this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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Popular IRC client HexChat gets a final release, is no longer maintained (hexchat.github.io)
submitted 9 months ago by amaki@jlai.lu to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 58 points 9 months ago (3 children)

IRC is sadly going away slowly. Which is a shame, it's a great protocol that is easy to implement and simple to work with. Biggest problem I see is its inability to embed images and other multimedia. Had that been the case protocol would live on I feel. We just needed few more channel modes, some that ban or allow specific multimedia and inline image support and we are good.

Some people, if not most who use IRC, would claim otherwise, but there's a reason why Slack became popular even though it's shitty electron application.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 33 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There are multiple IRC clients that render inline images just fine and also some very nice web clients that allow posting such images directly from the app.

The main problem of IRC is IMHO that the large networks refuse to implement most of the newer IRCv3 standards or alternatively provide multi-client bouncers to their users.

[–] einlander@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

Adiirc has an option to do inline images. The client pulls the image in on its own. Makes it look similar to Discord.

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

IRCv3 doesn't bring multimedia as far as I know. There are good changes to the protocol proposed, but they are moving too slow.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This would require an HTML image upload service, which is out of scope for IRCv3 protocol specs.

But nothing stops a server implementation from providing this, and as already said several client+bouncer combinations already support media uploads very well.

The slow moving isn't the problem of the IRCv3 specs, the issue is the adoption by the large networks and subsequently the clients (which rarely implement features the vast majority of their users on the large networks can't use).

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago

Yeah, I'd assume there would be a level of resistance to changes from big networks.

[–] doubletwist@lemmy.world 17 points 9 months ago

Biggest problem I see is its inability to embed images and other multimedia.

That's one of its best features as far as I'm concerned, and one of the reasons I still use it every day.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 6 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I wonder if multiple IRC clients all agreed at the same time to extend the protocol by rendering markdown in the messages if that would help.

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 14 points 9 months ago (2 children)

There's a "new" draft for version 3 being worked on but to be honest they are not addressing in my opinion the right features. Yay, we are going to get unicode nicknames? I think people are fine with what is there now. But not being able to paste code or images, now that's a real hindrance.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 6 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Convos.chat has both those features, via an built in image server and pastebin service. In addition it renders Markdown just fine.

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That's great, although protocol level support would be preferable.

[–] pingveno@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

Exactly. If you have a simple protocol, but then everyone layers a bunch of proprietary extensions on, is it really a simple protocol anymore? Or is it just a bunch of chat clients that only kind of talk to each other anymore?

[–] Maeve@kbin.social 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don’t see the need to paste either? Paste a link to an image sharing site or codebin?

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The need exists, and has been for a while now. Refusal to accept that fact is what's leading to reduced use of IRC protocol. Sure, you might not see the need, but everyone is not you. Especially for work and development images can come handy.

[–] Maeve@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I’m not adverse, I guess I just got used to doing it the old ways.

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I can understand people being use to unavailability of such features. When we were trying to figure out a solution for our development team which is mostly working form home, IRC was one of the options. We tried using IRC, Matrix, and bunch of others. While IRC was really fast and reliable its main issues were poor mobile support, where client would get disconnected when switching networks and multimedia support. Matrix and Tox supported these but there were so many problems with them at the time. So everyone pushed towards Slack. Luckily I had enough influence to not allow it and we finally settled with Signal, which is far from perfect, but it works for what we need it.

Sending files in this day and age shouldn't be a question of having public IP and routed ports and messing around with settings.

[–] Maeve@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hey, context made a boatload of difference! I use Signal but grow restive with it ; I can see using it in your circumstances and yes, irc with photo/code support would’ve been a better choice. Thanks for a window to see beyond my limited perspective.

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago

No problem. Like I said, everyone has different needs, but it's better to have features and not use them than the other way around. When we used IRC, it was a real pain. I insisted we give it a shot for about a month and we couldn't pull out a week. The moment I realized I had to explain to people where to click and what to expect that's the moment we dropped it. Which is a shame, I really like the protocol. Not to mention ease of implementation with various scripts and git hooks.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

If you arn't using a IRC server with build it bouncer (like ergo.chat) you really need an additional bouncer (linke ZNC or Soju) with an IRC network. As you say this is not an optional feature, but a must have. Most traditional IRC users run their own bouncers, so they feel no need for large networks to implement this vital feature and thus hold back IRC as a whole.

That said, if you had provided a nice client with built in bouncer and multimedia functionality, like The Lounge or Convos, or used an external service like IRCcloud, I doubt you would have had much issues with IRC adoption in your team. The Lounge especially also works really well on mobile.

[–] MeanEYE@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I had ZNC set up for myself and few other people, but all of that is additional steps and additional things that require maintenance. But client with built-in things like these would be great. Ideally protocol should implement those, especially considering how easy it would be for server to do deduplication on messages for multiple users.

[–] poVoq@slrpnk.net 1 points 9 months ago

Bouncer like functionality is available in IRCv3 compliant IRC servers like Ergo, so yes it is available on protocol level, just the popular IRC networks don't implement it and workarounds like bouncers are sadly needed.

[–] Mio@feddit.nu 24 points 9 months ago

Thank you for all this time. I still use it today, along with pidgin.

[–] SomeBoyo@feddit.de 14 points 9 months ago (7 children)

Is there something good to replace it?

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 25 points 9 months ago (3 children)

It doesn't need a replacement. IRC is amazing the way it is, and Hexchat is a perfect example of "a finished product".

[–] tiramichu@lemm.ee 56 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I agree as far as the feature set is concerned, but software unfortunately doesn't exist in a vacuum.

A vulnerability could be discovered that needs a fix.

The operating system could change in such a way that eventually leads to the software not functioning on later versions.

The encryption algorithms supported by the server could be updated, rendering the client unable to connect.

It might be a really long time before any of that happens, but without a maintainer, that could be the end.

[–] deadcream@sopuli.xyz 32 points 9 months ago

That can be true for self-contained command line tools, but not for complex programs with actively development dependencies (especially anything dealing with networking or encryption). For example hexchat uses GTK2 which is likely to be removed from mainstream distro repos in the coming years because it has been obsolete for a long time. Also openssl which is known to change its API occasionally which means that anything that uses it needs to be updated to stay compatible.

[–] venia_sil@fedia.io 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This. Sometimes a software is just finished. IRC itself has not seen change in like... about all the time I remember.

[–] me@t.joeldebruijn.nl 1 points 9 months ago

@venia_sil @SomeBoyo @amaki @OsrsNeedsF2P
Is it different with XMPP?
Adoption relatively low but still in active development?

[–] smotherlove@sh.itjust.works 14 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

You can fork it and continue developing it if you want

edit: you downvoting losers probably don't seed your torrents either

[–] andrew@radiation.party 3 points 9 months ago

The lifecycle would continue. Xchat to ychat to hexchat to dodecahedronchat…

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 13 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Maybe Matrix is the way forward.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I hope so, but the protocol seems to be complex by several order of magnitude.

[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm not familiar with either protocol - what is it that makes IRC so simple and Matrix complicated?

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

a lot of the complexity in matrix comes from it trying to make a robust platform where users on each server don't have to worry the other servers, beyond the ability to reach users on those servers.

Basically the way it works is that each server keeps a copy of all the important data in a channel/room, so that no matter which or how many other servers become unreachable, local users are unaffected beyond being unable to reach the users on those servers.

It's really nice and IMO absolutely worth the complexity, and it's not like most devs really have to worry about this as they can simply use a library to handle the details.

And as for clients, that remains pretty trivial to implement a basic shitty one like what most people's first experience is with IRC..

[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 1 points 9 months ago

This is also a drawback imo, as it locks out people with limited storage. Like me. I need this storage for media on my site. I don't mind chats existing on several servers, but let people opt out of that at least.

[–] EngineerGaming@feddit.nl 1 points 9 months ago

It's more akin to XMPP rather than IRC. From what I've seen, a Matrix server would be more resource-heavy than an XMPP one. Synapse one would probably not run on my weak machine at all, and Dendrite/Conduit are not feature-complete. And the primary reason I still haven't been on Matrix is that I have very limited disk space on my VPS, and Matrix saves media from every chat its servers are on, and I still haven't figured out how to opt out of that.

[–] hyperhopper@lemmy.world 8 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Weechat is the only other irc client I recommend

[–] SomeBoyo@feddit.de 3 points 9 months ago

How are it's xdcc capabilities?

[–] toketin@feddit.it 5 points 9 months ago

Konversation

[–] caveman@lemmy.ml 1 points 7 months ago

I enjoy XMPP with Gadjim client and Cheogram on Android.

Since then I don't miss IRC anymore

[–] pastermil@sh.itjust.works 7 points 9 months ago

What a shame :(

Hopes the project lives on, one way or another.