Mac OSX IRC Clients...
 

i need to know your take on OSX IRC clients.
Please answer these questions, because i am having trouble deciding wich one i want to use more often.

What IRC Client or OSX do you reccomend?
What do you think is better? Ircle, Snak, or iRC

I would use Akwa IRC but i dont want to buy it, its the best one i think, but i have to buy it....

[edit: -mt]

I use X-Chat Aqua, it's free, and has all of the features I need. I also use XHintsChat, but that only connects to #macosxhints.

I used snak until i discovered x-chat aqua.

For about 7 years I have been an Ircle user and love it; I've tried Snak several times, but never got accustomed to the UI. Many hardcore IRC users swear by CLI IRC clients like Bitchx.

Or xchat if you have X11...

As much as I don't like either, I still think Snak and Ircle are the best IRC clients. They are both a rip off price wise, and neither are as good as the PC options available.

I have tried a ton of new OSX IRC clients but all of them either missing features, or are very buggy. X-Chat was probably the best of the bunch of out of the freeware ones. They haven't seemed to be doing any work on it lately though which kind of sucks. For awhile it was coming along great.

I am a long time ircle user, for more than 6 years. It works well does everything I need it to do, with one exception, I can not dcc send while using airport but otherwise it is outstanding. for $15 it money well spent if your a daily irc user

I think Snak is great, but once x11 became available, I switched to xchat and never looked back. It might seem like a hassle at first, but for the curious, I would strongly recommend installing fink, then typing apt-get xchat. It takes a while to download/install all the pieces, but it's worth it.

Xchat is far and away the best gui irc client I've seen. And with fink and apple's x11.app, it's a breeze to setup and run -- really!

And don't be fooled by xchat-aqua. It's in early beta, and still a pale imitation of the x11 version.

I was referring to X-Chat Aqua in my post. It might be in beta still, but it's feature set rivals both Snak and Ircle already. I don't use X11 so I can't comment on that version.

I noticed after posting that there was a newer version of X-Chat Aqua then I was running. I have been trying it out, and it's quite an improvement.

I personally think $15 is too much for something like an IRC client. I hope X-chat keeps improving. I hope the other freeware options keep improving as well. It's one of those situations where there are a ton of great free options for PC, and nothing but a few overpriced apps for Mac.

how in the world can a piece of software that I have used every day for the past 6 years be overpriced at $15!!!!!! you cant even get drunk on 15 bucks in a bar ( an I am a sober unit) or buy a decent dinner for two

I said why. Because in the PC world there are IRC clients that destroy anything available for Mac for free. I just think it's a shame when you can't find something as simple as a good, free IRC client for Mac OS. I don't think most Mac clients can even compete with mIRC. It's not like this is a graphics suite or something...it's just an IRC client.

If you want to pay $15 for Ircle and like it, then good for you. I'll use X Chat for free and put the $15 towards getting drunk:)

It's really a shame that mIRC is still the best IRC client in the world. I've used it for years and now that I stopped using Windows I find it very sad that I'll have to stick with Xchat (which sucks but is so much better than ircle).
Isn't there anyone out there who can code something like mIRC in an opensource project? :(

mIRC? (cringe)
 

What is it you like so much about mIRC that ircle doesn't have? Any time I've used mIRC, it just seems gaudy and obnoxious. Not something I would want on my Mac.

mIRC has an interface that is actually user friendly. Ircle is a pain in the ass. If I had to pick between the "2 big" Mac clients I would take Snak just because it's closer to mIRC. All the Mac IRC apps crowd the interface for no reason. mIRC keeps is simple, but keep all the commands convienient to access. That's all an IRC client needs. mIRC also has way better scripts available (if you need that kind of thing).

I dunno, mIRC just makes more sense to me.

what mirc can not do is send real time video or audio while ircle can even if it only is mac to mac. mirc does have better scripting. but then it is a windows product and not a mac product. I have xchat that I can use under x11 maybe its the fact that I am away more accomplished ircle user that makes ircle way easier to use

Ya that's my point. If you really dive into learning Ircle it's really powerful. But mIRC is simple to use AND powerful. And basically free to use. I wish someone would port it for OSX. Or just make a client that is evem similar to it.

been using Xchat forever on my Linux machine, so it was great to see that it ran so nicely on X11 on Mac. i've rarely found something people can do on windoze mIRC that I can't do with xchat. Hadn't heard about this xchat-aqua, though -- I'll have to check it out. thanks for the tip! :)

The biggest thing I dont like about all the IRC clients for mac is there isn't a clean way to get a list of all channels on a server in a single window and find what you want. It always seems like its messed up or they dont even have that option, especially in XChat. Any other ways of doing this? :confused:

http://www.damienbenoit.com/mod.jpg

Why dont images show up in your sig also?

I'm interested as to why nobody's mentioned Jabber yet. So I will! :D

You can use a Jabber client to talk to any instant messaging network, including IRC. Jabber is cross-platform: works anywhere, with any network. Whether you're on IRC, Jabber itself, AIM, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ (I'm sure I've left one or two out), you can do it all via Jabber.

Using a Jabber client like Psi (truly cross-platform, available for Mac, Windows and various flavours of *nux), you have all these networks accessible from one handy little interface, which includes file transfer to all platforms, groupchat and upcoming MUC support. Why have a client for each network? You can do it all with one Jabber client, and Jabber is open-source, so growing and developing all the time, for free.

Lots more good info at Psi or www.jabber.org.

The Psi forums are very helpful and welcoming. There are several language packs (localizations) for Psi (I just finished making one), and great iconsets. It's extremely effective and useful, but also fun, and I don't think any of us would really turn up his/her nose at fun!

Why not download a Jabber client and give it a go? Enjoy :)

from Clytie, who keeps track of many different people and networks via her one Psi app.

I checked it out but Im looking for a client that just connects to IRC servers. Thats about all I really want! Something that will give me a list of the channels!

Psi will do that, via its main menu -> browse services -> ICQ transport, which will list the channels available.

After all, you never know when you'll want to talk to someone on one of the (other) IM networks ...

and it's got a great interface, is completely free, open source, with a terrific user community that's very supportive! Not to mention the configurable aspects of the interface, including a big choice of custom icons.

When I compare the way it looks, and works, with ircle, it's like different timelines.

from Clytie, who uses Psi for all sorts of things.

Considering that on effnet there is like 55 thoushad channels it's very hard to sort that my date. the connection tends to swamp my connections, Ircle will do it well on the smaller net works. but if your looking for a Good channel google <IRC whatyourinto> and find some of the better channels.

What I'd like to know is if there are any Mac OSX irc clients that have fserv capabilities...