Internet Relay Chat
(
IRC
) is a
chat system
on the
Internet
. People from around the world can use it to have conversations together. It can also be used for two people to chat privately.
[1]
The IRC
chat rooms
are also called
IRC channels
. These channels are on IRC
servers
, which you can connect to by finding that server's information. This information will often begin with "irc," then a period, the name of the server, then another period, and finally, .com .org or .net. An example would be 'irc.[Servername].org'
There are
small
IRC servers (for example, OperaNet) to medium IRC servers (freenode and DalNet, which have about 30,000 users) and
big
IRC servers (for example, EFNet, UnderNet, which have over 100,000 users).
Users of IRC need an IRC client. An IRC client is a
computer program
that works with IRC. There are many clients. Some of these clients run in the web browser. Other clients run as an application. Popular stand-alone clients include
mIRC
for
Microsoft Windows
, and
XChat
for
Linux
and
Microsoft Windows
. The
Opera
web browser has an IRC client built into the browser.
ChatZilla
is a chat client which is a
plugin
to
Mozilla Firefox
.
An
IRC bot
is a computer program that helps control and protect channels.
The name of an IRC channel usually begins with a hash (#).
IRC is an open
protocol
that uses
TCP
and optionally
TLS
. An IRC server can connect to other IRC servers to expand the IRC network. Users access IRC networks by connecting a client to a server. There are many client and server programs. Most IRC servers do not require users to log in, but a user will have to set a nickname before being connected.
IRC was originally a
plain text
protocol
(although later extended),
[2]
which on request was assigned
network port
194/TCP by
IANA
. However, most servers now run IRC on 6667/TCP and nearby port numbers (for example TCP ports 6112-6119) so that the server does not have to be run with
root privileges
.
This is a list of some programs which allow users to connect to IRC.
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Common terms
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Lists and comparisons
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Related protocols
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Related pages
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