Shameless plug here, re: "IRC is fairly hard to use if you aren't familiar with it already"

I'm currently working on a web based IRC client called Relay.js (https://github.com/Fauntleroy/relay.js), which is my attempt at making IRC a little more approachable. It's pretty basic at the moment, but I hope to make it something really special in the coming months.

Ooh, if you're open to suggestions, my number one frustration with IRC goes like this: I'm connected and happily chatting, but then my Wifi blips and I'm disconnected. There's no chat log, so I don't know what I missed. And on crappy connections, this can happen pretty frequently.

I know there are programs that'll keep you online and collect chat logs even if you disconnect, but it seems ridiculous to have to set up a server just so I can chat.

If you fix this problem, I'd happily fork over at least $10/month, maybe more.

I have plans for something like that in the future, but first I'd like to perfect the client itself (a persistent connection would require a server).

For now you can always try out https://www.irccloud.com or https://github.com/thedjpetersen/subway

https://github.com/leedo/alice is another one. Used to be hosted but they stopped running it.

During my time inside Trolltech/Nokia, everyone was on Freenode and our internal IRC server. A lot of people were connected through a client called Quassel [0] which is basically a distributed IRC client you can access from multiple machines (-> you'd host it on a server, it stores the backlog and everything else for you).

In my current startup we have the same (internal IRC server) and we also thought offering Quassel hosting [1] is a good idea.

[0] http://www.quassel-irc.org/

[1] http://quassel.woboq.com/

Shameless plug here as well, I'm developing something that will sort of solve that problem for channels you own: http://www.getinstabot.com

There have been irc bots for as long as there has been IRC.

Eggdrop bot is a common one, open source, etc.

> I'm connected and happily chatting, but then my Wifi blips and I'm disconnected. There's no chat log, so I don't know what I missed. And on crappy connections, this can happen pretty frequently.

So a bouncer + web interface, huh? I'd better get to work..

I've been on the lookout for good web IRC interfaces for years. This looks promising. Thanks!

You could also try subway[1] and kiwiirc[2].

[1]: https://github.com/thedjpetersen/subway

[2]: https://github.com/prawnsalad/KiwiIRC

Don't forget nirc! https://github.com/cjstewart88/nirc

Thanks for the plug ;)

Just so you know, the "Give it a go" link in the README gives:

    An error has occurred: {"code":"ECONNREFUSED","errno":"ECONNREFUSED","syscall":"connect"}

and https://github.com/leedo/alice

If HipMunk used an IRC backend that would be pretty sweet.

Hipchat, though hip Munk is also nice

We use http://partychapp.appspot.com (it was recommended on a previous HN posting). We already used Google Talk for one on one chats so this just adds a group chat into that, and works really well. It also doesn't require additional clients, doing group chats differently than one on one, yet more usernames and passwords etc.

Used to use this, then it was always down. Now use http://Jaconda.im. Always just works, has a convenient web interface as well for great room history.

We switched last night to Jaconda - thanks for the recommendation. While partychat never failed for us, it did prove limiting (eg no search) and seemed increasingly unmaintained (/commands not working). Jaconda also has Github integration which was nice.

We've never had a problem with the former - always works and always up!

IRC has no chat history or unauthenticated access, apparently.

My friend was working on a web client for IRC [1] that provides a persistent connection (and hence chat history). I'm not sure if he's gonna finish it though.

[1] https://github.com/pavben/WebIRC

Does (m)IRC have the ability to log everything? It's been a decade since I've used mIRC but I could have sworn I was able to save everything even back then.

It certainly does. I'm pretty sure that almost every IRC client can do this, as can IM clients like Pidgin. (That reminds me: does Hipchat work well with Pidgin?)

edit: I think the difference on that chart, though, is that mIRC is a __client__, whereas I suspect that Hipchat's server also does logging -- so that you can see the chat log even if you were previously not connected. That's not something that is normally suported with IRC. You could roll your own with a custom client and server, I expect, but at that point you'd be investing probably more effort than it's worth.

That's an excellent point, they're probably referring to server-side, always-on-even-if-you're-not logging.

Sure, you can log anything you see... but if you are offline, you miss out.

Why is it so hard to make IRC work decently for mortals?

FWIW, I set up a tutorial for my friends for IRC. If you explain it simply enough, it will work. I have 25+ of my friends on it now, most of whom not knowing what IRC was.

Because it was written by and for nerds.

Do you mind sharing more details about your decision making process, the services/tools you are using as IRC hosts/clients, etc?

ejabberd and pidgen?