rfowler

does anyone use IRC?

stevencotton

Since 1992

rfowler

any tips, as i heard there are loads of virus, trojans etc..

stevencotton

That's a load of crap. You can't "catch" anything on IRC, unless you accept a DCC send request from another user and execute the file you download. A lot of trojans that infect PCs use IRC to communicate with eachother and with the botnet owner ('prettypark' was the first to do this around 1998 I believe), enables one person to control his whole botnet, but that's nothing to do with IRC, that's down to people misusing it.

People think IRC is mIRC. It isn't, mIRC is just a client used to connect to networks that utilise the IRC protocol. Rooms aren't called rooms, they're channels. There are lots of different IRC networks, from the tiny to the huge (wrt usercount). I admined an IRC server on IRCnet for four years, wrote the software for servers to share K-lines with eachother. 110K users, 220 global opers when I gave it up.

rfowler

wow that is a lot, why did you leave? I am a novice how do i start and where so i start and what do i download.

stevencotton

You just need an IRC client and a network to connect to. I stopped being an oper because it was taking up too much of my time.

Have a look at Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Help.

stevencotton

Ooh just noticed, when you add a URL in now, it goes off and grabs the title from the page, that'll use some more of SN's bandwidth