Coincidentally I had to use IRC today, not much changed. Biggest hurdle continues to be messages when I'm away and it seems IRCCloud hasn't seen an update in a while.
t2.micro AWS instance + irssi and tmux. Problem solved.
Why I Live in IRC (2015)
11–20 of 129 posts
Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)
#12Coincidentally I had to use IRC today, not much changed. Biggest hurdle continues to be messages when I'm away and it seems IRCCloud hasn't seen an update in a while.
I've been using ZNC for several years now. It definitely feels a little janky and weird to set up, but once it's working it's virtually maintenance-free. I run it on a cheap Debian VPS at Hetzner.
Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)
#1318 years and counting! Still living in IRC. I use the old and humble Irssi as the client with ZNC running on a Debian VM on Linode as the bouncer to maintain a persistent connection. It is simple, reliable, and well established. I initially used to hang out on multiple networks like DALnet, EFnet, etc. but I quickly settled on becoming a regular at Freenode and OFTC because those are where most of the free and open s…
A side benefit of ZNC is that it makes setup on a new machine easy. I don't want to have to remember how to set up CertFP for OFTC, and with ZNC I don't need to.
Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)
#14I was an ircop on efnet for like half my childhood until they figured out I wasn't 18 and desynced my server. I just could never go back to IRC. I stopped using it probably 15 years ago or more after using it for 20ish years. Got my first job on it, learned linux and networking through it, definitely propelled my career.
TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites. This is prevalent in everything like discord etc but the degree to it in IRC is just ridiculous god knows what any of those 1500 bots in a channel are doing.
NO features. I'm just over the IRC client and protocol and whatever else. It won't preview gifs, you probably still have to do some xdcc crap to send a file. After using discord and twitch and anything remotely modern it just doesn't allow the same type of conversations, socializing, interactions, but a lot of people do love that about it. I don't include weird irc clients like AcidMAX or whatever would be hip nowadays that probably came from a russian warez group that now has your credit card numbers.
No syncing without running an eggdrop or some tty somewhere running it 24/7. No multi-device support, have to join the server and log in again etc. if it ever restarts or you're somewhere without a shell running it.
Everyone is just bluntly anonymous and you have no privacy outside of priv chans where you know literally everyone.
And being an op the amount of absolutely depraved and creepy stalkery stuff that went on was insane. So many of the few women who identified themselves as women would be harassed and stalked all over irc and sometimes IRL. Lots of glining of creeps.
This was very much an efnet problem with some of the communities it developed. Freenode etc I'm sure iddn't suffer that drama much if any.
Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)
#15Coincidentally I had to use IRC today, not much changed. Biggest hurdle continues to be messages when I'm away and it seems IRCCloud hasn't seen an update in a while.
t2.micro AWS instance + irssi and tmux. Problem solved.
For some reason I always used `screen` and never considered alternatives, it's just how I learned to use irssi.
Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)
#16I was an ircop on efnet for like half my childhood until they figured out I wasn't 18 and desynced my server. I just could never go back to IRC. I stopped using it probably 15 years ago or more after using it for 20ish years. Got my first job on it, learned linux and networking through it, definitely propelled my career. TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites. This is prevalent in everything like…
Under 18 but used it for nearly 20 years? Were you born at a negative number?
Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)
#17I was an ircop on efnet for like half my childhood until they figured out I wasn't 18 and desynced my server. I just could never go back to IRC. I stopped using it probably 15 years ago or more after using it for 20ish years. Got my first job on it, learned linux and networking through it, definitely propelled my career. TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites. This is prevalent in everything like…
Under 18 but used it for nearly 20 years? Were you born at a negative number?
I was an op when I was under 18, stopped using IRC 15+ years ago, and used it in total for probably 15-20 years. I'm 39 and started at .. Idk, probably 8-9. I think I was an op from 12-16 maybe 17.
A lot of ops were people who synced (peered) their stable and moderated servers on good connections with efnet. Like, OC1-3 connections. My friends and I were pretty much apprentice network engineers to a family member who ran a NOC so we had.. servers..
edit: LOL I just looked up oc1-3 speeds. That used to be so fast.
OC1 - 52 Mb OC3 - 156 Mb
Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)
#18I was an ircop on efnet for like half my childhood until they figured out I wasn't 18 and desynced my server. I just could never go back to IRC. I stopped using it probably 15 years ago or more after using it for 20ish years. Got my first job on it, learned linux and networking through it, definitely propelled my career. TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites. This is prevalent in everything like…
Under 18 but used it for nearly 20 years? Were you born at a negative number?
[deleted]
Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)
#19I was an ircop on efnet for like half my childhood until they figured out I wasn't 18 and desynced my server. I just could never go back to IRC. I stopped using it probably 15 years ago or more after using it for 20ish years. Got my first job on it, learned linux and networking through it, definitely propelled my career. TOO many bots log entire channels out to public html sites. This is prevalent in everything like…
You hit the nail on the head when it comes to why people don't use IRC anymore. Missing messages because you're not online is simply unacceptable to today's audience, and running a bouncer is too technical for most folks. Using a shared bouncer like IRCCloud isn't feasible since they get abused and the entire provider often gets banned.
I still use IRC (For nearly 30 years now!) and am in a channel that is still highly active with regulars, but I certainly don't fault anybody for not wanting to use it. I run a bouncer not just so I don't lose messages (I leave my computer on 24/7 with mIRC running, so it's not like I'd miss anything), but so I can hide my IP address.
It's actually kind of appalling from a security perspective to expose users' IP addresses. I'm genuinely surprised that the major IRC networks still don't hide them. Sure, it'd break things like DCC, but would prevent DDoS attacks against fellow users.
Re: Why I Live in IRC (2015)
#20No mention was ever made of why anyone would want their life filled with so many damn notifications.
Half of these seem more appropriate for email, and email is already set up to handle them with zero configuration (like GitHub).
Twitter, who cares, that’s a time waster.
Home surveillance stuff is also a waste of time. It is basically entirely ineffective, every petty criminal knows to wear a mask and clearance rates are below 15%.
And putting your sleep logs on your website publicly…really!? Seems like this is just data collection as a hobby with no end goal.