Nope! I am possibly overly paranoid about my IRC client, if only because of my time many years ago in some slightly shady (but honestly entirely benign) areas

Nope! I am possibly overly paranoid about my IRC client, if only because of my time many years ago in some slightly shady (but honestly entirely benign) areas of the Internet, where if your client wasn't properly configured you'd (sometimes) find out about it in negative ways.