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Ask HN: Curious to know if people still use IRC?

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Re: Ask HN: Curious to know if people still use IRC?

#241

Post by SamWhited »

shantly wrote: post #85
SamWhited wrote: post #63

I still use IRC, or sometimes even a handful of XMPP (Jabber, for grep-ability) rooms (although for the most part it's better for 1:1 chat with friends, and text messages through a bridge) partially for ideological reasons but also partially because I can't use the more "modern" alternatives. My particular reasons don't matter, but a few I've seen in the past include (focusing on Slack as an example, but most of thes…

IRC and XMPP are relatively easy to set up servers for, too. I looked at Matrix a little while ago and it's a serious PITA by comparison, so far as going from zero to achieving client-talking-to-server. Of course the company behind it appears to make their money selling hosting, so....

yah, the protocol is pretty crap too (for chat anyways, maybe it has other applications but they push it for chat pretty hard core). Don't get me wrong, IRC and XMPP have their problems, but I'd avoid Matrix at all costs. I was really hopeful it was a good alternative at first (before I get accused of bias for joining the XMPP Standards foundation for a while), but in the end I picked XMPP and I try to work to make that better instead (while still using IRC for group chats due to network effect and my deep love of IRSSI).

Re: Ask HN: Curious to know if people still use IRC?

#242

Post by DoctorOetker »

dijit wrote: post #15

Every day, It's become a social network of sorts for geeks, despite the age of the protocol I still find it the least "invasive" and most friendly experience, but that's probably because I spent the time configuring a client that's nice for me. (preview: http://imgs.fyi/img/9ve2.png ) I run a network even, called darkscience and it's available at irc.darkscience.net (TLS only on port 6697) the lobby is #darkscience i…

I never heard of darkscience before, so I will definitely check it out.

I seem to use IRC in irregular bouts, like half a year consecutively and then not at all for a year.

Is there a popular IRC plugin / protocol for pretty printed math formulas? This is also what I miss a lot on HN, but I understand it's due to a more programming centric audience. I wish either HN had math formulas, or a fork of HN directed toward scientists / engineers / mathematicians allowed it.

Re: Ask HN: Curious to know if people still use IRC?

#243

Post by robotmay »

garren wrote: post #159
esotericn wrote: post #156

I've used IRC pretty much forever. I use it for, err, online chat. If I want real-time chat I do it there. None of the other platforms offer anything other than fragmentation of the user base as far as I'm concerned. I don't care about the fact that like, you need to run a client all the time, ten year old me was leaving his computer on before he knew what a server even was, I do it anyway because I self host a ton o…

Is there a particular client you use or would recommend? I’ve used irssi on and off in the past, and bitchx occasionally, but I’d be curious to know what’s popular today.

I quite like Quassel, which doesn't seem to get discussed much. Has the ability to run the core and client on separate machines, decent customisation etc. I run the core on my home server and connect to it from elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: Curious to know if people still use IRC?

#244

Post by johnisgood »

jandrese wrote: post #184
dijit wrote: post #15

Every day, It's become a social network of sorts for geeks, despite the age of the protocol I still find it the least "invasive" and most friendly experience, but that's probably because I spent the time configuring a client that's nice for me. (preview: http://imgs.fyi/img/9ve2.png ) I run a network even, called darkscience and it's available at irc.darkscience.net (TLS only on port 6697) the lobby is #darkscience i…

What I like is that the clients were written years ago and weigh almost nothing. I can leave them running in the background on even the wimpiest trash netbook and it doesn't care. Compare to Slack or Signal or Discord where the client is some half a gig chomping behemoth that spins up the CPU fans constantly.

Yes, and lots of data fit into 80x24 xterm vs 1280x1024 Discord. Crazy that I need an entire workspace per Electron apps. I have no idea what goes in on the developers' mind when it comes to unnecessary padding/spacing.

Re: Ask HN: Curious to know if people still use IRC?

#245

Post by ryanlol »

LinuxBender wrote: post #208
jotm wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a long time ago (7-10 years), but 1and1, Hetzner, OVH, HostGator, LiquidWeb did not allow IRC hosting. They were the cheapest, tbf. I only use Linode now, haven't looked into it.

Ah. Of those, I've used Linode and OVH. Neither ever gave me grief for having IRC, but I also ensured that I never had botnets connecting to me, which is what most of them don't like dealing with. I've never tried 1and1, Hetzner (ive heard good things about them), HostGator or Liquidweb. I am certain that Linode won't give you any grief as long as you make some effort to keep botnets from abusing your service.

>I never had botnets connecting to me, which is what most of them don't like dealing with.

It’s the DDoS attacks they didn’t like dealing with, but I suppose that’s one way of describing it.

Re: Ask HN: Curious to know if people still use IRC?

#247

Post by AnnoyingSwede »

dijit wrote: post #15

Every day, It's become a social network of sorts for geeks, despite the age of the protocol I still find it the least "invasive" and most friendly experience, but that's probably because I spent the time configuring a client that's nice for me. (preview: http://imgs.fyi/img/9ve2.png ) I run a network even, called darkscience and it's available at irc.darkscience.net (TLS only on port 6697) the lobby is #darkscience i…

Nice to see SSL enforced ircd. Coming out of Dalnet, Ircnet and Efnet the only short-coming i really found in IRC was the fact that most networks until very late promoted clear-text transfers. I might even pass by your network this evening to revive that feeling /me once had :)

Re: Ask HN: Curious to know if people still use IRC?

#248

Post by reeves23423 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #44
Xamayon wrote: post #42

I'm a big fan of IRC, and I'm primarily active in small channels on Rizon. From my experience, the kind of people who stick around long term tend to be extremely capable and fun to interact with. I find small IRC channels have a very high signal to noise ratio, possibly due to what many people see as a high barrier to entry. I won't lie, I was intimidated when I first used IRC all those years ago, but it quickly beca…

Also, you can implement an IRC client and/or server in about an hour in any decently high-level programming language.

Are you saying literally or figuratively. You mean it is possible to implement a working python3 client in one hour ? I would love to see someone do a live stream .

Re: Ask HN: Curious to know if people still use IRC?

#250

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

reeves23423 wrote: post #248
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, you can implement an IRC client and/or server in about an hour in any decently high-level programming language.

Are you saying literally or figuratively. You mean it is possible to implement a working python3 client in one hour ? I would love to see someone do a live stream .

Yeah. Well, maybe. It might be a slight exaggeration but IRC is ludicrously simple. It's just sending text strings back and forth on a TCP socket. You can literally use telnet as an IRC client.
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