cos irc just works. It worked just fine 20 years ago. It worked 20 ish years before that. In 20 more years it'll still work.

Any idiot with some time and a computer can throw up an ircd and host a server for people to chat on. Every other chat program either requires some random company to host it, or a much deeper knowledge of computers and software.

The clients are available for every system around. From tiny little simple single connection clients, to massive complex graphical systems. You want to chat on plan9? There's a client. An ancient amstrad cpc? There's a client. (That one might be a bit more challenging) Android, Linux, Windows, Mac? All of them have clients, most of them multiple.

I will say, I like Matrix, I like XMPP, I am not a huge fan of any of the chat clients with a single point of failure like discord or teams or whatever. But IRC is still my favorite, and probably will be forever.

I just have it setup the way I want.

I don't think I've been on IRC since 2006ish. It was the gathering ground for my favorite private torrent tracker at the time. We had internet radio and all kinds of fun stuff.

Before that, like back in the AOL days, there were chat-based filesharing server rooms, where you would get a list of files, then request whatever illicit goods you wanted via chat commands.

I'm not really sure what people use IRC for now, but it's still active.

Well, personally I use IRC to steal media, but I realise that's not why you're asking.

I suppose the reason people might use it for chat is that it's been around a long time, so there's clients (with endless plugins) that do exactly what people want, and it's all simple, text-based often unencrypted stuff, so it's easy to write bots for (that might notify you of something, for example)

xkcd.com/1782/

Matrix, XMPP, etc. will all pass and be forgotten.

IRC will never die, and the channels on it are often useful. I suggest starting with libera.chat

Find a client you like. I'm on Mac, I tolerate LimeChat, Adium is "better" but I don't use any other chats, which is what it's for. There's plenty of options. ircii is the classic.

I don't use it for a longtime, but if it works why change it. It good for realtime chat, you can use it on a potato and some. Matrix chats also have IRC bridges so all can be on same chat.

In my younger years I used it to pirate stuff and back when I played counter strike, it was a requirement to have a channel for your clan to participate in matches on clanbase.org (rip)

Fuck I feel old... Good times.

I used IRC daily religiously for 15 years, but around 2011 I just stopped and never got back into using it. The client of choice was Xchat.

My irssi configuration is exactly how I want it for about two decades now. Why change something good?

Misread this as ICQ and was going to say "because of 'uh oh'; always because of 'uh oh'"

IRC is a simple interface that's been well supported for more than two decades, folks have a huge selection of apps or web interfaces they can choose from. No it doesn't directly support sharing pictures or anything like that, but for most chats all you need is basic text. It's easy to build up a quick bot in several different programming languages and I've even written up self-running multiplayer games.

I considered switching to something like discord for the chats I host but it didn't look like they allow that although there are some open source alternatives. What's the deal with Matrix? Is there a reason you like it better? Can you easily set up a self-hosted server for it? (And for that matter, are there any connectors to link it to an existing IRC chat to allow for a smooth transition period?)

I've made several friends on IRC and gotten acquainted with a lot of people with whom I want to remain in contact. There's no point in moving to another platform, especially since, as u/luap@apollo.town pointed out, it "just works" and there's a client for it on every platform you can think of. I have my own IRC bouncer (ZNC) set up on a server of mine. I have it tailored to my preferences, set it up to log all the conversations I care about across multiple servers, and I can connect to it from any device I own now or might own in the future - same exact experience on all of them.

@randomguy2323 I mostly use XMPP, but joining IRC channels with Biboumi just works and I enjoy that. Matrix bridges are awful in comparison. So many problems joining Matrix rooms, so I have given up on it.

If you want a middle griund between IRC and matrix check out XMPP!

I’d love to learn how to get started with IRC and Matrix.

If you ever used twitch chat, that is IRC too

Stopped using irc ages ago. Only use matrix for Lemmy admin chat.

I don't care if it's irc or matrix. As long as it has my content of choice. But yeah, I would like better clients for irc on mobile

No one I know uses Matrix or xmpp. IRC is simple.