What is IRC?

So you are wondering what is this thing called IRC?

Well IRC stands for "Internet Relay Chat" which pretty much explains itself, but if your still wondering what it all means then basically IRC is a collection of "chat servers" which you connnect to with a "chat client". Everything you type ie "chat" is relayed from one server to the other allowing other people who are also connected to see what you type and in return relay back their own messages for you to read.

Sounds simple doesn't it?

In reality it is, but at the same time can be quite confusing and overwhelming for a beginner!

There are many ways to chat over IRC, using many different "chat clients" such as mIRC or pIRCh which you can download and run from your own computer. Or you can chat using a "Java Client" which is a web page based chat client which you can click on from a website and without any downloading or installing and chat on many different networks. We have just such a client for our network here on our website. You can check out our very own Java Client and chat to us now!

We also have a customised copy of mIRC available for you to download and connect to our network to chat with us. You can download the AustChat version of mIRC here.

For comprehensive help on how to use these clients check out our Chatting Help Page.

So how does it all work?

As I mentioned earlier, the messages you type are "relayed" from one server to another. A chat network is made up of a collection of servers linked together which relay messages frome one server to another hence the name "relay". When you type a message, it is sent from the server you are connected to, across each other server that is linked to the network and displayed for all the other chatters to see. So basically your words can do quite a bit of travelling at times depending on the size of the network and locations of the servers.

Some of the larger networks can have several servers linked together and the biggest networks have servers listed in the hundreds. Of course the more servers and chatters, the busier and more confusing it can get!

Don't be intimidated by many people talking at once, at first it can be hard to follow but as you get used to it, it becomes quite fun and interesting to watch and participate in.