What programs can be used for IRC (=Internet Relay Chat)?
13 Answers
XChat 
XChat is a graphical IRC Client with a GTK+ GUI. It has a look and feel similar to AmIRC for the Amiga. Special features include the mIRC extension DCC RESUME and mIRC color, multiple server/channel windows, dialog windows, and a plugin API.
It does pretty much everything you could want an IRC client to do.
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7Notice: XChat is discontinued. Latest update is 6 years old. Dec 30, 2016 at 13:37
XChat-Gnome
XChat-Gnome is very similar to XChat however it aims to have a more friendlier user interface and integrate better with your desktop. I find for starting out on IRC its much easier to get the hang off
sudo apt-get install xchat-gnome xchat-gnome-indicator
Screenshot:
IRSSI is the way to go: http://www.irssi.org/
It was even in the TV show 'Numbers'; check out the video on the Irssi homepage. (P.S. That was supposed to be funny)
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WeeChat (
sudo apt-get install weechat) is nice as well for chatting in the terminal. It allows things like using Tor for one connection and no proxy for another. Jun 3, 2018 at 2:00
Empathy!
Installed by default in Ubuntu. It really serves as a very easy to use IRC client. Don't expect very advanced features though ;)
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it's ugly. Don't really know why it's the default since there must be some work to integrate it. Dec 28, 2011 at 17:38
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I have to uninstall Empathy because if you connect to more than a few channels it starts to lag - and if you leave it a while it's a real memory hog!– GregFeb 16, 2012 at 12:16
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Been trying for about a quarter of an hour now to use it as an IRC client on freenode. Found out that it doesn't support nickname registration! Can't chat! That's annoying!! Feb 10, 2014 at 17:52
Quassel is another IRC client for Ubuntu and Debian based Linux distributions. It has a Qt interface. Its main feature is to be distributed, it means that you run a quassel "headless" in a server that has a permanent connection, and your desktop/mobile client connects to that server. Quassel is your best friend if you need to be always connected to IRC whenever you are!
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1if you don't want to use irssi Quassel is great. I can run headless, and do a server/client setup where you just "connect" to your irc session that was running in your remote machine, or headless– csgeekOct 18, 2010 at 16:56
Smuxi is a nice GNOME IRC client, which features indicator support like xchat-gnome, and can be run in a client/server arrangement where the server is always connected to IRC, much like irssi+screen.
I'm very happy with my own irc-client called "f-irc" (f-irc website).
Wrote it 7 years ago (note that I've been adding features and fixing bugs like a mad men for the last 2 weeks) and it totally suits my own needs. Navigation is somewhat different than most other clients but it is consistent and also usable when you decide not to learn all those keyboard shortcuts by heart.
For fun and kicks I added a word cloud so that you can easily what happened for the last 5 minutes (which is its (configurable) refresh interval).
website: http://www.vanheusden.com/f-irc/
There is also Konversation from the KDE libraries. Available in the main repository like most of these.
I am surprised that no one suggested "Pidgin" - http://www.pidgin.im/download/ubuntu/
sudo apt install pidgin
I use Opera browser's built-in chat client. During Ubuntu Openweeks I just have to click the link to the classroom that is present on the openweek wiki page and the chat window opens in another tab.
I use Firefox browser or Empathy
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