Now you may be thinking; “That chat program is still around?” or “What the heck is a eye-arr-see?”

Well let me tell you my friend. It stands for Internet Relay Chat and it’s been around for 34 years. It’s pretty much perfected at this point and quite easy to use if you have even the slightest technical knowledge.

So IRC servers are separate from one another with each server having it’s own admins. Each server you connect to has it’s own bots ran by individuals to messages and ask for things.

IRC servers work by sending slash commands much like discord does. To message another user you might type /msg coolboot2000 hello world! Piracy on IRC works by sending a bot a pm with the pack number you want.

“Where do I find servers and bots and pack numbers?” It’s as easy as using a xdcc search engine. http://sunxdcc.com/ has both a search and a list of networks. (DCC is Direct Client to Client meaning no files pass thru the server and XDCC is a version of DCC that allows large files to be transferred.)

“How do I connect?” You use an IRC client with SSL support. ~mIRC~ AdiIRC for windows and Hexchat with a patch for Linux. Once installed you can use the slash command /connect or use the clients GUI buttons to make a connection to the server.

“How do I make my own IRC client?” Follow the specifications here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_Relay_Chat_commands There are a ton of pre-made IRC libraries for pretty much every programming language.

Best luck friends!

edit: updated 11-6-23

  • @DanTheMan827@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    15•1 year ago

    IRC really needs a discord styled client.

    Something where if you drop an image or video onto it, it’ll automatically upload it to a private imgur link and share it.

    If you want to share a larger file, maybe it uploads to wetransfer or something automatically.

    Discord is basically IRC and more, but it’s also easier for non-techies to join a discord server, and you have a common identity across all servers.

    The beauty of something open like IRC though is the fact that you can make and use any client you want, including an old C64 if you really wanted to… with additional adapters of course

    • jecxjoEnglish
      10•1 year ago

      IRC does have file transfer, was how all us cool kids back in the early to mid 90s shared stuff. Its just that sharing is either p2p or you need a bot to mimic p2e.

      As for the images, part of the benefit of IRC is its so ridiculously simple that you barely need anything to do it. Yeah features can be added to apps but the payoff isn’t great. If you have the imgr app installed you already have quick image hosting. Tying apps to other services seems counter to how generic and open IRC is.

      • @ALostInquirer@lemm.eeEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        mimic p2e.

        What does p2e mean in this context? Tried looking it up but not finding anything that sounds right. I’d infer it may mean something similar to client-server, but I’m blanking on what the ‘e’ would stand for then.

        • jecxjoEnglish
          2•1 year ago

          Person to Everyone. In the context of this discussion i can post an image, video or file to a discord channel and everyone who goes in there can download it.

          In IRC you make a client to client connection and send files directly to one another. You can setup a bot to respond to individual requests and transfer files but there is no “hey everyone download this”

        • neo (he/him)English
          2•1 year ago

          I definitely understand that.

          I personally gave in because it made file uploading easy as well as the fact that thelounge also acts as a bouncer, keeping me online 24/7 even when my browser isn’t up.

          Also, it’s not discord. :o

    • @AndrewZen@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      Something where if you drop an image or video onto it, it’ll automatically upload it to a private imgur link and share it.

      If there’s not a script out there that does something like this i’d be surprised. If not IRC daemons and clients are mostly open source.

      I never found ways to pirate with discord. i’m sure there are but IRC is just so easy.