IRC is a protocol, not an app. Many apps can connect to it. An app can show previews if it wants to.

Good point.

What I meant is use an open protocol to which simple applications (or whatever you prefer to use) can be plugged.

Because my company uses Slack I now have to use their stupid UI proprietary implementation.

I'm also annoyed that popular open source projects like Kubernetes moved to Slack because it's "discriminatory" to use IRC apparently.

The IRC protocol is entirely open. You can make extensions to do anything you want.

> Because my company uses Slack I now have to use their stupid UI proprietary implementation.

Have you tried wee-slack or similar?

Discriminatory? Link?

Here's an example from Mozilla:

> While we still use it heavily, IRC is an ongoing source of abuse and harassment for many of our colleagues

http://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/04/26/synchronous-text/?s

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19763276

So, no.

Many IRC clients, in fact, do. So, yes, kind of.

So, mu. The question was incorrect.

Quassel IRC (an IRC client) does, for example.

Do you really want your client to load a URI just because someone dropped it in a channel you're in?

Slack client doesn't load URIs, the server does

some clients can, yes.

Yeah, long before Slack was a thing even.

Hm, I am definitely not sure if you are joking.