IRC Client

An IRC Client is software that you use to access IRC. IRC clients basically provide an easy interface for chatting without the user needing to care about the raw IRC traffic, which removes the need for the users to know all the IRC commands specified in RFC 1459, and RFC 2812. Clients also simplify some commands such as PRIVMSG into MSG or help getting an overview of certain things, e.g. all the users in a channel or the available channels on a network without needing to look at the unsorted raw IRC output.

For example if you wanted to chat in the channel #chat, you would have to use the raw IRC command: "PRIVMSG #Test :Hey!". Instead, with clients all you have to do is enter "Hey!" into the input bar of the client's graphical channel view of #chat.

There are IRC clients for practically any operating system. Some of the more popular IRC clients include mIRC, X-Chat, irssi or ircii. Some Web browsers include an IRC Client, or have a downloadable add-on available. ChatZilla is included with SeaMonkey, and can be downloaded as an add-on for Firefox. Opera includes an IRC client built-in.