client. Comes highly recommended for Linux users.
  • Irssi — A heavily customisable CLI irc client with a modular interface (many of the add-on scripts and modules are written in Perl).
  • BitchX — Another console-based irc client that started as a script for ircII, and one that is very colourful (ANSI!).

Tips & Tricks

If you want to know what client a user on the network is using, you can find out without asking them. All clients will respond to the following command (replace [nickname] with the user you're querying). For example, if we query the user 'eighty4' on the network we get the following:

/CTCP [nickname] VERSION

Response:

16:22:04 | [eighty4 VERSION reply]: xchat 2.8.4 Ubuntu

More Information

If you would like to learn more about this topic, try the following pages:

— Jon [June 2008]