I am very new into this chat applications and read about IRC and Matrix. Matrix seems its more new and modern. So I just wonder what’s the reason you are still using IRC?

  • luap@apollo.town
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    1 year ago

    cos irc just works. It worked just fine 20 years ago. It worked 20 ish years before that. In 20 more years it’ll still work.

    Any idiot with some time and a computer can throw up an ircd and host a server for people to chat on. Every other chat program either requires some random company to host it, or a much deeper knowledge of computers and software.

    The clients are available for every system around. From tiny little simple single connection clients, to massive complex graphical systems. You want to chat on plan9? There’s a client. An ancient amstrad cpc? There’s a client. (That one might be a bit more challenging) Android, Linux, Windows, Mac? All of them have clients, most of them multiple.

    I will say, I like Matrix, I like XMPP, I am not a huge fan of any of the chat clients with a single point of failure like discord or teams or whatever. But IRC is still my favorite, and probably will be forever.

    I just have it setup the way I want.

        • HTTP_404_NotFound@lemmyonline.com
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          1 year ago

          I think I will work on setting it up again tomm.

          I miss having a terminal window open with my irc client.

          I’ll just have to go re-remember how to setup federation, linked instances, and all of that jazz…

          • luap@apollo.town
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            1 year ago

            Well. There are a few places around. The big ones are places like libera.chat, oftc.net, etc. Those are HUGE though (By irc standards) so sometimes it can get overwhelming trying to find somewhere to just hang out and chat. Slightly smaller servers tend to work better as an introduction, at least to me. Things like tilde.chat which has a clearly defined main chat area, and a lot of more niche chats for things you might be interested in.

            Generally, if you get started on one server, and make some friends, join a few channels, find some interests, you’ll find your servers expanding. It’s a large enough ecosystem to have a LOT of people, but small enough that you’ll bump in to people you already know if you try multiple servers. Which is nice.

  • OverfedRaccoon 🦝@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think I’ve been on IRC since 2006ish. It was the gathering ground for my favorite private torrent tracker at the time. We had internet radio and all kinds of fun stuff.

    Before that, like back in the AOL days, there were chat-based filesharing server rooms, where you would get a list of files, then request whatever illicit goods you wanted via chat commands.

    I’m not really sure what people use IRC for now, but it’s still active.

  • freamon@endlesstalk.org
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    1 year ago

    Well, personally I use IRC to steal media, but I realise that’s not why you’re asking.

    I suppose the reason people might use it for chat is that it’s been around a long time, so there’s clients (with endless plugins) that do exactly what people want, and it’s all simple, text-based often unencrypted stuff, so it’s easy to write bots for (that might notify you of something, for example)

  • Digital Mark@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    xkcd.com/1782/

    Matrix, XMPP, etc. will all pass and be forgotten.

    IRC will never die, and the channels on it are often useful. I suggest starting with libera.chat

    Find a client you like. I’m on Mac, I tolerate LimeChat, Adium is “better” but I don’t use any other chats, which is what it’s for. There’s plenty of options. ircii is the classic.

      • darkstar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 year ago

        I fondly remember all the functionality Polaris offered, and because piracy was a big part of my IRC use, also Fserve. I made some extensions of my own to help with the typical IRCOP duties. Good times.

    • Sky Cato@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Nope xmpp is still going strong. I’ve been using xmpp over whtsapp for a while and I like it so much. You can even make a voice and video call. The best thingis it is federated just like fediverse

  • MrGerrit@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    In my younger years I used it to pirate stuff and back when I played counter strike, it was a requirement to have a channel for your clan to participate in matches on clanbase.org (rip)

    Fuck I feel old… Good times.

  • Acid@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    I used IRC daily religiously for 15 years, but around 2011 I just stopped and never got back into using it. The client of choice was Xchat.

  • American_Jesus@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I don’t use it for a longtime, but if it works why change it. It good for realtime chat, you can use it on a potato and some. Matrix chats also have IRC bridges so all can be on same chat.

  • aard@kyu.de
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    1 year ago

    My irssi configuration is exactly how I want it for about two decades now. Why change something good?

      • aard@kyu.de
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        1 year ago

        Both. Some work chats also are still IRC, but unfortunately less than they used to.

        I also bridge whatever is possible into IRC via bitlbee. Unfortunately not that useful anymore, but looks like there’s now an active project to bridge matrix again, which probably can take over.

  • CumBroth@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    I’ve made several friends on IRC and gotten acquainted with a lot of people with whom I want to remain in contact. There’s no point in moving to another platform, especially since, as u/[email protected] pointed out, it “just works” and there’s a client for it on every platform you can think of. I have my own IRC bouncer (ZNC) set up on a server of mine. I have it tailored to my preferences, set it up to log all the conversations I care about across multiple servers, and I can connect to it from any device I own now or might own in the future - same exact experience on all of them.

  • jabberati@social.anoxinon.de
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    1 year ago

    @randomguy2323 I mostly use XMPP, but joining IRC channels with Biboumi just works and I enjoy that. Matrix bridges are awful in comparison. So many problems joining Matrix rooms, so I have given up on it.