EFnet or Eris-Free network is a major Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network, with more than 35,000 users. It is the modern-day descendant of the original IRC network.
The Undernet is the third largest publicly monitored Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network, c. 2021, with about 42 client servers serving 17,444 users in 6707 channels at any given time.
DALnet is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network made up of 33 servers, with a stable population of approximately 8,000 users in about 7,000 channels.
BitchX is a free IRC client and has been considered to be the most popular ircII-based IRC client. The initial implementation, written by "Trench" and "HappyCrappy", was a script for the IrcII chat client. It was converted to a program in its own right by panasync. BitchX 1.1 final was released in 2004. It is written in C and is a TUI application utilizing ncurses. GTK+ toolkit support has been dropped. It works on all Unix-like operating systems, and is distributed under a BSD license. It is originally based on ircII-EPIC and eventually it was merged into the EPIC IRC client. It supports IPv6, multiple servers and SSL and a subset of UTF-8 with an unofficial patch.
An IRC channel takeover is an acquisition of IRC channel operator status by someone other than the channel's owner. It has largely been eliminated due to the increased use of services on IRC networks.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system. It enables discussions among any number of participants in so-called conversation channels, as well as discussions between only two partners — for example, in question-and-answer dialogues. Any participant may open a new conversation channel, and a single computer user can also take part in several such simultaneous channels.
QuakeNet is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network, and was one of the largest IRC networks. The network was founded in 1997 by Garfield and Oli as a new home for their respective countries' Quake channels. At its peak on February 8, 2005, the network recorded 243,394 simultaneous connections. As of 2020, there are 9 servers and about 12000 users remaining.
Firebird is an open-source SQL relational database management system that "runs on Linux, Microsoft Windows, macOS and several Unix platforms". The database forked from Borland's open source edition of InterBase in 2000 but the code has been largely rewritten since Firebird 1.5.
IRCnet is currently the second largest IRC network with around 25,000 users using it daily. An early 2005 record had approximately 123,110 users simultaneously connected to the network.
Internet Relay Chat services is a name for a set of features implemented on many modern Internet Relay Chat networks. Services are automated bots with special status which are generally used to provide users with access with certain privileges and protection. They usually implement some sort of login system so that only people on the access control list can obtain these services.
An IRC bot is a set of scripts or an independent program that connects to Internet Relay Chat as a client, and so appears to other IRC users as another user. An IRC bot differs from a regular client in that instead of providing interactive access to IRC for a human user, it performs automated functions.
An IRCd, short for Internet Relay Chat daemon, is server software that implements the IRC protocol, enabling people to talk to each other via the Internet. It is distinct from an IRC bot that connects outbound to an IRC channel.
The Open and Free Technology Community (OFTC) is an IRC network that provides collaboration services to members of the free software community in any part of the world. OFTC is an associated project of Software in the Public Interest, a non-profit organization which was founded to help organizations develop and distribute open hardware and software. The network's servers are accessible via Round-robin DNS from the URL irc.oftc.net. As of October 2019, OFTC has 31 volunteer staff members, and 16 sponsors.
IRC scripts are a way of shortening commands and responding automatically to certain events while connected to an IRC network. There are many different scripting languages for different types of IRC clients: ircII, BitchX, XChat, mIRC, Visual IRC, Bersirc, and others have their own scripting languages, many of which share common features and syntax and therefore are easily portable from one IRC client to another.
Rizon is a large Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network with an average of around 20,000 users. The IRC network itself ranks number 5 among the largest IRC networks. Rizon is popular with many anime fansubbing groups who work online, many of whom provide their content through XDCC via IRC bots in their distribution channels. It is also used by many users of eRepublik as a means of communication. File sharing of other copyrighted material such as Warez is also common in some channels on the network.
The following tables compare general and technical information between a number of IRC client programs which have been discussed in independent published literature.
eMule is a free peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. Started in May 2002 as an alternative to eDonkey2000, eMule now connects to both the eDonkey network and the Kad network. Often used by clients looking for extremely rare content, the distinguishing features of eMule are the direct exchange of sources between client nodes, fast recovery of corrupted downloads, and the use of a credit system to reward frequent uploaders. Furthermore, eMule transmits data in zlib-compressed form to save bandwidth.
ZNC is an IRC network bouncer or BNC. It can detach the client from the actual IRC server, and also from selected channels. Multiple clients from different locations can connect to a single ZNC account simultaneously and therefore appear under the same nickname on IRC. It supports Transport Layer Security connections and IPv6.
UnrealIRCd is an open-source IRC daemon, originally based on DreamForge, and is available for Unix-like operating systems and Windows. Since the beginning of development on UnrealIRCd c. May 1999, many new features have been added and modified, including advanced security features and bug fixes, and it has become a popular server.
LeafChat is a free IRC client for Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems, licensed under the GNU GPL-3.0-or-later. A donation is requested.
