Help required what is IRC??

coolspirit_20 · none Joined: 26 Jan 2004 Posts: 2

Hey is there anyone who can explain IRC and how do i get into that chat??I have no idea on this Do help me!@#$

Horizon · Posted: Jan 26, 2004 10:04am Post subject:

Howdy,
IRC stands to Internet Relay Chat. You may want read up on it more at the below link. Hope this helps you out some.

http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/new2irc.html

Mary · SearchIRC Admin Joined: 03 May 2003 Posts: 692

coolspirit_20, IRC is an acronym for Internet Relay Chat. Like the WWW, and email, IRC is an internet protocol. IRC is millions of people chatting, sharing pictures, music, games, and files, connecting to each other via thousands of servers on hundreds of networks, all around the world.

Like your web browser connects you to the WWW, an IRC "client" connects you to chats (called "channels" on IRC). There are many excellent IRC clients available for your operating system. The most popular for Windows is mIRC (www.mirc.com).

Until SearchIRC came along, the only way to find a specific chat was to join a network with your client and type the /list command to see a directory of channels and their topics. It was almost impossible to find what you were looking for. SearchIRC has a program that joins 1500+ IRC networks to gather /list results, and you can search through them using keywords, much like you can search for websites on Google.

For example, if you want to join a chat about politics, just put that word in the little box under SearchIRC's logo, hit "go" and you'll get page after page of political chats. To join, we give you two choices: 1) if you have an IRC client (such as mIRC) installed, clicking on the "irc://" before the channel name will bring you to that network and directly into the channel. 2) If you do not have an IRC client, but do have a java enabled browser, then clicking on the name of the channel will open a java client that will bring you into the channel.

If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to post them. :)

coolspirit_20 · none Joined: 26 Jan 2004 Posts: 2

Hey Thanx for the information guys.Well now I have windows XP and dont have the MIRC installed can i still get into the chat rooms through the searchIRC??I have IE 6.0 which i dunt think so is a java enabled plz share some wisdom u have on this.

Jason · Posted: Jan 26, 2004 10:30am Post subject:

Another good resource for IRC newbies: http://www.newircusers.com/

Mary · SearchIRC Admin Joined: 03 May 2003 Posts: 692

coolspirit_20, you can download java for your operating system at:
http://www.java.com/en/download/windows_automatic.jsp

The java is easy to install, and after that you will just need to click on the name of a channel to join it. I have to warn you though - java is slow to start up, and you may think its not working at first. Give it a few minutes.

Once you get to know your way around IRC you'll definitely want to move up to a more fully featured client, but the java is fine for now. Its easy, and most importantly very very secure.