Clan x86

General Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: SlamBliss on July 31, 2007, 06:42:58 AM

Title: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: SlamBliss on July 31, 2007, 06:42:58 AM
Hey guys, I was just stopping by to see if anyone could point me in the direction of the best irc client. I've tried mIRC and it is nice, but I was just wondering if there was anything better. Using pidgin really leaves alot to be desired in the command department and reminds me too much of an AOL chatroom (never really liked those damned things.)

So would anyone mind throwing a few program names at me? :P
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: iago on July 31, 2007, 08:43:50 AM
I personally like irssi.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: Newby on July 31, 2007, 12:25:37 PM
On Windows, you really can't beat mIRC.

On Linux, XChat is really nice, and irssi is awesome too.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: Skywing on July 31, 2007, 01:55:11 PM
Use SILC (http://www.silcnet.org), not IRC.

(There is an irssi with silc injected into it.)
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: rabbit on July 31, 2007, 03:29:58 PM
Quote from: SlamBliss on July 31, 2007, 06:42:58 AM
mIRC and it is nice
I'm sorry, but you fail.  mIRC is the worst.  XChat and irssi are far better.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: deadly7 on July 31, 2007, 04:11:48 PM
Quote from: rabbit on July 31, 2007, 03:29:58 PM
I'm sorry, but you fail.  mIRC is the worst.  XChat and irssi are far better.
Most people (myself included) are too lazy to compile the binaries for Windows. :P
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: Ergot on July 31, 2007, 04:45:37 PM
Quote from: deadly7 on July 31, 2007, 04:11:48 PM
Quote from: rabbit on July 31, 2007, 03:29:58 PM
I'm sorry, but you fail.  mIRC is the worst.  XChat and irssi are far better.
Most people (myself included) are too lazy to compile the binaries for Windows. :P
Most people (myself included) find readily available binaries for Windows. :P
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: deadly7 on July 31, 2007, 04:58:03 PM
Quote from: Ergot on July 31, 2007, 04:45:37 PM
Most people (myself included) find readily available binaries for Windows. :P
Still too lazy. Find me some XChat Windows binaries plz.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: Ergot on July 31, 2007, 05:36:54 PM
Look here: http://b0at.tx0.org/xchat/ or if you're really that damn lazy... click here: http://silverex.info/download/xchat-2.8.0-1.exe
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: warz on July 31, 2007, 05:47:03 PM
on windows, mirc is still better than xchat, in my opinion. i've never used irssi. silc would be nice if it were widely popular, but sadly it's not.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: Skywing on July 31, 2007, 06:38:06 PM
Depends on what you are using IRC for, I suppose.  In my experience, there is a vastly better signal to noise ratio in terms of intelligent people on SILC.  Not to mention that it's designed for the paranoid from the ground up, unlike IRC, if you're concerned about that sort of thing.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: Newby on July 31, 2007, 01:40:53 PM
I've never actually looked into SILC. What is it, exactly? What benefits are there to using SILC over IRC?

I'm content with using IRC, and would/will probably switch if/when SILC gains some momentum and people start moving over to it.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: rabbit on July 31, 2007, 03:05:23 PM
I tried SILC but I had no idea what it was for or who was on it, so I stopped using it :X
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: zorm on July 31, 2007, 04:48:33 PM
Quote from: rabbit on July 31, 2007, 03:29:58 PM
I'm sorry, but you fail.  mIRC is the worst.  XChat and irssi are far better.

I'm not quite sure how you can say that. Have you actually used mIRC? Its got the best chat interface of any program I have used to date. Not to mention a powerful and easy to use script language.


That said I do use SILC and its kinda nice, I mean it makes it easy for me to harrass Skywing. I actually tried to get some friends to move over to it but the lack of a decent program for it kind of scared them away. So I'm on 1 SILC server and half a dozen or so IRC servers.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: Warrior on July 31, 2007, 07:47:04 PM
Quote from: zorm on July 31, 2007, 04:48:33 PM
Quote from: rabbit on July 31, 2007, 03:29:58 PM
I'm sorry, but you fail.  mIRC is the worst.  XChat and irssi are far better.

I'm not quite sure how you can say that. Have you actually used mIRC? Its got the best chat interface of any program I have used to date. Not to mention a powerful and easy to use script language.


That said I do use SILC and its kinda nice, I mean it makes it easy for me to harrass Skywing. I actually tried to get some friends to move over to it but the lack of a decent program for it kind of scared them away. So I'm on 1 SILC server and half a dozen or so IRC servers.

sup
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: rabbit on August 01, 2007, 02:37:39 AM
Quote from: zorm on July 31, 2007, 04:48:33 PM
Quote from: rabbit on July 31, 2007, 03:29:58 PM
I'm sorry, but you fail.  mIRC is the worst.  XChat and irssi are far better.

I'm not quite sure how you can say that. Have you actually used mIRC? Its got the best chat interface of any program I have used to date. Not to mention a powerful and easy to use script language.
Yes, I have.  And I'm sorry, but I like to have C, Tcl, Ruby, Perl, and Python support over a lame scripting language made up by that guy that wrote mIRC.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: Skywing on August 01, 2007, 10:33:12 AM
Quote from: Newby on July 31, 2007, 01:40:53 PM
I've never actually looked into SILC. What is it, exactly? What benefits are there to using SILC over IRC?

I'm content with using IRC, and would/will probably switch if/when SILC gains some momentum and people start moving over to it.

It's designed for (cryptographic) security through the entire protocol.  Users can be positively identified via public key cryptography (assuming they choose to use the same public key while connecting) and all communications are encrypted with the server serving as a relay point after a key exchange with it (requiring that, like ssh, you can verify the server's public key).  There are also provisions (such as user to user or user to channel client to client encryption) to ensure that a compromised server or evil server operator cannot eavesdrop, if you choose to use those functions.

It's also, in general, a much better thought out protocol than IRC (among other things, not reliant on parsing human-readable text messages everywhere).  Unlike IRC over SSL, the security features aren't an afterthought bolt-on either.

The end user experience is fairly comparable to IRC.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: Joe on August 02, 2007, 12:45:51 AM
Quote from: deadly7 on July 31, 2007, 04:11:48 PM
Quote from: rabbit on July 31, 2007, 03:29:58 PM
I'm sorry, but you fail.  mIRC is the worst.  XChat and irssi are far better.

Most people (myself included) are too lazy to compile the binaries for Windows. :P

Unfortunately, this doesn't defeat your argument as most people are too lazy to try this either, but Googling "xchat free" gives you this (http://www.silverex.org/).
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: while1 on August 02, 2007, 03:23:35 AM
I use mIRC for Windows and XChat for Linux.  And for OSX, Colloquy (sp?) seems pretty nice, although I haven't used it extensively; just enough to show someone with a mac basic use of IRC and how it works.
Title: Re: What is the Best IRC client?
Post by: rabbit on August 02, 2007, 08:25:55 AM
Again, XChat and irssi are better than anything, even on the Macincrap.