IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)(koshka.love)
koshka.love
IRC is the only viable chat protocol (2022)
https://koshka.love/babel/irc-forever.html
428 comments
Discord haters look, it is simple.
Until Discord appeared we had
Ventrilo, Mumble, TeamSpeak, Skype, etc, etc
I've been using those for like 10 years almost everyday
They had voice chat, some had viable text chat, etc, etc.
And then Discord appeared which had:
Voice Chat,
Good text chat (images, code snippets, emojis, reactions, etc)
Streaming Video (!!)
File share
Robust bot integration
Lack of security problem unlike the self-hosted alternatives have.
This one is important in gaming communities in e.g MMORPG games cuz there's nothing better than being DDoSd cuz you left team or because you talked to somebody on wrong TeamSpeak server 5 months ago :)
Push2Talk - this is also important, I dont understand how e.g Teams dont have this shit.
Imagine you're working on remote with kids in the background - having an ability to push button and talk is really useful! So you don't have constantly mute/unmute yourself! Gamers have been doing it for over 2 decades but with the parents in the background instead of kids
One account between all servers with ability to customize your identity
All of that in one solution. That won its market.
Provide something as innovative and robust as Discord and people may consider switching.
__________________
I know that IRC's simplicity may be beautiful for hacker's mind, but it doesn't solve my problems nor make my life easier, so I'm not going to use it over Discord.
Until Discord appeared we had
Ventrilo, Mumble, TeamSpeak, Skype, etc, etc
I've been using those for like 10 years almost everyday
They had voice chat, some had viable text chat, etc, etc.
And then Discord appeared which had:
Voice Chat,
Good text chat (images, code snippets, emojis, reactions, etc)
Streaming Video (!!)
File share
Robust bot integration
Lack of security problem unlike the self-hosted alternatives have.
This one is important in gaming communities in e.g MMORPG games cuz there's nothing better than being DDoSd cuz you left team or because you talked to somebody on wrong TeamSpeak server 5 months ago :)
Push2Talk - this is also important, I dont understand how e.g Teams dont have this shit.
Imagine you're working on remote with kids in the background - having an ability to push button and talk is really useful! So you don't have constantly mute/unmute yourself! Gamers have been doing it for over 2 decades but with the parents in the background instead of kids
One account between all servers with ability to customize your identity
All of that in one solution. That won its market.
Provide something as innovative and robust as Discord and people may consider switching.
__________________
I know that IRC's simplicity may be beautiful for hacker's mind, but it doesn't solve my problems nor make my life easier, so I'm not going to use it over Discord.
I've been on IRC since the 90's and was an Op for Undernet #Linux & #Japan for many years, used to run an IRC server for a small IRC network back in my London days, and also ran a server for the same little network in my Japan days...
The article was excellent, however, it made no mention of Matrix.
Matrix, like IRC, is decentralised.
You can run your own homeserver - just like running an ircd.
Connecting to a Matrix homeserver with a suitable client - I use Element - you get all the equivalent benefits of IRC (chat) but with the additional Discord-like benefits of being able to post images in-chat, text formatting.
Another benefit is chat history (if configured for a room). Also, fully encrypted rooms. You can have voice and video rooms too.
What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that I'm a full convert now to Matrix. It's better than Discord in that Discord is a walled garden, whereas Matrix - like IRC - is completely decentralised, and I highly recommend using Matrix over IRC these days.
The article was excellent, however, it made no mention of Matrix.
Matrix, like IRC, is decentralised.
You can run your own homeserver - just like running an ircd.
Connecting to a Matrix homeserver with a suitable client - I use Element - you get all the equivalent benefits of IRC (chat) but with the additional Discord-like benefits of being able to post images in-chat, text formatting.
Another benefit is chat history (if configured for a room). Also, fully encrypted rooms. You can have voice and video rooms too.
What I'm trying to say, I suppose, is that I'm a full convert now to Matrix. It's better than Discord in that Discord is a walled garden, whereas Matrix - like IRC - is completely decentralised, and I highly recommend using Matrix over IRC these days.
> Even if you have full-on Stockholm syndrome in regard to advertisers data-mining your life to sell you garbage, who knows where else your data could be going? Considering the horrific epidemic of sexual abuse being abetted and covered up in the workplace, is it really too difficult to imagine malicious actors at Discord (or any other technology company) illegitimately accessing the data of their business' users and using it for stalking or other nefarious purposes?
Maybe the author could write something based in fact, rather than their dogmatic authoritarian fan fiction?
IRC isn't viable for the pretty simple and obvious reason - it lacks features users expect. It's telling that things like Signal and Telegram have built IRC-like services (large chat rooms) not on top of IRC.
Maybe the author could write something based in fact, rather than their dogmatic authoritarian fan fiction?
IRC isn't viable for the pretty simple and obvious reason - it lacks features users expect. It's telling that things like Signal and Telegram have built IRC-like services (large chat rooms) not on top of IRC.
I don’t have anything against IRC, but to suggest it as an alternative to Discord shows such a fundamental lack of understanding of what Discord is good for that I’m kind of baffled. If you’re looking for self hosted alternatives then Matrix (especially with the latest video/voice chat rooms)is much closer to what Discord offers, but even that isn’t really a viable replacement for the core use case of Discord: voice chat while gaming + seamless video streaming of captured game footage with a UI so smooth that my 8 year old nephews figured it out on their own.
> The fundamental fact that Discord users refuse to see is that the platform isn't run on magic dust and fairy incantations, but actual human beings. Using Discord is no different from having a group of strangers sitting in your room with you, noting down every word you say to your friends and everything you run on your computer, and doing the devil knows what with it.
Anyone making this argument doesn't understand why people use Discord. These articles about why Discord is bad crop up over time and they ALL miss the boat. If your argument is that "Discord isn't private" then you've already lost because no one who uses Discord cares about that and you've shown that you don't actually understand Discord.
Anyone making this argument doesn't understand why people use Discord. These articles about why Discord is bad crop up over time and they ALL miss the boat. If your argument is that "Discord isn't private" then you've already lost because no one who uses Discord cares about that and you've shown that you don't actually understand Discord.
At its core, I agree that the bare-bones nature of IRC can be wonderful. But all of the modern services like Teams, Slack and Discord, have seamlessness between client devices as their first priority. People leave their laptop, go to the bathroom, get their phone out and go on typing.
I used IRC for a brief period even after we began to have multiple devices. It was always through some kind of proxy, or basically an ssh connection through GNU screen, just so that basic functionality like asynchronous messaging worked, and so that my setup would carry over. The whole protocol you would have to build around IRC to achieve client agnosticity would arguably be more complex than IRC itself. To a point where any of the big players could introduce IRC-style channels as a fun retro feature. I'd bet more money on that feature becoming popular than on an IRC resurgence.
I used IRC for a brief period even after we began to have multiple devices. It was always through some kind of proxy, or basically an ssh connection through GNU screen, just so that basic functionality like asynchronous messaging worked, and so that my setup would carry over. The whole protocol you would have to build around IRC to achieve client agnosticity would arguably be more complex than IRC itself. To a point where any of the big players could introduce IRC-style channels as a fun retro feature. I'd bet more money on that feature becoming popular than on an IRC resurgence.
> Anyone who has ever used IRC knows that there is nothing even remotely complicated about using it, but the terminology and the steps required to use one are ostensibly terrifying enough to reliably keep the technically illiterate at bay.
This remark, topped with the author's piece on "normiefication", is the kind of intellectual elitism that reliably keeps me away from IRC whenever I think of coming back to it.
This remark, topped with the author's piece on "normiefication", is the kind of intellectual elitism that reliably keeps me away from IRC whenever I think of coming back to it.
Matrix is a very viable chat protocol: I have been using it now full-time for some months. I even bridged my whatsapp and telegram accounts so that I exclusively use the matrix clients on my phone and desktop without hiccups.
I find that I can use it both for IRL friend groups á la whatsapp, and for online "rooms" á la IRC/discord/slack (but with history, which IRC is lacking).
I find that I can use it both for IRL friend groups á la whatsapp, and for online "rooms" á la IRC/discord/slack (but with history, which IRC is lacking).
My friends and I started a private IRC server when we were in university and still use it to this day (15ish years later). We also used to run a ventrilo server that quickly got replaced by mumble. I can't see us ever switching to discord.
IRC was always a pretty big part of my life, it's where I got into organized quake/cs1.6/Dota matches. I'm not as involved in hardcore gaming now, but I suspect that's all been replaced by discord and automated match-making in games.
I was also a great resource for learning about technical topics. Nowadays most open source communities point to discord/slack/gitter or something like that.
I really wish IRC would make a comeback. All these new networks force you to use their client to connect, and I hate the modern design trends. mIRC (on windows) and irssi(on Linux) got the UX/UI pretty much perfect in my book. Everything since then just adds more whitespace and distractions from the actual important content (the chat).
IRC was always a pretty big part of my life, it's where I got into organized quake/cs1.6/Dota matches. I'm not as involved in hardcore gaming now, but I suspect that's all been replaced by discord and automated match-making in games.
I was also a great resource for learning about technical topics. Nowadays most open source communities point to discord/slack/gitter or something like that.
I really wish IRC would make a comeback. All these new networks force you to use their client to connect, and I hate the modern design trends. mIRC (on windows) and irssi(on Linux) got the UX/UI pretty much perfect in my book. Everything since then just adds more whitespace and distractions from the actual important content (the chat).
I haven't used IRC in a long time, but I'd be open to it, especially if it gave that "old internet" feel that I haven't been able to get from the tildaverse.
I dream of having my company use IRC for chat, and I used to fake it by using Slack through the awesome Emacs modes, but now that we're on Teams all hope is dead.
I dream of having my company use IRC for chat, and I used to fake it by using Slack through the awesome Emacs modes, but now that we're on Teams all hope is dead.
Discord Server moderators will create too many channels, which completely fragment conversations, and many channels have zero conversation. Users cannot "bookmark" channels to only follow one or two channels per server, they have to view a server and then select a channel. Discord should limit the amount of channel and force people to pay to have more channels.
Chatting "accelerates" conversations which considerably reduce their quality, which is cancelled by discord adding the "slow" mode. Online forums are slow which encourage people to make a better effort to write posts and answers.
The UX is not that simple. I have to say discord "forums" are a bit better, but it adds more complexity and there already are threads. It's a lot of noise. Should I write in chat or start a forum post? Discords makes several things at once which will often confuse the user. Discord is mixing chat and forums in a single confusing thing.
On top of this, discord is not federated, because communities are often redundant. For example if I just want to join a community to play a certain game, it's all spread across so many communities that those communities are just awful. Quantity over quality. You have some many battlefield or overwatch servers, it's pointless. Quakenet has one channel per game, and it worked well.
The single thing that IRC needs is a good frontend interface.
I just like minimal software. Discord bloated, and their carbon footprint must be quite high. Not to mention so few people use it for voice or visioconference.
Chatting "accelerates" conversations which considerably reduce their quality, which is cancelled by discord adding the "slow" mode. Online forums are slow which encourage people to make a better effort to write posts and answers.
The UX is not that simple. I have to say discord "forums" are a bit better, but it adds more complexity and there already are threads. It's a lot of noise. Should I write in chat or start a forum post? Discords makes several things at once which will often confuse the user. Discord is mixing chat and forums in a single confusing thing.
On top of this, discord is not federated, because communities are often redundant. For example if I just want to join a community to play a certain game, it's all spread across so many communities that those communities are just awful. Quantity over quality. You have some many battlefield or overwatch servers, it's pointless. Quakenet has one channel per game, and it worked well.
The single thing that IRC needs is a good frontend interface.
I just like minimal software. Discord bloated, and their carbon footprint must be quite high. Not to mention so few people use it for voice or visioconference.
Why not matrix? Due to the creeping shitification of Discord my friends moved over to a self-hosted matrix server. It costs about $5/mo and does everything we need it to do.
We span up a Synapse instance the other day and connected to it with Element on a few different laptops. (This is the Matrix server and client btw — they really need a marketing / branding person!)
It was both hellish and amazing. Hellish in that I had absolutely no idea how to use anything. Channels and rooms and stuff. All very complicated and weird. I just wanted a single, default place to hang out!
It was also amazing because it all worked beautifully all the way from text chit chat up to in channel video calls. Snappy and fast and reliable. Bliss. LDAP integration out of the box (or near enough out of the box) too. Lovely.
If it was just a little bit more seamless it would probably take over the world.
It was both hellish and amazing. Hellish in that I had absolutely no idea how to use anything. Channels and rooms and stuff. All very complicated and weird. I just wanted a single, default place to hang out!
It was also amazing because it all worked beautifully all the way from text chit chat up to in channel video calls. Snappy and fast and reliable. Bliss. LDAP integration out of the box (or near enough out of the box) too. Lovely.
If it was just a little bit more seamless it would probably take over the world.
Discord vs IRC is just another extension of the "open, decentralised vs proprietary, centralised social media" debate. It baffles me that even people who are aware of, and opposed to, the ongoing enshittification of Twitter and Reddit would so happily choose Discord.
That said, I think privacy is a weak argument against Discord (or, rather, a weak argument for IRC). I have used IRC for many years and I never assumed that anything I put on there was private. Everything you post can be seen and trivially recorded by other users as well as the server operator.
To me it's more about not having your access to social media entirely at the whim of a corporation whose incentives are not aligned with yours and who, sooner or later, is going to come under significant pressure to monetise you. So I guess, in a word, control is the main advantage. This includes control over whether you can access the service, how you access it, what you can access and on what terms you can access it. IRC's simplicity is a definite plus in that regard.
And then you have the "average user", who ruthlessly selects for ease of use and cost and doesn't care about any of this stuff. I think that is a short-sighted position, but ultimately people will make their choice and the average user's preference for walled gardens built by VC-backed corporations is so strong I think it unlikely to be reversed by any amount of blogs or HN comments. I think these services (or their successors) will always continue to exist and will probably always be far more popular than the open alternatives, but it is still worth maintaining and promoting those alternatives, which can provide a sustainable platform for those of us who care about such things.
That said, I think privacy is a weak argument against Discord (or, rather, a weak argument for IRC). I have used IRC for many years and I never assumed that anything I put on there was private. Everything you post can be seen and trivially recorded by other users as well as the server operator.
To me it's more about not having your access to social media entirely at the whim of a corporation whose incentives are not aligned with yours and who, sooner or later, is going to come under significant pressure to monetise you. So I guess, in a word, control is the main advantage. This includes control over whether you can access the service, how you access it, what you can access and on what terms you can access it. IRC's simplicity is a definite plus in that regard.
And then you have the "average user", who ruthlessly selects for ease of use and cost and doesn't care about any of this stuff. I think that is a short-sighted position, but ultimately people will make their choice and the average user's preference for walled gardens built by VC-backed corporations is so strong I think it unlikely to be reversed by any amount of blogs or HN comments. I think these services (or their successors) will always continue to exist and will probably always be far more popular than the open alternatives, but it is still worth maintaining and promoting those alternatives, which can provide a sustainable platform for those of us who care about such things.
I'd say IRC and Matrix are the only viable protocols.
The rest are just proprietary, centralized, corporate-owned.
Here's a short list of those: Teams, Zoom, Discord, Whatsapp, Telegram, Skype, Ring.
The rest are just proprietary, centralized, corporate-owned.
Here's a short list of those: Teams, Zoom, Discord, Whatsapp, Telegram, Skype, Ring.
No, I much prefer XMPP MUC to IRC.
- Doesn't expose your IP address by default
- No need to fiddle with automating responses to NickServ to log in
- No need to register with that specific chat server, can simply use your XMPP account for any server
- No annoying netsplits
- Supports multiline text messages
- Has avatar, away status, profile info support
- Can show about 20 last messages when you join a chat so you have some context of the conversation
- Nicknames can have spaces and Unicode
- Can transparently join from multiple devices under a single nickname, no need to kill a "ghost" from time to time after a lost connection
- Configurable with GUI instead of cryptic modes designated by a single character symbol that varies from server to server
- Doesn't expose your IP address by default
- No need to fiddle with automating responses to NickServ to log in
- No need to register with that specific chat server, can simply use your XMPP account for any server
- No annoying netsplits
- Supports multiline text messages
- Has avatar, away status, profile info support
- Can show about 20 last messages when you join a chat so you have some context of the conversation
- Nicknames can have spaces and Unicode
- Can transparently join from multiple devices under a single nickname, no need to kill a "ghost" from time to time after a lost connection
- Configurable with GUI instead of cryptic modes designated by a single character symbol that varies from server to server
Not receiving a message unless you're online is really the deal breaker for most people
IRC is the perfect chat protocol for interoperabitily between Big Tech and small tech, ofc where it is reasonable. Namely, regulators should enforce the availability of an IRC bridge (with TLS where pertinent authentication is to be used).
Twitch has been providing a non-TLS and public IRC bridge.
Moreover, IRC chat can be extremely well extented, namely with bells and whistle features if the client supports them, and if not can be ignored and and then displays harmless garbage (you can encode A LOT in a short text string, and now with utf-8... you can encode MASSIVE load of things within a short text string).
From a noscript/basic (x)html, just need a irc:// URL and were good. We can even have pre-authencitated irc connection using a transient TCP port opening with IP[46] locking (ok... you will need a pool of IP[46]s for significantly sized services).
Ofc, the bad thing: most of the time the noscript/basic (x)html browser will fire up an irc client, then you get 2 windows. Or we could have an IRC client integrated into a noscript/basic (x)html browser which will open a "frame"/new tab, well... modularity, and this would still be cosmically less costly from a technical point of view than any Big Tech web engine.
It is like some _LEAN_ p2p protocols (streaming, live or not) directly integrated into noscript/basic (x)html browsers with good and honest default (that's the hard part, it will be abused, and if it is too much, won't actually work). Well, a "private" tracker would do the "trick". Still, it could fire up an external p2p-enabled media player (via <video> with the p2p URL with the private tracker and video hash, or the private tracker infos could be part of a dash file).
Ofc, you have to expect the worst from Big Tech: adamant lobbying against that, sabotage up to shadow-hire hacker teams, etc...
Twitch has been providing a non-TLS and public IRC bridge.
Moreover, IRC chat can be extremely well extented, namely with bells and whistle features if the client supports them, and if not can be ignored and and then displays harmless garbage (you can encode A LOT in a short text string, and now with utf-8... you can encode MASSIVE load of things within a short text string).
From a noscript/basic (x)html, just need a irc:// URL and were good. We can even have pre-authencitated irc connection using a transient TCP port opening with IP[46] locking (ok... you will need a pool of IP[46]s for significantly sized services).
Ofc, the bad thing: most of the time the noscript/basic (x)html browser will fire up an irc client, then you get 2 windows. Or we could have an IRC client integrated into a noscript/basic (x)html browser which will open a "frame"/new tab, well... modularity, and this would still be cosmically less costly from a technical point of view than any Big Tech web engine.
It is like some _LEAN_ p2p protocols (streaming, live or not) directly integrated into noscript/basic (x)html browsers with good and honest default (that's the hard part, it will be abused, and if it is too much, won't actually work). Well, a "private" tracker would do the "trick". Still, it could fire up an external p2p-enabled media player (via <video> with the p2p URL with the private tracker and video hash, or the private tracker infos could be part of a dash file).
Ofc, you have to expect the worst from Big Tech: adamant lobbying against that, sabotage up to shadow-hire hacker teams, etc...
> The reliability and lack of bloat that are inherent to IRC [...]
First off, I love IRC and always will. But boy, the author sure must have a stable internet connection. In my experience one blip means a lost message with no indication that it's been lost. That is not my definition of reliable.
First off, I love IRC and always will. But boy, the author sure must have a stable internet connection. In my experience one blip means a lost message with no indication that it's been lost. That is not my definition of reliable.
IRC is great! I access through the excellent biboumi gateway, which offers bouncer-like functionality and let me choose between various clients. There are open instances available for everyone to use, although I couldn't give a list of them since I self-host. I like that it's very lightweight, making it a reasonable permacomputing approach to group chats.
I wouldn't go as far as saying it's the only viable chat protocol, if you follow the link below you'll guess what I have in mind saying that. (it starts with an X and ends with two Ps)
https://biboumi.louiz.org/
I wouldn't go as far as saying it's the only viable chat protocol, if you follow the link below you'll guess what I have in mind saying that. (it starts with an X and ends with two Ps)
https://biboumi.louiz.org/
A lot of the original ircd/ircII devs and I are on Signal these days, we had a private channel on efnet for about 25 years. Open e2e with history is pretty compelling, and decent mobile clients on top. But we still love irc.
I dislike web chat for one reason, the overview is very limited.
So Matrix, with a bitlbee plugin or a text client, would be amazing imho.
I'm just so used to seeing many lines of text, and getting a good quick overview of what is going on that way. Sometimes I use /last in irssi, and very rarely I've searched through a channel's web archive. But mostly I just see whatever it is I need directl in the client. If it's a slow chat I see it the next day. It's not going anywhere.
So Matrix, with a bitlbee plugin or a text client, would be amazing imho.
I'm just so used to seeing many lines of text, and getting a good quick overview of what is going on that way. Sometimes I use /last in irssi, and very rarely I've searched through a channel's web archive. But mostly I just see whatever it is I need directl in the client. If it's a slow chat I see it the next day. It's not going anywhere.
I used to use PidGin for years. It has both IRC and XMPP. Thinking about using it again. I wonder also about the Freenode shenanigans in recent times and who was behind it. https://pidgin.im/posts/2021-06-irc-network-changes/
One thing I miss about IRC is the lack of a typing indicator.
IRC had huge momentum like 5 years ago that just disappeared overnight. Freenode jumping the shark didn't help but I'm still surprised.
I loved the days where I'd be in a couple IRC rooms and a couple slack rooms all in the same IRC client. Slack killing IRC support still bums me out.
I loved the days where I'd be in a couple IRC rooms and a couple slack rooms all in the same IRC client. Slack killing IRC support still bums me out.
The one thing I dislike about matrix is how it has to use http. IRC is an escape from the web. The matrix api is simple enough to use a couple of curl commands for basic chat though.
A simple "everything is a json schema" protocol but over TCP/UDP would be cool.
A simple "everything is a json schema" protocol but over TCP/UDP would be cool.
discord is great, ideal maybe, except for the closed nature.
IRC as a protocol is extremely simple and that has value, and I feel that Discord's UI, search, built-in history, and finer-grained permissions (finer than anything IRC can do, anyway) are all plusses that IRC advocates should not discount.
other great features that Discord has which are discounted by IRC afficionados: replies. inline image and short video support. reactions. very high quality video streaming and voice chat (though IRC can be forgiven here given the time period in which it arose.)
these things almost all matter to modern day users. saying that no one needs them because you don't need them or want them is gatekeeping and is myopic and short-sighted.
IRC as a protocol is extremely simple and that has value, and I feel that Discord's UI, search, built-in history, and finer-grained permissions (finer than anything IRC can do, anyway) are all plusses that IRC advocates should not discount.
other great features that Discord has which are discounted by IRC afficionados: replies. inline image and short video support. reactions. very high quality video streaming and voice chat (though IRC can be forgiven here given the time period in which it arose.)
these things almost all matter to modern day users. saying that no one needs them because you don't need them or want them is gatekeeping and is myopic and short-sighted.
Was IRC ever used privately and internally within the workplace? I'd like to know if anyone did. I only ever used it briefly with forum communities and some older OSS projects.
At work, it has only ever been Slack. Some older employees recall using Skype for Business.
At work, it has only ever been Slack. Some older employees recall using Skype for Business.
I am still perplexed that people accept the UX of Discord. It is just so horrible that I can not get myself to use it even if I am looking for a place to engage with communities. There are way too many channels which you cannot opt out of.
The article brushes over this, but IMO the lack of built-in backlog support is the main reason why IRC is essentially doomed. Logging isn't a "fancy" feature and telling people to just run an always-on logging service on top doesn't cut it.
Especially when there are open, federated chat protocols that don't have this problem.