If you like old software, you probably have heard of IRC, a chatting protocol from a while ago. But do people actually still use it, or is it just old software nobody uses anymore?

If you go on large IRC networks like Freenode, you might not see much activity outside of support channels, but if you go on smaller, tighter-knit communities like tilde.chat, people are actually quite active there. However it’s mostly people that use Linux or are intrested in computers, since proprietary chat apps like Discord have a smaller learning curve and theirfor attracts more people to use it.

This is really a shame because choosing your IRC client has the potential to be configured how ever you want and not be locked into having certain things stuck configured certain ways like on proprietary chatting apps. Another good thing about IRC is how robust it is, it’s been around a while and has been perfected quite a lot. Theres not much that you can throw at IRC that it can’t handle, and because IRC is a standard, new features can be added to IRC servers and clients while also not losing support for people using older clients, or people hosting older servers.