In addition, there are a lot of nice little channels out there that are just fun to hang out in.
In these channels there's people who've been there for almost 20 years. Sadly I parted ages ago from the channels I was chatting in the 90's. But I guess they're still there.
Other than that, I just see people mention channels sometimes and I join them.
https://riot.im with it's excellent IRC bridge is a solid alternative now (and fully open source).
Quassel and Smuxi.im are GUI-based ones, where you can start them one one computer and connect from another. (I've never tried them, so can't say how they fare.)
I used ZNC for a while, that's a "pure bouncer" that just connects to your irc network and then you connect your client of choice to your ZNC. Simple and easy to set up, but not very featureful.
I recently switched to Weechat, which comes with a nice CLI interface, as well as letting you connect from regular IRC clients, or from special Weechat-clients (their own protocol which gives some more control I suppose). There's an HTML5 client https://www.glowing-bear.org/ that a lot of people like. I use the Android client https://github.com/ubergeek42/weechat-android#weechat-androi... a lot, it's very nice, though from my laptop I connect from Emacs's built in client (M-x erc). I run Weechat on a Raspberry Pi 1 that I had lying around, just connected it to my router, ran "apt install weechat weechat-plugins tmux" and set "tmux new-session -d weechat -s chat" to run on startup, and added a relay: http://www.weechat.org/files/doc/stable/weechat_user.en.html...
I even have push notifications when I get tagged or a add a special keyword.
> Why but just run a bouncer
> like znc
With Weechat, as long as you manage to add a server from the UI and then `/relay add ssl.irc 8000`, you typically just need a script that runs `tmux new-session -d weechat` on startup. And it has mobile clients.
I can get push notifications to my phone with a ZNC module so that's not really the hold up.
Requires Quassel server
I remember having problems with this in the past using ZNC and separate mobile/laptop clients.
ircv3 specification is shaping up to have even better capabilities there too.
Not to mention the hardcoded usernames.
I'm against irccloud (you're paying to be man in the middled) but they definitely sorted the "can not ban" problem.
The problem with things like irccloud from a network operator perspective isn't that it's difficult to distinguish between users. It's that these systems often subvert protections the network has deemed necessary.
Imagine example.net runs an open proxy scanner on anyone that connects. They find this reduces abuse considerably. If (e.g. irccloud) either 1) doesn't pass the originating user's ip 2) isn't trusted to pass the originating user's ip or 3) doesn't run a similar open proxy scanner, then example.net's open proxy scanner solves nothing.
1) isn't always technically trivial. 2) isn't for us to decide and 3) is probably never going to happen as the network will likely always be ahead.
If you do manage to solve 1&2 between a mitm & a network then awesome. The problem is that this requires buy in from both sides. Just because irccloud.com support it doesn't mean it will automatically work on any irc network you try and connect to.
IE: sid655585@<unique_ipv6>
or: uid555512@<unique_ipv6>
s = subscriber, paid member
u = unsubscriped, free member.
It's possible, of course, to use this service to register many names and launch a spam attack using it. But, in that case you can just block all `u<star>@<star>.irccloud.com`[0] (assuming you can rdns properly)
Like I said, I'm not a super large advocate of irccloud, but just as webchat passes on the originating IP via cgi module extensions, irccloud fixes problems with abuse for operators.
I know this, because I have been running a large irc network for over 10 years.
[0]: I tried everything to make asterisks appear, but hackernews is doing something funky:
u*@*.irccloud.comYou allude to a problem by suggesting blocking u*, these accounts can be created when the old one is blocked. Even subscriber accounts can be created at will & higher cost, though are likely less of an issue.
There is a problem that irc.example.net can't say "These users all seem to be originating from this single open proxy, lets block it." They need irccloud to do that.
[1] https://riot.im/
Here are the highlights:
Amusing blast from the past: back in the 90's I worked at General Magic, and wrote my own IRC client [1] for our handheld devices. I attached a Metricom wireless modem to the bottom of mine and could be on IRC from anywhere; it was like living in the future! /s
[1]: http://joshcarter.com/magic_cap/cujochat