7 ms·

IRC Will Never Die (2021)

76 points by desdo88 2y ago

wkat4242 2y ago
Funny that they mention freenode because it did burn to the ground 2 years after this article. However it was reborn as Libera which is once again doing great. If you don't know the story, Google it. I don't want to drag up the past, it's better forgotten. I don't think IRC will really die, it will become a more fringey thing though. Probably more than it already is.
- mattl 2y ago
  Sadly the number of people on IRC took a huge hit the last few years especially channels previously on Freenode.
- HamedEmine 2y ago
  Agreed, waves from DALnet!
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    Rizon checking in.
- abstractbeliefs 2y ago
  It's not so funny, because this article was written at the time freenode was burning to the ground, and the article suggests that it would be very easy for everyone to move to libera if it turned out to be the better option. And that it worked so well is the point of the article! IRC is highly resilient because it's simple to set up, the clients and servers are free software and can be endlessly and independently configured to talk to each other, and it's light on resources - both server, client, and bandwidth. I'm on terrible, legacy satellite internet (ie, not starlink, with 700ms-1.2s round trip times), and IRC is the only chat system that works fine.
  - RiverCrochet 2y ago
    IRC is so lightweight that a single-core sub 500MHz system can host 10,000 or more connections, and did back in the day.
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      Hah, the general issue with IRC was (even without DDoS) the bandwidth. I went to Monash University in Australia, starting in 1994. We had an EFnet server (biggest, or one of the biggest). I was just a student so I don't know the specifics, but it was only allowed to run from 6pm to 6am because otherwise it used most of the University's bandwidth, if not the entire country: At the time, Australia's internet capacity overseas was a SINGLE 1.5Mbit link. Telstra did buy a 45Mbit link in late 1995, and then another in early 1996. Still, that's insane, the country had less than 100Mbps. I remember working for a web design company in the mid-late 90s and we had servers at a datacenter in Melbourne. I remember downloading Netscape Navigator (1.1n!) and being blown away by how fast it downloaded, and then realizing for the duration of the download I was using something in the order of 5% of the country's international bandwidth. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Australia
      - grogenaut 2y ago
        In the fall of 96 or 97? I was getting some freshmen setup with computers. I was on the football team so we were on campus (WUSTL) 7 days before school started so almost no one was on campus. We were trying to download navigator from tucows (I think) and I remembered wuarchive still existed and was on campus. We had 100 meg in the buildings and fiber backbone. We pulled NN at 5.5Mb/s... it finished so fast we downloaded it a second time to make sure. And I said "We won't see speeds like that for 7-10 years." I was pretty correct. That's when I realized that live video would be doable but not for a while.
      - Dalewyn 2y ago
        >Still, that's insane, the country had less than 100Mbps. It's easy to take for granted just how much Fucking God Damn Technology we have mundane access to today. That 14700K or 7800X3D CPU? That's more powerful than entire national supercomputers back in the day. A 64 gigabyte stick of DDR5 RAM? Bill Gates once said 640 kilobytes is enough for everyone. And you probably needed multiple sticks. A 20TB hard drive? With helium? Do you understand the bandwidth of a station wagon full of hard drives barreling down the freeway in the 1980s?! Wait, nobody probably even knows what a station wagon is anymore... 1gbit/s internet? 10gbit/s ethernet? We sung the melody of dial up modems conducting international diplomacy better than any politicians. 360Hz liquid crystal display monitor with billions of colors and millions of pixels? We used to completely evacuate air out of glass or ceramic tubes and fire fucking lasers with them to show monotone pictures in neon orange or green. Modern, minimalist user interfaces? To hell with them, Windows 95 was the pinnacle of human engineered interface design. ...Wait, did we actually devolve? Maybe it was a mistake to make sand think after all.
- Loughla 2y ago
  I would argue that IRC absolutely is already super fringe. People have memories of it, but I'm betting active use of IRC today is limited to very tech people.
  - gunapologist99 2y ago
    But it was already kinda fringe, even back in the late 90's. People would talk on AIM or AOL chat, but it was rarer to find IRC users among the hoi polloi.
    - jayflux 2y ago
      IRC was home to a lot of gaming communities, it was basically Discord before that existed. There used to be live commentary in channels (Twitch replaced this). I don’t believe any gamers use it today but fringe-tech communities still use it, I think that’s what the parent is referring to.
      - RF_Savage 2y ago
        Does the Twitch IRC side still work? As their chat is based on IRC. I did participate on a few streams chat with a normal IRC client a few years back. Ah, Xircon, Quakenet and Counter-Strike. Those were the days.
        ekimekim 2y ago
        Yes, their chat is still compatible with IRC, albeit with lots of extensions (which you can opt into using IRCv3 capabilitiy negotiation). More recently they've been adding UI elements on the main site that are web API powered instead of chat though (eg. polls, sending bits).
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      True but in the early 90s there was nothing else yet. But back then the whole internet was totally fringe of course. Still, MIRC (as a client) was a common thing for all computer geeks until 2005-2010 or so in my circles. After that people started moving to whatsapp and the like. This includes people in the hacker/maker and game/lanparty community so very techy and niche but there it was still big back then.
- Meekro 2y ago
  IRC feels more fringe, but it's actually held up surprisingly well. According to the stats, it's currently about half as popular as it was in 2000 when I started[1]. That's better than I would have guessed. [1] https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php?year=2024 https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php?year=2024
  - LinuxBender 2y ago
    It's probably worth adding that IRC is so simple to stand up and requires such tiny resources there could be many independent small IRCD's running for smaller organizations and we would never know. I can't be the only one that got tired of drama from some circles of people and stood up my own semi-private nodes for a few circles of my friends. NGIRCD can be configured in less than 5 minutes counting obtaining a LetsEncrypt certificate. Services can take a few more minutes. UnrealIRCD is more feature rich but takes a little longer to configure optimally. I've personally taught many people how to set up NGIRCD. I have no idea how many of them kept one running. Slap a web front-end on it [1] and the bar to access is significantly lowered. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41201487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41201487
    - Meekro 2y ago
      ngIRCd looks good! To be honest, these days I'm surprised that ChanServ/NickServ type stuff isn't integrated directly into the IRCd. I guess it gets complicated if you have multiple servers and they have to decide who controls services, but would simplify single-server arrangements.
      - LinuxBender 2y ago
        Part of IRCv3's roadmap [1] is to implement integrated services. Ergo apparently has done it never tested it and Unreal has apparently developed an addon which I was unaware of. I too would like to see more services integrated into the IRC daemon. [1] - https://ircv3.net/software/servers.html https://ircv3.net/software/servers.html
- paxys 2y ago
  How is it "funny" when the Freenode saga is literally what this article is about?
- blooalien 2y ago
  > "I don't think IRC will really die, it will become a more fringey thing though. Probably more than it already is." Like Gopher? Still out there and bein' used. Very "fringe" now though.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Gopher was already fringe in 1991 tbh. If you'd even find a gopher server it'd be already outdated in terms of info. And it makes sense. Hyperlinking was just a really really good idea, much better than a list of fixed links in a document. The whole Gopher idea (fixed links) actually made a bit of a return on old Nokia mobile phones with "WAP" but it never really took off because it sucked so badly. I made some WAP sites at the time but it was pretty terrible. 1-bit black/white images, a very strict layout and protocol. Bleh. When the WWW came out gopher was pretty much instantly forgotten. And don't forget the whole internet was "fringe" back then.
smitty1e 2y ago
Needs a 2021 in the title. There seems a genuine loss of mojo amongst those purporting to support freedom of expression across the spectrum. One does not wish to feel as though there were some "Dark Age" pending, but here we are.
bsima 2y ago
IRC is still my favorite chat system even if my close friends have moved on to fancier systems like discord and Zulip and slack. If I could set technical direction in a company we’d use only IRC and email. Maybe mumble.
- op00to 2y ago
  IRC is terrible for work collaboration. I say this as a long time IRC user. Conversations are not searchable, and if you're offline you are unable to follow along with what's going on with your colleagues. To make it anywhere near usable, you need to run IRC bouncers, chat loggers, search indexers .. at that point, just use something made for collaboration.
  - vundercind 2y ago
    Hard agree. XMPP for sure.
  - Arnavion 2y ago
    Any company which goes to the lengths of setting up an IRC server would find it trivial to also set up a bouncer and search index for that server. That said, these days a Matrix Synapse instance would be an easier choice.
    - paxys 2y ago
      If you start a company and spend a non-trivial amount of your time, effort and money into handcrafting and customizing a perfect IRC server, that company is going nowhere.
      - nrdvana 2y ago
        If you know IRC well enough to want to mandate it for your company, you can probably set the server up in an hour or three. You can then install https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ and have your employees log into that for browser and mobile apps vs. native IRC clients. What money would it require? Any leftover PC from the last 15 years can run the server.
pluc 2y ago
IRC can absolutely die when the people running the networks and the servers stop doing so. A number of IRC networks have died over the years. IRC is just another service built, ran and operated by volunteers. If IRC was more popular, you'd hear about the same moderation concerns social networks are dealing with. I banned entire countries (hello, Malaysia!) in my time as network admin.
rickcarlino 2y ago
The article makes a solid point about the timelessness of a protocol versus a service. I will never get to relive my memories of CompuServe, but just last weekend I was able to goof around with Microsoft Comic Chat 2.5 under WINE. It connected to a server just fine and it was 1999 all over again. I really wish we would see new Internet (No not web, Internet) protocols. The last one I have seen get any resemblance of traction is the Gemini protocol and that is still a very niche thing.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
(2021)
tombert 2y ago
Meh. I got into IRC multiple times, but I really have no desire to go back to it. The fact that I have to set up a ZNC bouncer if I want messages to show up on multiple devices kind of feels like, well, something from the 90's. I feel like Matrix is considerably less annoying, while being federated and relatively easy to set up. I'm happy enough with IRC dying.
- gorjusborg 2y ago
  I thought Matrix was hot garbage last time I tried it. Modern software tries to do too much and as a result often fails to perform its main function. IRC is pretty much the simplest solution that works. It wont be going anywhere.
  - tombert 2y ago
    Sorry, what does Matrix fail at? IRC is a huge pain in the ass if you want to use more than one device. This was fine in the 90's when people only had one computer, but now pretty much everyone has at least two, and usually more. ZNC is a pain in the ass.
paxys 2y ago
What makes IRC special isn't the protocol but the community, and that community has been steadily shrinking month after month, year after year. The average age of regulars continues to go up. Unless its popularity sees some kind of resurgence and the current trends reverse, IRC will most definitely die.
- andrewinardeer 2y ago
  This makes me wonder if there will ever be a day in the distance future where the final Bitcoin node will be turned off forever vanquishing the cryptocurrency to the digital graveyard.
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  Funny, I think the exact opposite. All social spaces are about the people/community, which mostly adapts itself around whatever space they happen to be around, be it a park, shopping map, IRC, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. What's special about IRC is that it's really easy to set up. If all of the social platforms collapsed, you could set up and use IRC with your group of friends until the next social platform blows up and "everyone" moves to it. If a partial/regional apocalypse happened, you could set up and run IRC.
  - theshrike79 2y ago
    The biggest weirdness on IRC compared to all other platforms is that you NEED to be online 24/7 with your client or you'll miss stuff. There is no "backlog" except for the one you see yourself. On the other hand it's a good thing, people can't just join and scroll down 10 years of chat history. But you'll also be completely unfindable unless your client is online.
    - cassianoleal 2y ago
      There used to be whole websites dedicated to archiving IRC channels. Last time I tried to find one, I couldn't. It's a shame, really. It used to work as a forum you could go back to and find answers.
senectus1 2y ago
is it still in use? I cant remember the last time I saw a reference to an active channel. Or seen it installed on any system.
- carom 2y ago
  I visit a /g/ adjacent channel regularly on Rizon. I've also interacted with two software projects on Libera in the last 6 months. So yes, it is still active.
- kaishiro 2y ago
  To my knowledge, the core of Twitch chat is just IRC[0]. They've obviously extended it a fair bit, but it's probably the largest service I can think of that leans on the protocol. [0] https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/chat/ https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/chat/
  - senectus1 2y ago
    huh. did not know that. thats interesting.
- zzo38computer 2y ago
  I use some IRC channels on Libera IRC, and there are some people writing to most of them often enough; I also write on IRC sometimes.
jrm4 2y ago
So, I was a decently heavy IRC user back in its heyday. Today, "the kids" are all about Discord -- and I do mean the geek coding creative kids most like me but younger and I absolutely see why. I think I do lament the abscence of a more aggressive "why not just update IRC to be like Discord?" WAY easier said than done, and I think Matrix is trying, but I suppose the most frustrating thing is trying to tell the young'ns, hey this has a strong chance of enshittifying
- Joker_vD 2y ago
  > "why not just update IRC to be like Discord?" Because one is a protocol and another is a platform. To quote from [0]: After 30+ years, email is still unencrypted; meanwhile WhatsApp went from unencrypted to full e2ee in a year. People are still trying to standardize sharing a video reliably over IRC; meanwhile, Slack lets you create custom reaction emoji based on your face. This isn’t a funding issue. If something is truly decentralized, it becomes very difficult to change, and often remains stuck in time. That is a problem for technology, because the rest of the ecosystem is moving very quickly, and if you don’t keep up you will fail. There are entire parallel industries focused on defining and improving methodologies like Agile to try to figure out how to organize enormous groups of people so that they can *move as quickly as possible* because it is so critical. When the technology itself is more conducive to stasis than movement, that’s a problem. A sure recipe for success has been to take a 90’s protocol that was stuck in time, centralize it, and iterate quickly. [0] https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html
barbs 2y ago
I've always thought Hacker News could do with a chat room, and given how simple it is (and free), IRC would probably best fit the bill. Searching Hacker News shows that some people have proposed different chat rooms but nothing's stuck really. I reckon it'd need a "chat" tab up the top. Nice-to-haves would be adding an optional web-based client, and tying it into your actual HN login. I've never set up IRC before though, so I have no idea if this is actually feasible.
shmerl 2y ago
Many open source projects move to Matrix. There are IRC bridges for it too.
Log_out_ 2y ago
Ircs limitations are its biggest pros. No memes,no videos, no gameification, no shops, just text and thought,or lack thereof.
- squigz 2y ago
  I'm pretty sure you can share links to memes or videos on IRC
  - gorjusborg 2y ago
    but not inline and in your face by default
outime 2y ago
I began using IRC before the age of 10, creating fond memories along the way. But let's face the harsh reality: IRC has largely become obsolete for most purposes. The alternatives available now are not only more user-friendly but also offer superior functionality for the general population, so I highly doubt IRC will become popular once again anytime. While it is sad, why would anyone choose to use outdated 90s technology that poses challenges for the average user when there are more advanced and accessible options?
- cowboylowrez 2y ago
  I think things like discord leave users like me behind. I have 3rd world level internet and computing resources to the extent that I can't use things like discord because I can't afford memory and bandwidth. It does cause me discomfort to see posts like yours, I mean yeah good internet should be available to all but all I have is very limitted phone access. IRC can run on potatos so its like it makes me feel still connected a bit.
oliwarner 2y ago
The protocol won't die, but the people will. For me, IRC stopped being attractive when Freenode changed owner. They broke it in two months and with no way to migrate nicks between servers, many lost their registered nicks on the channels that moved to other servers, and I had no want to stay on Freenode for the channels that stayed. Identity is a major problem with IRC. Losing mine cut a core tether for me, it wasn't my space any more.
- RF_Savage 2y ago
  The Freenode implosion also nuked chanserv and nickserv on Freenode side as well, so things happened there as well.
CasperH2O 2y ago
There's an XKCD for almost every occasion: https://xkcd.com/1782/ https://xkcd.com/1782/
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
Slack may die.
sys_64738 2y ago
What is the law that says anything owned by a corporation will eventually die to be replaced by the free alternative? IRC will rise again.
grvgr 2y ago
“Hey, kids! It's your old buddy Steve King telling you that if they ban a book in your school, haul your ass to the nearest bookstore or library ASAP and find out what they don't want you to read.” - Stephen King, 2023-01-18 https://gauravgiri.com/for-the-record/a-confession/666.pdf https://gauravgiri.com/for-the-record/a-confession/666.pdf
Borg3 2y ago
Ohh, IRC will eventually die, unfortunately. Why? When last dinosaurs like me vanish. I love IRC, I met hell of people on IRC in golden times.. 1998-2004. IRC will be always special in my hearh. I wrote IRC bots, IRC servers. Currently, I still run my own IRC server for friends, I have syslog channel where bots are idling and msg importand/criticial messages from my infra (semi-centrliazed logging). I see no reason to move away from it.

76 points by desdo88 2y ago

Funny that they mention freenode because it did burn to the ground 2 years after this article. However it was reborn as Libera which is once again doing great. If you don't know the story, Google it. I don't want to drag up the past, it's better forgotten. I don't think IRC will really die, it will become a more fringey thing though. Probably more than it already is.

mattl 2y ago
Sadly the number of people on IRC took a huge hit the last few years especially channels previously on Freenode.
HamedEmine 2y ago
Agreed, waves from DALnet!
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  Rizon checking in.
abstractbeliefs 2y ago
It's not so funny, because this article was written at the time freenode was burning to the ground, and the article suggests that it would be very easy for everyone to move to libera if it turned out to be the better option. And that it worked so well is the point of the article! IRC is highly resilient because it's simple to set up, the clients and servers are free software and can be endlessly and independently configured to talk to each other, and it's light on resources - both server, client, and bandwidth. I'm on terrible, legacy satellite internet (ie, not starlink, with 700ms-1.2s round trip times), and IRC is the only chat system that works fine.
- RiverCrochet 2y ago
  IRC is so lightweight that a single-core sub 500MHz system can host 10,000 or more connections, and did back in the day.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    Hah, the general issue with IRC was (even without DDoS) the bandwidth. I went to Monash University in Australia, starting in 1994. We had an EFnet server (biggest, or one of the biggest). I was just a student so I don't know the specifics, but it was only allowed to run from 6pm to 6am because otherwise it used most of the University's bandwidth, if not the entire country: At the time, Australia's internet capacity overseas was a SINGLE 1.5Mbit link. Telstra did buy a 45Mbit link in late 1995, and then another in early 1996. Still, that's insane, the country had less than 100Mbps. I remember working for a web design company in the mid-late 90s and we had servers at a datacenter in Melbourne. I remember downloading Netscape Navigator (1.1n!) and being blown away by how fast it downloaded, and then realizing for the duration of the download I was using something in the order of 5% of the country's international bandwidth. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_Australia
    - grogenaut 2y ago
      In the fall of 96 or 97? I was getting some freshmen setup with computers. I was on the football team so we were on campus (WUSTL) 7 days before school started so almost no one was on campus. We were trying to download navigator from tucows (I think) and I remembered wuarchive still existed and was on campus. We had 100 meg in the buildings and fiber backbone. We pulled NN at 5.5Mb/s... it finished so fast we downloaded it a second time to make sure. And I said "We won't see speeds like that for 7-10 years." I was pretty correct. That's when I realized that live video would be doable but not for a while.
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      >Still, that's insane, the country had less than 100Mbps. It's easy to take for granted just how much Fucking God Damn Technology we have mundane access to today. That 14700K or 7800X3D CPU? That's more powerful than entire national supercomputers back in the day. A 64 gigabyte stick of DDR5 RAM? Bill Gates once said 640 kilobytes is enough for everyone. And you probably needed multiple sticks. A 20TB hard drive? With helium? Do you understand the bandwidth of a station wagon full of hard drives barreling down the freeway in the 1980s?! Wait, nobody probably even knows what a station wagon is anymore... 1gbit/s internet? 10gbit/s ethernet? We sung the melody of dial up modems conducting international diplomacy better than any politicians. 360Hz liquid crystal display monitor with billions of colors and millions of pixels? We used to completely evacuate air out of glass or ceramic tubes and fire fucking lasers with them to show monotone pictures in neon orange or green. Modern, minimalist user interfaces? To hell with them, Windows 95 was the pinnacle of human engineered interface design. ...Wait, did we actually devolve? Maybe it was a mistake to make sand think after all.
Loughla 2y ago
I would argue that IRC absolutely is already super fringe. People have memories of it, but I'm betting active use of IRC today is limited to very tech people.
- gunapologist99 2y ago
  But it was already kinda fringe, even back in the late 90's. People would talk on AIM or AOL chat, but it was rarer to find IRC users among the hoi polloi.
  - jayflux 2y ago
    IRC was home to a lot of gaming communities, it was basically Discord before that existed. There used to be live commentary in channels (Twitch replaced this). I don’t believe any gamers use it today but fringe-tech communities still use it, I think that’s what the parent is referring to.
    - RF_Savage 2y ago
      Does the Twitch IRC side still work? As their chat is based on IRC. I did participate on a few streams chat with a normal IRC client a few years back. Ah, Xircon, Quakenet and Counter-Strike. Those were the days.
      - ekimekim 2y ago
        Yes, their chat is still compatible with IRC, albeit with lots of extensions (which you can opt into using IRCv3 capabilitiy negotiation). More recently they've been adding UI elements on the main site that are web API powered instead of chat though (eg. polls, sending bits).
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    True but in the early 90s there was nothing else yet. But back then the whole internet was totally fringe of course. Still, MIRC (as a client) was a common thing for all computer geeks until 2005-2010 or so in my circles. After that people started moving to whatsapp and the like. This includes people in the hacker/maker and game/lanparty community so very techy and niche but there it was still big back then.
Meekro 2y ago
IRC feels more fringe, but it's actually held up surprisingly well. According to the stats, it's currently about half as popular as it was in 2000 when I started[1]. That's better than I would have guessed. [1] https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php?year=2024 https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php?year=2024
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  It's probably worth adding that IRC is so simple to stand up and requires such tiny resources there could be many independent small IRCD's running for smaller organizations and we would never know. I can't be the only one that got tired of drama from some circles of people and stood up my own semi-private nodes for a few circles of my friends. NGIRCD can be configured in less than 5 minutes counting obtaining a LetsEncrypt certificate. Services can take a few more minutes. UnrealIRCD is more feature rich but takes a little longer to configure optimally. I've personally taught many people how to set up NGIRCD. I have no idea how many of them kept one running. Slap a web front-end on it [1] and the bar to access is significantly lowered. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41201487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41201487
  - Meekro 2y ago
    ngIRCd looks good! To be honest, these days I'm surprised that ChanServ/NickServ type stuff isn't integrated directly into the IRCd. I guess it gets complicated if you have multiple servers and they have to decide who controls services, but would simplify single-server arrangements.
    - LinuxBender 2y ago
      Part of IRCv3's roadmap [1] is to implement integrated services. Ergo apparently has done it never tested it and Unreal has apparently developed an addon which I was unaware of. I too would like to see more services integrated into the IRC daemon. [1] - https://ircv3.net/software/servers.html https://ircv3.net/software/servers.html
paxys 2y ago
How is it "funny" when the Freenode saga is literally what this article is about?
blooalien 2y ago
> "I don't think IRC will really die, it will become a more fringey thing though. Probably more than it already is." Like Gopher? Still out there and bein' used. Very "fringe" now though.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Gopher was already fringe in 1991 tbh. If you'd even find a gopher server it'd be already outdated in terms of info. And it makes sense. Hyperlinking was just a really really good idea, much better than a list of fixed links in a document. The whole Gopher idea (fixed links) actually made a bit of a return on old Nokia mobile phones with "WAP" but it never really took off because it sucked so badly. I made some WAP sites at the time but it was pretty terrible. 1-bit black/white images, a very strict layout and protocol. Bleh. When the WWW came out gopher was pretty much instantly forgotten. And don't forget the whole internet was "fringe" back then.

smitty1e 2y ago

Needs a 2021 in the title. There seems a genuine loss of mojo amongst those purporting to support freedom of expression across the spectrum. One does not wish to feel as though there were some "Dark Age" pending, but here we are.

bsima 2y ago

IRC is still my favorite chat system even if my close friends have moved on to fancier systems like discord and Zulip and slack. If I could set technical direction in a company we’d use only IRC and email. Maybe mumble.

op00to 2y ago
IRC is terrible for work collaboration. I say this as a long time IRC user. Conversations are not searchable, and if you're offline you are unable to follow along with what's going on with your colleagues. To make it anywhere near usable, you need to run IRC bouncers, chat loggers, search indexers .. at that point, just use something made for collaboration.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Hard agree. XMPP for sure.
- Arnavion 2y ago
  Any company which goes to the lengths of setting up an IRC server would find it trivial to also set up a bouncer and search index for that server. That said, these days a Matrix Synapse instance would be an easier choice.
  - paxys 2y ago
    If you start a company and spend a non-trivial amount of your time, effort and money into handcrafting and customizing a perfect IRC server, that company is going nowhere.
    - nrdvana 2y ago
      If you know IRC well enough to want to mandate it for your company, you can probably set the server up in an hour or three. You can then install https://thelounge.chat/ https://thelounge.chat/ and have your employees log into that for browser and mobile apps vs. native IRC clients. What money would it require? Any leftover PC from the last 15 years can run the server.

pluc 2y ago

IRC can absolutely die when the people running the networks and the servers stop doing so. A number of IRC networks have died over the years. IRC is just another service built, ran and operated by volunteers. If IRC was more popular, you'd hear about the same moderation concerns social networks are dealing with. I banned entire countries (hello, Malaysia!) in my time as network admin.

rickcarlino 2y ago

The article makes a solid point about the timelessness of a protocol versus a service. I will never get to relive my memories of CompuServe, but just last weekend I was able to goof around with Microsoft Comic Chat 2.5 under WINE. It connected to a server just fine and it was 1999 all over again. I really wish we would see new Internet (No not web, Internet) protocols. The last one I have seen get any resemblance of traction is the Gemini protocol and that is still a very niche thing.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

(2021)

tombert 2y ago

Meh. I got into IRC multiple times, but I really have no desire to go back to it. The fact that I have to set up a ZNC bouncer if I want messages to show up on multiple devices kind of feels like, well, something from the 90's. I feel like Matrix is considerably less annoying, while being federated and relatively easy to set up. I'm happy enough with IRC dying.

gorjusborg 2y ago
I thought Matrix was hot garbage last time I tried it. Modern software tries to do too much and as a result often fails to perform its main function. IRC is pretty much the simplest solution that works. It wont be going anywhere.
- tombert 2y ago
  Sorry, what does Matrix fail at? IRC is a huge pain in the ass if you want to use more than one device. This was fine in the 90's when people only had one computer, but now pretty much everyone has at least two, and usually more. ZNC is a pain in the ass.

paxys 2y ago

What makes IRC special isn't the protocol but the community, and that community has been steadily shrinking month after month, year after year. The average age of regulars continues to go up. Unless its popularity sees some kind of resurgence and the current trends reverse, IRC will most definitely die.

andrewinardeer 2y ago
This makes me wonder if there will ever be a day in the distance future where the final Bitcoin node will be turned off forever vanquishing the cryptocurrency to the digital graveyard.
Ferret7446 2y ago
Funny, I think the exact opposite. All social spaces are about the people/community, which mostly adapts itself around whatever space they happen to be around, be it a park, shopping map, IRC, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. What's special about IRC is that it's really easy to set up. If all of the social platforms collapsed, you could set up and use IRC with your group of friends until the next social platform blows up and "everyone" moves to it. If a partial/regional apocalypse happened, you could set up and run IRC.
- theshrike79 2y ago
  The biggest weirdness on IRC compared to all other platforms is that you NEED to be online 24/7 with your client or you'll miss stuff. There is no "backlog" except for the one you see yourself. On the other hand it's a good thing, people can't just join and scroll down 10 years of chat history. But you'll also be completely unfindable unless your client is online.
  - cassianoleal 2y ago
    There used to be whole websites dedicated to archiving IRC channels. Last time I tried to find one, I couldn't. It's a shame, really. It used to work as a forum you could go back to and find answers.

senectus1 2y ago

is it still in use? I cant remember the last time I saw a reference to an active channel. Or seen it installed on any system.

carom 2y ago
I visit a /g/ adjacent channel regularly on Rizon. I've also interacted with two software projects on Libera in the last 6 months. So yes, it is still active.
kaishiro 2y ago
To my knowledge, the core of Twitch chat is just IRC[0]. They've obviously extended it a fair bit, but it's probably the largest service I can think of that leans on the protocol. [0] https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/chat/ https://dev.twitch.tv/docs/chat/
- senectus1 2y ago
  huh. did not know that. thats interesting.
zzo38computer 2y ago
I use some IRC channels on Libera IRC, and there are some people writing to most of them often enough; I also write on IRC sometimes.

jrm4 2y ago

So, I was a decently heavy IRC user back in its heyday. Today, "the kids" are all about Discord -- and I do mean the geek coding creative kids most like me but younger and I absolutely see why. I think I do lament the abscence of a more aggressive "why not just update IRC to be like Discord?" WAY easier said than done, and I think Matrix is trying, but I suppose the most frustrating thing is trying to tell the young'ns, hey this has a strong chance of enshittifying

Joker_vD 2y ago
> "why not just update IRC to be like Discord?" Because one is a protocol and another is a platform. To quote from [0]: After 30+ years, email is still unencrypted; meanwhile WhatsApp went from unencrypted to full e2ee in a year. People are still trying to standardize sharing a video reliably over IRC; meanwhile, Slack lets you create custom reaction emoji based on your face. This isn’t a funding issue. If something is truly decentralized, it becomes very difficult to change, and often remains stuck in time. That is a problem for technology, because the rest of the ecosystem is moving very quickly, and if you don’t keep up you will fail. There are entire parallel industries focused on defining and improving methodologies like Agile to try to figure out how to organize enormous groups of people so that they can *move as quickly as possible* because it is so critical. When the technology itself is more conducive to stasis than movement, that’s a problem. A sure recipe for success has been to take a 90’s protocol that was stuck in time, centralize it, and iterate quickly. [0] https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html https://moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

barbs 2y ago

I've always thought Hacker News could do with a chat room, and given how simple it is (and free), IRC would probably best fit the bill. Searching Hacker News shows that some people have proposed different chat rooms but nothing's stuck really. I reckon it'd need a "chat" tab up the top. Nice-to-haves would be adding an optional web-based client, and tying it into your actual HN login. I've never set up IRC before though, so I have no idea if this is actually feasible.

shmerl 2y ago

Many open source projects move to Matrix. There are IRC bridges for it too.

Log_out_ 2y ago

Ircs limitations are its biggest pros. No memes,no videos, no gameification, no shops, just text and thought,or lack thereof.

squigz 2y ago
I'm pretty sure you can share links to memes or videos on IRC
- gorjusborg 2y ago
  but not inline and in your face by default

outime 2y ago

I began using IRC before the age of 10, creating fond memories along the way. But let's face the harsh reality: IRC has largely become obsolete for most purposes. The alternatives available now are not only more user-friendly but also offer superior functionality for the general population, so I highly doubt IRC will become popular once again anytime. While it is sad, why would anyone choose to use outdated 90s technology that poses challenges for the average user when there are more advanced and accessible options?

cowboylowrez 2y ago
I think things like discord leave users like me behind. I have 3rd world level internet and computing resources to the extent that I can't use things like discord because I can't afford memory and bandwidth. It does cause me discomfort to see posts like yours, I mean yeah good internet should be available to all but all I have is very limitted phone access. IRC can run on potatos so its like it makes me feel still connected a bit.

oliwarner 2y ago

The protocol won't die, but the people will. For me, IRC stopped being attractive when Freenode changed owner. They broke it in two months and with no way to migrate nicks between servers, many lost their registered nicks on the channels that moved to other servers, and I had no want to stay on Freenode for the channels that stayed. Identity is a major problem with IRC. Losing mine cut a core tether for me, it wasn't my space any more.

RF_Savage 2y ago
The Freenode implosion also nuked chanserv and nickserv on Freenode side as well, so things happened there as well.

CasperH2O 2y ago

There's an XKCD for almost every occasion: https://xkcd.com/1782/ https://xkcd.com/1782/

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

Slack may die.

sys_64738 2y ago

What is the law that says anything owned by a corporation will eventually die to be replaced by the free alternative? IRC will rise again.

grvgr 2y ago

“Hey, kids! It's your old buddy Steve King telling you that if they ban a book in your school, haul your ass to the nearest bookstore or library ASAP and find out what they don't want you to read.” - Stephen King, 2023-01-18 https://gauravgiri.com/for-the-record/a-confession/666.pdf https://gauravgiri.com/for-the-record/a-confession/666.pdf

Borg3 2y ago

Ohh, IRC will eventually die, unfortunately. Why? When last dinosaurs like me vanish. I love IRC, I met hell of people on IRC in golden times.. 1998-2004. IRC will be always special in my hearh. I wrote IRC bots, IRC servers. Currently, I still run my own IRC server for friends, I have syslog channel where bots are idling and msg importand/criticial messages from my infra (semi-centrliazed logging). I see no reason to move away from it.