Being the Ubuntu user I am, I always try to look for the best FOSS alternatives to popular software (GIMP for Photoshop, Parole Media Player for WMP, etc.).

I haven't been really big into IRC chat rooms, but while looking around on my computer, I found an IRC chat app on Xubuntu 14.04 called xChat IRC. It might be worth adding to the list of IRC programs on the help page.

Yay? Nay?

Nay.

Because xchat has basically been abandoned, not updated in any major way in decade and windows version of the software costs money.

Hexchat is the fork which started as project to make actually good version of xchat to windows as silverex and official xchat port sucked. And because of that we are now in the state that hexchat is updated so much that many suggest using it even under linux and OS X.

So basically xchat is already on the list, just in form of actually good and updated hexchat and top of the list most likely because of FOSS, multiplatform and still pretty user friendly.

And kinda on topic: FOSS programs are also generally really good thing to support, but if there's something severly lacking compared to other program, FOSS shouldn't be the decisive matter for choosing. I used to use linux as main operating system, but it did become pain to use software that was for windows only, specifically newer games, so instead of enduring simply bought windows.

While we're on it, add IRCCloud to the list of Android IRC clients? I've been using it for a few months and it's awesome.

Rather than trying to list all the IRC clients (there's a fucking lot) on that page, perhaps it would be easier to just include an additonal link to Wikipedia's Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients.

Tuvalu said:
Rather than trying to list all the IRC clients (there's a fucking lot) on that page, perhaps it would be easier to just include an additonal link to Wikipedia's Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients.

Tuvalu? Didn't you leave e621 permanently barely two weeks ago?

I use Weechat because it's a pretty powerful client. I've used Irssi since nerdy GNU/Linux people have told me "it's good", but objectively and subjectively, Weechat is a whole lot better in many aspects. I literally dislike people when they say Irssi is good... Weechat has: secure password saving, working window buffers/SASL support out of the box, lower program size, superior documentation. Jeez... Yeah.

They clearly dunno what a good terminal IRC client is!

Also:

For Android, I use Atomic, but that's only for Freenode. I don't do furry stuff in public.

I use hexchat myself.
People like irssi because it's powerful. You can also use it without a window/graphical system running.

This really quickly became "I'm using X" topic.

That wiki lists purpose is not to be any definitive list of things, it's supposed to be small list of possible popular solutions to get you started if you do not want to use mibbit and haven't used IRC before. Linking to that wikipedia article for definitive list which is updated would be good to have on top of those suggestions.

It doesn't make sense for us to continually curate a list of IRC clients. I say we remove the list entirely and just link to the Wikipedia article.

I didn't mean to start a conversation... The only reason I suggested xChat was because it seemed to work well for me (being the noob to IRC chat rooms I am). I wasn't aware of the discontinued development... Sorry.

Nikolaithefur said:
I didn't mean to start a conversation... The only reason I suggested xChat was because it seemed to work well for me (being the noob to IRC chat rooms I am). I wasn't aware of the discontinued development... Sorry.

Well, if you like that, try HexChat. From what I remember of xChat, it still looks and functions the same so it shouldn't be too different to use.