Everything you must know about IRC clients.

IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, and is what you could call one of the core elements of the web today, together with the www (http servers), fileservers (ftp etc), email and USENET/newsgroups. IRC is based on the ability to log onto a host (server), and then talking to other people who has connected to this server, in direct chat or in so called 'channels', which could be seen as some kind of 'room', where you see who is in it, and can talk 'publicly' for all to see, or talk with one person in private. There are many things that characterize IRC, one thing being that you are recognized by handles (commonly called a nickname), not by your true name, email address or the like, this giving many people a sense of anonymity and comfort in being themselves, without having to pay attention to their surroundings. People can enjoy their chat, wether they are fat/thin, goodlooking or not, rich or poor, natural 'leaders' or not.IRC for most parts places everybody at the same 'level'

Other aspects of IRC

While the chatting by itself is the core of many people's IRC experience, there are many sides to IRC that may enhance your experience, for instance, the ability to send and receive files, the ability to provide special support channels for products, organizations and the like, having a meeting place where you can meet friends, instead of expensive phonecalls, slow email or even slower snailmail, and be in private if you so wish, or invite other people to chat with you..for most things that regard communication between people over long distance, IRC is arguably the best medium to perform and/or initiate this communication on.

The client/server relationship

Almost everything on the Internet is based on some kind of server/client relationship, with the client typically being you, the user, and the server being some kind of centralized unit that handles many clients. IRC servers are typically either dedicated machines with dedicated connections for this purpose, or based on a so called 'shell', which can host many servers, and all these servers then share the connection. Most larger networks have requirements set to their servers performance and connection, meaning you'll need a dedicated computer on a dedicated connection to be considered for acceptance as a server on such a network. There is no such requirements however to connect to an existing IRC server :)

Basic features of an IRC client

You connect to IRC using a dedicated IRC client (usually), of which the most popular ones are mIRC, Pirch and Klient (for windows), Ircle for Mac, IrcII and BitchX for UNIX. The basic capabilities of the clients are usually the same, while interfaces and 'additional' features vary quite a lot. Basic features are the general IRC commands, ability to talk publicly in a channel or privately to another user, file sending capabilities and some kind of notify list (which can help you keep track on online friends). Interfaces vary quite a bit between the O/S's, but also among the clients there are great differences, from the mainly command-line based interfaces, to the almost fully graphical interfaces.

Additional features

Additional features are features such as audio/video capabilities, hypertext support (the client evaluates text received/sent and enables you to click them for various other options), multiple server connections within each instance of the client, and last, but not least, scripting capabilities (client internal programming language). Which client you choose, should of course be based on what you need... In my opinion, mIRC is the most friendly IRC client, that's why I use it!