We might have heard the term, “Chat Room”, a room online (on the internet) that enable many people to chat online with each other. You might also have heard the term IRC (Internet Relay Chat) which is the protocol for those online chat rooms. There were many different programs that were used for the chat client-side, to be able to connect to an IRC server and Login to a chat room. The most common chat client program since the beginning was called “mIRC” which I am sure it is still being used today.

The purpose of those chat rooms where, well… they had many purposes, but mostly a way to connect anyone from anywhere in the world, into one arena of a chat room, that enabled everyone to talk to everyone. There were other rooms being created, separating by age, or purpose, like to get to know each other for dating purposes, for business purposes, for getting technical advice, etc…

This was a great way to communicate with others around the world, it was free, and you didn’t need to see anyone, only look at the nickname they choose, start a chat, and discover other people around the world. The debate about politics, or the weather or anything you might want to talk about. You could convey the chat where everyone can see, in the general room, or just open a private session with the person you want to talk to. We are
familiar today with chats like the messengers (MSN, Yahoo, Google, etc…) which more features, like using a WebCam, transferring files, and using funny icons to make the chat more enjoyable.

But those IRC chat rooms where the core of communication between computer users, when there were no cell phones, and long distant regular phone calls were too expensive. These IRC chat rooms enabled a way to contact anyone in any country, in any language (even though the most common one was English) and at any hour.

I know of some people that got to know each other using IRC chat rooms, fallen in love, and got married 🙂 so you can understand that before the dating websites, and the communication chats we know today, IRC chat rooms where the arena for global communications.

There are IRC chat programs for any type of operating system, like Linux, Windows, MAC, etc… some can be used using the browser.

Browser IRC chat programs:
•    Chatzilla – This is built on the SeaMonkey add-on addition feature on the Firefox browser.
•    Smuxi – This is a program designated to the Gnome desktop of the Linux OS. This is a flexible IRC client for advance users.
•    Pidgin – This program is joining into it, many different chat applications, which means you can connect to almost any familiar chat messenger program and include it into this program, and an IRC client feature as well.
•    Mibbit – This is a web based ajax IRC client feature.

Windows IRC clients:
•    mIRC – The most popular IRC client, being used by many for almost 20 years. Today this is a shareware program, giving 30-day license which needs to be purchased for using it further.

Photo – http://www.aliendownload.com/files/screens/2228_mirc.gif
•    Vortec IRC – A Dedicated IRC client. It has multi-server support.
•    IceChat – This IRC chat client can run on any Windows OS platform, including 64bit versions.
•    XChat – This is an IRC chat program, that runs on Windows and Linux OS. You can use it to join multiple chat rooms at the same time.

Linux IRC Clients:
•    XChat – The most common IRC client for Linux. It is mostly comes pre-installed on the Linux distribution operating systems.
•    Konversation – This is another popular IRC client on Ubuntu OS. It usually comes with the Kubuntu OS version.

MAC IRC Clients:
•    Colloquy – This one is a free and open-source IRC client program.
•    Ircle – This version requires the “Tiger” 10.4 OSX or higher.
•    Snak – Using this program is not free, you can use PayPal for purchasing it.
•    Linkinus – this program enables a rich social IRC experience, this program has a 15 day trial period, then you will have to purchase it.

So we found that there are many programs out there for IRC use, and you can find good ones for any type of operating system. So just try them out, and experience the worldwide chat arena for meeting people from all around the world 🙂 enjoy.