IRC, or Internet Relay Chat, is one of the oldest forms of instant messaging (IM) available on the Internet. It was created in 1988 by a young Finnish programmer that had entirely too much time on his hands and a desire to chat with friends over data networks. Here you can find a link to the first mention of IRC on Usenet.
IRC was never meant to be flashy with lots of pretty graphics or icons, nor a lot of multimedia features. In the 15 years since its first appearance, it remains true to its original concept: simple, easy to use instant messaging with the ability to do file transfers (called DCC transfers, for Direct-Computer-to-Computer).
IRC isn't loaded with crap like most modern IM programs are, most notably AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), ICQ (I-Seek-You), MSN Messenger, or YIM (Yahoo Instant Messenger). IRC doesn't have emoticons (gads, you have to type :) to get a smiley, no pointing and clicking); it's not voice enabled (no voice? That's right, no voice capability); and it's pretty simplistic because it does what it was originally designed to do:
Allow people to communicate in a primarily text-based communication medium with minimal fuss or hassles.
All modern day IM clients have their roots in IRC - all of them.
I've been using IRC myself since 1989 to keep in touch with thousands upon thousands of people on various topics and continue to use it almost daily. I met sulwyn[bb] on the Bondage IRC network and helped her deal with some abuse issues she suffered at the hands of a relatively unscrupulous online hypnotist. We got to know each other more closely and our relationship has progressed to where it stands today.
mIRC, pronounced "mercy," is a very popular IRC client program (the program used to connect to the aforementioned IRC networks) for Windows operating system-based computers. There are other IRC clients available for Windows, and clients for other operating systems like Unix/Linux and Macintoshes, but because Windows tends to be the "dominant" OS we'll focus on it and the most "dominant" IRC client for Windows, mIRC.
*Note: Although mIRC is sometimes pronounced "mercy," IRC itself is still known by the three letters - I R C and not "ercy." :)
The mIRC homepage can be found at www.mirc.com
You can download the most current copy from links on this page: Download mIRC
Pick a download location close to you, left click the link and choose a download location to save the installer file onto your hard drive. You'll need to remember where you downloaded that .exe (exectuable) file to so you can then install mIRC.
The following installation and setup instructions are current as of version 6.16 of mIRC, but any future releases *may* be slightly different. If that turns out to be the case, I'll edit this page and the screenshots appropriately as needed.
Once the download is complete, find that .exe file and double click on it. In a moment you'll see the following:
Click next and you'll see the license agreement:
Click "Yes" to accept it and install the program, or you can choose "No" and quit the installation.
If you choose "Yes" you'll see this screen where you can pick the installation directory. mIRC defaults to C:\mIRC but you can choose to install it to a different location by changing the destination folder by clicking the Browse button or simply typing the new location and then clicking the Install button:
During the installation you'll see a progress bar (represented in the next picture as the dark blue line and the percentage reading):
When the installation is done, you'll see the following (and a seperate window will pop open also):
You can choose to read the Help file if needed (always accessible when running mIRC by pressing the F1 key on your keyboard or by going to Help - Contents on the Menu bar), or you can choose to launch mIRC at this time by placing the appropriate checkmarks in the two boxes shown and clicking Finish.
If you choose to launch mIRC at this time, you'll see the following after several seconds:
A large program window will appear (this is the main mIRC program window) and a smaller floating window will appear above it, and looks like this:
This is pretty simple to understand, but I'll explain it briefly.
In the Full Name: field, you can put whatever name you choose to reveal to others on the IRC networks. Most - if not all - users never put their real legal names; that's a security risk and in today's world of identity theft, my suggestion is to choose a nickname for yourself, a virtual identity (like the one I use, br0adband).
In the Email Adress: field, you can put whatever email address you wish to reveal to others on the IRC networks. You do not have to put a real email address, just so you know. It's an easy way for people to spam your email account if you have one and you reveal it here. I put an old one that I rarely if ever check anymore (br0adband@hotmail.com). Once you begin to make friends on IRC, you can reveal your true email address(es) to the people you come to know on an individual basis.
In the Nickname: field, here is where you choose a nickname. There are two issues to be concerned with here and I'll make them simple. There are a lot of IRC networks available, and mIRC comes preconfigured with a lot of them already (more about this later). The two issues are this:
1) Some IRC networks - like EFnet, the original IRC network - don't allow nicknames longer than 9 characters in length (br0adband is 9 characters long).
2) Some newer IRC networks do allow nicknames longer than 9 characters long - all the way up to thirty characters. Years ago I was a regular user of the DALnet IRC network and created this nickname: ThisNickIsThirtyCharactersLong - yes, it's 30 characters long exactly. :)
There is really no immediate way to know how many characters the network you're planning to connect to will allow until you connect to it, but if you choose one longer than 9 characters and you connect to a network that cuts it off, well, it cuts it off.
A nickname like "Mikes_Girlfriend" would become "Mikes_Gir" on a 9 character-limited IRC network.
Got it? For starters, choose a nickname that's 9 characters long or less. Just so you know, the Bondage IRC network allows nicknames up to 30 characters.
In the Alternative: field, choose a secondary nickname just in case the primary nickname you want is being used by someone else - and that happens a lot unless you choose something truly unique and unusual.
Put a check in the Invisible mode box so that no one can see you when you first begin your IRC journey. It helps sometimes because it prevents spambots from seeing you in channel listings - a more complicated item I'll leave for you to learn about at the mIRC homepage.
Here's how mine looks (this is just an example for you to see, don't use my nickname and settings, please):
Next, highlight the Servers selection on the left pane and you'll see this:
If you click the little down arrow next to the word "All" in the IRC network box, you'll see this:
As I said before, mIRC comes preconfigured with a lot of IRC networks already installed. What's important here is to realize the difference between a network and a server.
When you pick an IRC network, what you'll be connecting to is actually one computer that is part of a larger network. Imagine it like this:
Suppose you have a phone number at home, like 555-1212 (just an example, of course).
Now suppose you have several rooms in your house: the living room, the kitchen, and 3 bedrooms. That's 5 rooms. Now let's suppose you have a phone in each room in the house - that's a lot of phones, right? But...
They're all the same phone number. Get it?
When you connect to an IRC network, that's like the wiring in your house that connects all the different phone lines to the main one that comes in from the telephone pole or from the phone company. That main connection is similar in concept to the Internet itself.
The Internet (the phone company and it's nationwide network) is connected to your house by a single line (unless you have multiple phone numbers). That phone number is like the IRC server in a way. It's a unique address/identifier - no one else has that number except you.
To explain it in reality, it works like this:
The Bondage IRC network is made up of 5 servers, and they're named as follows:
irc.bondage.com, irc1.bondage.com, irc2.bondage.com, irc3.bondage.com, and irc4.bondage.com
Each of those servers - like the 5 rooms in your house with phones in each - are all connected together to form a network. It doesn't matter which one of them you connect to, you're still on the same network. If you pick up the phone in the living room and someone picks up a phone in one of the bedrooms, you can talk to each other (over the din of the dialtone, but you get the idea). You're still connected on the same "phone network" inside your home.
Simple, right? Sorry, I get wordy in my teaching sometimes. I'll leave it as it is for now, and if you have problems or questions, you can always reach me at the email address on the Contact Us page.
Just choose any one of those servers listed above and you'll connect to the Bondage IRC network. For my purposes here, I'm going to concentrate on showing you how to connect to the Bondage IRC network, which isn't installed with mIRC by default.
Don't worry, it's very easy to connect to the Bondage IRC network. In truth, you can install mIRC and be connected in under 5 minutes. Seriously. :)
Ok, click that little down arrow once more to close that drop down menu list.
You should be back to this now:
If you intend to connect to the Bondage IRC network to find me or sulwyn[bb], there is nothing else that needs to be done on this Servers page, so click on Options in the left pane, and you'll see this:
Nothing on this page really needs to be modified, so I won't go into extreme details. You can leave this page of Options as shown above and connect to any IRC network.
Click the Local Info entry in the left pane and you see this:
The fields on this page will take care of themselves and shouldn't pose any problems. When you connect to an IRC network, mIRC will do some automatic settings for you in the background as the connection is being made. No worries, folks, it's all good.
Click the Identd entry on the left and you see this:
Identd (Identification daemon) is a way for an IRC server to verify that you are who you say you are when you connect to it. Over the past 10 years or so a popular form of attacking IRC servers, called spoofing, almost caused the total demise of many networks, including the DALnet IRC network, one of the largest and most popular ones.
What happens with Identd is that you identify who you are by your nickname and your Internet connection (again, this activity of identifying usually happens in the background when you connect to a network) and the IRC server allows you to connect. If you have a firewall on your PC or your Internet connection you might encounter problems connecting because most firewalls block port 113 which is the connection port used to transmit and receive the identification data.
If that's the case, most firewalls can be set to allow the incoming connection to the Identd server in mIRC so you can connect. For those users that have Windows XP with Service Pack 2 installed, the XP firewall is on by default and will block the Ident port 113.
I'll provide another page of instructions you can find here for those people using Windows XP Service Pack 2.
Here is how I have my Identd settings configured:
You place your nickname in the User ID: field - it's limited to the first 9 characters, however - and then check the box at the top to Enable Identd server. Then you connect to your IRC network of choice and you should be good to go.
The Firewall tab on the left pane can get pretty complicated and doesn't really have much use for most people, so I'll pass on explaining that for now.
Click here to go to page 2 of this IRC connection tutorial.