6 ms·

As someone who grew up on Windows + mIRC + vBulletin forums (late 90s, early 00s), mIRC will always ignite fond memories :) For those who still use IRC, but ma

by diggan 2y ago

As someone who grew up on Windows + mIRC + vBulletin forums (late 90s, early 00s), mIRC will always ignite fond memories :) For those who still use IRC, but maybe on other platforms than Windows, HexChat could be considered a spiritual successor to mIRC, but it's also open source and available on a ton of platforms. Just a happy user here, not affiliated in any way. Edit: Hm, seems it was some time ago I checked out the news/blog of HexChat, seems like last version was a year ago. I still use it without problems, but maybe people could share any active forks if they know about them?

futurecat 2y ago
Halloy is a nice IRC client. Written in Rust and has a beautiful icon.
- xattt 2y ago
  Ah yes, Rust IRC clients of the 1990s always trigger my fond nostalgia of the old Internet. /s
- airstrike 2y ago
  halloy now supports image embeds too, which is awesome given that has become "table-stakes" with how prevalent Discord is And it's time for my biweekly shoutout to iced, the wonderful GUI library used by halloy https://github.com/squidowl/halloy https://github.com/squidowl/halloy https://github.com/iced-rs/iced https://github.com/iced-rs/iced
- nicce 2y ago
  Sometimes old things don’t need a rewrite just for the sake of language-based advertising.
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    >Sometimes old things don’t need a rewrite just for the sake of language-based advertising. "X but in Rust" seems like the primary purpose for Rust to exist as far as I can tell.
    - airstrike 2y ago
      Well, remember you always have the choice to be informed instead.
epolanski 2y ago
I'm unironically convinced that vBulletin forums are to date the highest form of discussing many topics online. Not only they are alive and the best resource for many things (modding, hardware, radio, photography, specific car brands) but I swear 99% of work-related discussions would benefit from having a forum as their central hub, instead of the split of slack/teams/jira/mails/videocalls.
- diggan 2y ago
  Hear hear, so sad that many forums disappeared, although as you say, many are still alive. The first (Swedish) forum I was active on, is still around with new threads being posted once every 10 minutes or so, and lots of active discussions. So it's not all doom and gloom, but I do agree I wish more communities used regular forums.
- danielbln 2y ago
  That's a very charitable view on vBulletins. Do you not remember threads with 100 pages that are impossible to surface any information from? I would hate a vBulleting as a central hub, it's an information black hole, it's not suitable for tickets (jira), not suitable for real time communication (slack), and so on. It was a product of its time, but I think we found better solutions now.
  - diggan 2y ago
    > Do you not remember threads with 100 pages that are impossible to surface any information from? As someone who still consumes threads like that, it's part of the charm and beauty. None of the stuff is ranked/upvoted/liked, no one is competing to have the most followers, just conversations/arguments between humans for the sake of communication and understanding. Requires a bit more time and effort to read, true, but everyone being equal makes it feel like a pretty OK tradeoff, at least for me. Of course, not all forums are like that, some still have vanity-metrics, but at least the forums I still participate work like that.
    - cyberlurker 2y ago
boxed 2y ago
A year ago seems like very new when talking about an IRC client to me.
pabs3 2y ago
HexChat has been explicitly abandoned, and the former maintainer didn't want it continued under other maintainers. No major forks yet, but Debian has a couple extra patches.
- its-summertime 2y ago
  The maintainer did a public statement asking for interested contributors to message him but no one practical did.
  - pabs3 2y ago
    I did and was rejected.
Suppafly 2y ago
I started feeling bad about having used mIRC for 20ish years without paying for it so I switched to HexChat. It does everything I need and has a simpler interface, but I do sometimes miss the hacked up pirated copies of mIRC that were customized with scripts to do different things. >Edit: Hm, seems it was some time ago I checked out the news/blog of HexChat, seems like last version was a year ago. Pretty sure it's had security updates more recent than that, but I don't really pay attention.
- ido 2y ago
  wouldn't the more logical course of action be to pay for mirc? the devs do not benefit from you "no longer pirating" by switching to another client.
FireBeyond 2y ago
And my favorite mIRC plugin, ircN!
- Urgo 2y ago
  omg yes! ircN was the best!
johnea 2y ago
> seems like last version was a year ago If it works, don't fix it... I read HN in hexchat, on Libera.chat ##hntop...
vkaku 2y ago
HexChat was maintained for a good 14 years and had a final release last year. It requires active community maintenance to stay alive: https://hexchat.github.io/news/2.16.2.html https://hexchat.github.io/news/2.16.2.html
snvzz 2y ago
hexchat definitely has roots on xchat which in turn was inspired by amIRC[0]. mIRC was at some point the most popular Windows IRC client, but that's about it. 0. https://www.amirc.org/ https://www.amirc.org/
- its-summertime 2y ago
  mIRC is more than that, considering its currently the only client with full IRCv3 support

by diggan 2y ago

futurecat 2y ago

Halloy is a nice IRC client. Written in Rust and has a beautiful icon.

xattt 2y ago
Ah yes, Rust IRC clients of the 1990s always trigger my fond nostalgia of the old Internet. /s
airstrike 2y ago
halloy now supports image embeds too, which is awesome given that has become "table-stakes" with how prevalent Discord is And it's time for my biweekly shoutout to iced, the wonderful GUI library used by halloy https://github.com/squidowl/halloy https://github.com/squidowl/halloy https://github.com/iced-rs/iced https://github.com/iced-rs/iced
nicce 2y ago
Sometimes old things don’t need a rewrite just for the sake of language-based advertising.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >Sometimes old things don’t need a rewrite just for the sake of language-based advertising. "X but in Rust" seems like the primary purpose for Rust to exist as far as I can tell.
  - airstrike 2y ago
    Well, remember you always have the choice to be informed instead.

epolanski 2y ago

I'm unironically convinced that vBulletin forums are to date the highest form of discussing many topics online. Not only they are alive and the best resource for many things (modding, hardware, radio, photography, specific car brands) but I swear 99% of work-related discussions would benefit from having a forum as their central hub, instead of the split of slack/teams/jira/mails/videocalls.

diggan 2y ago
Hear hear, so sad that many forums disappeared, although as you say, many are still alive. The first (Swedish) forum I was active on, is still around with new threads being posted once every 10 minutes or so, and lots of active discussions. So it's not all doom and gloom, but I do agree I wish more communities used regular forums.
danielbln 2y ago
That's a very charitable view on vBulletins. Do you not remember threads with 100 pages that are impossible to surface any information from? I would hate a vBulleting as a central hub, it's an information black hole, it's not suitable for tickets (jira), not suitable for real time communication (slack), and so on. It was a product of its time, but I think we found better solutions now.
- diggan 2y ago
  > Do you not remember threads with 100 pages that are impossible to surface any information from? As someone who still consumes threads like that, it's part of the charm and beauty. None of the stuff is ranked/upvoted/liked, no one is competing to have the most followers, just conversations/arguments between humans for the sake of communication and understanding. Requires a bit more time and effort to read, true, but everyone being equal makes it feel like a pretty OK tradeoff, at least for me. Of course, not all forums are like that, some still have vanity-metrics, but at least the forums I still participate work like that.
  - cyberlurker 2y ago

boxed 2y ago

A year ago seems like very new when talking about an IRC client to me.

pabs3 2y ago

HexChat has been explicitly abandoned, and the former maintainer didn't want it continued under other maintainers. No major forks yet, but Debian has a couple extra patches.

its-summertime 2y ago
The maintainer did a public statement asking for interested contributors to message him but no one practical did.
- pabs3 2y ago
  I did and was rejected.

Suppafly 2y ago

I started feeling bad about having used mIRC for 20ish years without paying for it so I switched to HexChat. It does everything I need and has a simpler interface, but I do sometimes miss the hacked up pirated copies of mIRC that were customized with scripts to do different things. >Edit: Hm, seems it was some time ago I checked out the news/blog of HexChat, seems like last version was a year ago. Pretty sure it's had security updates more recent than that, but I don't really pay attention.

ido 2y ago
wouldn't the more logical course of action be to pay for mirc? the devs do not benefit from you "no longer pirating" by switching to another client.

FireBeyond 2y ago

And my favorite mIRC plugin, ircN!

Urgo 2y ago
omg yes! ircN was the best!

johnea 2y ago

> seems like last version was a year ago If it works, don't fix it... I read HN in hexchat, on Libera.chat ##hntop...

vkaku 2y ago

HexChat was maintained for a good 14 years and had a final release last year. It requires active community maintenance to stay alive: https://hexchat.github.io/news/2.16.2.html https://hexchat.github.io/news/2.16.2.html

snvzz 2y ago

hexchat definitely has roots on xchat which in turn was inspired by amIRC[0]. mIRC was at some point the most popular Windows IRC client, but that's about it. 0. https://www.amirc.org/ https://www.amirc.org/

its-summertime 2y ago
mIRC is more than that, considering its currently the only client with full IRCv3 support