IRC

When the Internet was in it’s infancy (before the World Wide Web),


about the only way to chat online was with a program called IRC

(Internet Relay Chat). It was mostly popular with university students

as this was basically the extent of the Internet back then. Many a

university student has failed subjects and even entire degrees

because they spent their lives hooked on IRC!

IRC is a simple text-based system that allows you to chat with

people in the same ‘room’. You connect to an IRC server (hundreds

around the world) using an IRC client program, and select from

one of many rooms available. Each room has a different theme like

general chat, sex, movies, computers, etc.

With today’s multitude of user friendly web and client-based

chat rooms to choose from, IRC is considered very ‘old hat’ and

archaic, really only used by the old school of computer veterans.

IRC is relatively difficult to use and understand, even with the

newer IRC client programs like MIRC. You need to learn IRC

commands, and some of the servers are unreliable and can be

difficult to find.

If you are new to the Internet and chatting then it’s advisable to stay clear of IRC, there are much better and simpler ways to


chat.