Internet Relay Chat

Internet Relay Chat or IRC for short is the worlds most popular protocol for online chat. There are thousands of different IRC networks using this protocols, and the big IRC networks (such as https://irc.dyne.org/ ) typically has thousands of servers and tens of thousands of users.

The protocol is open, so anyone can write their own IRC client (such as one that works in a webbrowser like this one: https://irc.dyne.org ), and anyone can write their own IRC server software. There is a huge amount of IRC server software, and IRC client software, available; see below for recommendations.

see also

• XDCC search engine for DCC file transfer via IRC
• https://sunxdcc.com search engine for DCC file transfer
• example: search for iso files in bash , use the given /msg ... ... instruction (click #... in sunxdcc) to iniate the XDCC download while in IRC

   curl  --silent     http://sunxdcc.com/deliver.php?sterm=iso |   sed -r 's/,/\n/g'      |  grep   iso

• http://qhhunyjzmdyx4i4d.onion search engine for DCC file transfer
• fast IRC channel list search like ’grep’
• arbitrary vhosts for ircnet.net only, requiring setting of DNS TXT-records and 72 passwords if you own an internic domain: https://www.cloud.webchat.ovh
• chat log https://irclogs.ubuntu.com
• some of the best IRC software