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What IRC client do you use?

11 points by jaynate ↗ HN
I'm relatively new to IRC. I run Windows 7 and am looking for a good IRC client. Any suggestions?

18 comments

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thedjinn
I have a bunch of Linux VPS servers and run Irssi on one of them. Combined with the GNU Screen program you can access this permanently connected IRC session from wherever you are. All you need is an SSH client, such as Putty, to connect to it.
wladimir
I used to do that too. But now I use Quassel IRC, IMO it's pretty cool because it consists of two parts:

- a daemon process that does the actual connection to the IRC servers. You can run this on a VPS server.

- a GUI client that you can run from everywhere. It connects to the daemon and gets your chat history for every channel. Disconnecting the client doesn't disconnect you from IRC.

Just like with the ssh/screen solution, you can use the same IRC connection from your desktop, laptop, work, home, etc. You never need to reconnect and you can browse what was said while you were away.

The big difference is that you have a (QT based) GUI instead of a console-based client. If you have a lot of channels and servers open, this is especially useful :)

davidw
Xchat on Ubuntu. You might be interested in dropping by #startups on the freenode network - some of us hang out there.
ig1
Colloquay on mac, but I prefer mIRC for windows.
Schmidt
I have a server placed on a co-location where i use GNU Screen and Weechat for irc
knowtheory
macirssi

If push came to shove i would actually probably look up xIRCon for Windows, if i had to use Windows (yes even though xIRCon was already abandonware in 1999, eat that mIRC).

dmc
Silverex[1] is what I used to use back on windows. Nowadays, irssi with screen running on a server.

[1] http://www.silverex.org/

khafra
irssi on *nix, Colloquy on iPhone.
chapel
Linkinus for OS X. It is great, fast, clean, looks beautiful. Soon should have node.js scripting support as well.

http://www.linkinus.com

robgough
I have Limechat on Mac & iPhone, which both connect to znc - so I'm "always connected".

If someone mentions my name while I'm logged into znc, then znc-notifo pushes a message to notifo (which lets all my devices know.

I'm pretty happy with it.

keidian
Hmm, somehow I hadn't heard of notifo. Thanks for the post here which made me go look it up, looks interesting