I’m not even going to pretend.
I was 5 or 6 years old back in 1995 so this is well before my time, too.
In the age of social networking and Internet 2.0, web-based chat rooms are practically dead.
They’re all but done with; on the endangered list.
Some boredom and curiosity mixed well together and I’ve rediscovered IRC just recently.
Now, I’d like to show you how to use my favorite IRC client,HydraIRC.
Next step is to figure out where you want to chat and what about, right?
You want to go into theFilemenu, thenNew Server.
Hydra comes preloaded with loads of the most popular IRC servers.
Now it’s on you to pick the connection (and associated server) that you want.
EFNet is your oldschool “general” server.
QuakeNet and GameSurge are for gamers, and so on.
For this example, let’s go ahead and go on GameSurge.
Double clickGameSurge, nudge the IRC server that expands beneath it, and then clickOKto connect.
Every server consists of many channels (or rooms).
Upon connecting, the Channel List window will pop up.
If it doesn’t, you’re able to click into theChannelmenu and thenChannel List.
ClickPopulate Listand after a second, you’ll have a list of every channel on the server.
Click theUsersheader once and you’ll have sorted the channels by the most users.
Scroll through, see if there are any you may be interested in, and then clickJoin.
This is how you join an IRC server and a channel (the easy way).
There are hundreds and hundreds of servers out there and thousands of channels.
There’s probably an active channel for just about any subject that comes to mind.
It’s good to have it sitting in your taskbar for idle moments in between tasks.
