IRC is still around. I have no data but would guess more people use it now than in the “heyday” (mainly just because there are a lot more people online)
It has usability problems (can’t even fucking write a newline
, no voice chat, file uploads only with third party links, no screen sharing, no end to end encryption). As a zoomer, I’m not surprised it didn’t catch on with younger generations compared to easy messengers.
It’s still kinda cool tho.
Not to mention that you don’t get messages from when you were offline and that by default no login system exists without a bot to handle that stuff.
Correct me where I’m wrong, I’d be happy if irc is actually amazing.
You’re right that it does lack the luxuries that makes discord better, especially video clip and picture sharing in channels.
There were ways to set up something called an IRC bouncer, which acted like a middle layer or puppet between you and IRC network allowing that to receive messages and the like while you were physically offline.
And for everything else you’d just send the files directly to whoever you wanted to share it with. Cumbersome, not to mention the pain port forwarding used to be.
Regarding screen sharing, back when IRC was king, the bandwidth wasn’t even really there for that. I guess one would use a VNC server/client or some other remote desktop application if that was needed.
Yes. I understand that the limitations were less relevant when it was at its high, but it’s 2025 and those features are now common place and essentials, at least something like directly embedding images and using new
Hosting a chat room meant you had to self host or trust someone else’s server.
There is no concept of groups. So you had to create several channels with some kind of naming scheme. There is no way to see them in a group. You just need to know about them as a chatter.
History is not saved by default. Most used a 3rd party server to host a history log, which is more work.
There is no audio, video, screen sharing.
You can’t reply to a chat with an emoji. You can’t edit your previous chats.
You can’t reply to a specific chat unless you get specific like copying the original chat.
Don’t get me wrong. I hated that discord owns most of the communication online.
I wish there was a simple and easy to use open source tool that did all of that in a single package.
I don’t mind self-hosting but if I have to self-host several interacting services that I need to update manually, it becomes a pain.
Why did IRC even fail. It had it all.
Has it failed? Or have you failed at being loyal?
Hahaha!
IRC is still around. I have no data but would guess more people use it now than in the “heyday” (mainly just because there are a lot more people online)
Possibly. I’ve heard some niche communities use it, but I also heard that there is a strong transition to matrix.
Heyday was wild though.
It has usability problems (can’t even fucking write a newline
, no voice chat, file uploads only with third party links, no screen sharing, no end to end encryption). As a zoomer, I’m not surprised it didn’t catch on with younger generations compared to easy messengers.
It’s still kinda cool tho.
Not to mention that you don’t get messages from when you were offline and that by default no login system exists without a bot to handle that stuff.
Correct me where I’m wrong, I’d be happy if irc is actually amazing.
You’re right that it does lack the luxuries that makes discord better, especially video clip and picture sharing in channels.
There were ways to set up something called an IRC bouncer, which acted like a middle layer or puppet between you and IRC network allowing that to receive messages and the like while you were physically offline.
And for everything else you’d just send the files directly to whoever you wanted to share it with. Cumbersome, not to mention the pain port forwarding used to be.
Regarding screen sharing, back when IRC was king, the bandwidth wasn’t even really there for that. I guess one would use a VNC server/client or some other remote desktop application if that was needed.
Yes. I understand that the limitations were less relevant when it was at its high, but it’s 2025 and those features are now common place and essentials, at least something like directly embedding images and using new
Lines.
Hosting a chat room meant you had to self host or trust someone else’s server.
There is no concept of groups. So you had to create several channels with some kind of naming scheme. There is no way to see them in a group. You just need to know about them as a chatter.
History is not saved by default. Most used a 3rd party server to host a history log, which is more work.
There is no audio, video, screen sharing.
You can’t reply to a chat with an emoji. You can’t edit your previous chats.
You can’t reply to a specific chat unless you get specific like copying the original chat.
Don’t get me wrong. I hated that discord owns most of the communication online.
I wish there was a simple and easy to use open source tool that did all of that in a single package.
I don’t mind self-hosting but if I have to self-host several interacting services that I need to update manually, it becomes a pain.
Hosting matrix really isn’t too bad, you basically just jam everything in a docker-compose and you’re pretty much good to go
I’ll have to look into matrix. Thank you
And then enable federation on your homeserver and end up with CSAM materializing and caching everywhere.
I think when you entered a channel you didn’t get any of its history.
Dalnet fucked up