Good Open Source IRC?

[Frak]

Can anybody suggest an Open Source IRC client, I've looked at mIRC, but
1. It's not open source, so unless push comes to shove I won't use it
2. I don't see what all of the hype is about

Happy to hear all suggestions!

[jdhore]

Can anybody suggest an Open Source IRC client, I've looked at mIRC, but
1. It's not open source, so unless push comes to shove I won't use it
2. I don't see what all of the hype is about

Happy to hear all suggestions!

there's always XChat...but IMO, mIRC is the best and in terms of features and stuff, nothing else comes close

[Frak]

Thanks jdhore, I think I'll give it another shot, just left it from the appearance of the homepage, mIRC didn't look so good then.

[jdhore]

Thanks jdhore, I think I'll give it another shot, just left it from the appearance of the homepage, mIRC didn't look so good then.

yeah...the client is pretty good...but they haven't updated the website since like 1995...actually, to be more specific, mIRC is the best client on Windows, but i still don't really like it a ton...so i use (d) 2 mIRC "super-scripts": one called UPP (Ultra Protection Project) that's damn good: http://www.upp-irc.tk and one called NNScript that i've rather liked the past few weeks.

[TheKid965]

Sadly, the days when mIRC had several decent challengers for the crown of "Best Windows IRC Client" are over; the roadside is littered with the corpses of Visual IRC, PIRCh, XiRCON, and other worthy-but-failed competitors. You may be able to find old and outdated versions of them lurking about in some dark corner of the net, but feature-wise mIRC really has surpassed them all by now.

Your only real alternative these days is X-Chat, and sadly its Windows port is no longer truly open source - or even free-as-in-beer. About two years ago its author decided to switch to a shareware model for distribution of the Windows executable (though all other ports remain open-sourced), setting off a firestorm of complaints about GPL violations and the like. And while the source code for Windows X-Chat is still freely available (minus the code for the shareware activation, the major bone of contention) and you can compile it yourself, building from source in Windows is nowhere near as elegant as it is in a *nix environment - all the more so if you've never done it before.

There are some minor alternatives remaining; a Google search should turn them up. One that may be worth checking out is irssi, which has a Windows port, but caveat emptor - it's a textmode-only client. It's a very good IRC client, I find, but it does have a learning curve to it...

[Frak]

Text is was IRC was made for, I'll use it. (irssi)

[MetalMusicAddict]

Also, I think GAIM does a fine job handling IRC now. I dont use alot of advanced IRC options like some might but I find it works well.

[maxamillion]

irssi if you like cli (there is a window executable of it now)
xchat or gaim for gui

[Ireclan]

Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/)?

[meng]

I'm more than happy with XChat, but I guess I don't know what I'm missing out on with mIRC. My needs are simple!

[KaroSHiv0n]

I always had a dislike for Mirc and its fisherprice interface, so i always used xchat (www.silverex.org/download) or IRSSI (type it into your terminal)

:-)

[ice60]

hi, i don't know about the licence, it doesn't cost anything though, but there's HydraIRC
http://www.hydrairc.com/

and here's the free version of xchat for windows, not the shareware one -
http://www.silverex.org/news/

here are some more which don't cost anything (sorry i really don't know about the licences :()
http://ircd.bircd.org/
http://www.bersirc.com/

[Frak]

Thanks ice60 and others, its hard to find open source for Windows compared to Linux, but thanks to everybody for helping!

[ice60]

here's some more -
http://www.icechat.net/site/
http://www.trillian.cc/
http://www.miranda-im.org/

and there's the opera browser too :) opera i know for sure though isn't free! it might have a nice irc client though ???

[Frak]

Yeah, I have Trillian Pro, I forgot it could use IRC, thanks!