Chat Services

One of the reasons you got on the Internet was to communicate with other people.  One of the most popular Internet pastimes is "chatting", or exchanging text in real time with other users.  There are countless chat rooms available throughout the Internet, but most fall into one of two categories:

IRC: IRC (Internet Relay Chat) provides a way of communicating in real time with people from all over the world. It consists of various separate networks (or "nets") of IRC servers, machines that allow you to connect to IRC. The largest nets are EFnet (the original IRC net, often having more than 32,000 people at once), Undernet, IRCnet, DALnet, and NewNet.  IRC requires you, the user, to have a separate piece of software, called a "client" to connect to IRC servers.  IRC was created before the explosion of the World Wide Web, and it is popular with long-time Internet users.  www.irchelp.org can help with a lot of beginner's questions about IRC chat.

Web-Based Chat: As the popularity of the World Wide Web has grown, new methods of connecting people have arisen.  Many Web site owners now offer chat rooms within their Web pages.

Listed below are some other popular resources for Internet chat:

Yahoo! offers a long list of Internet services, including one of the most popular chat services anywhere.  All of the Yahoo! chat rooms are browser-based, which means that you don't need any special software on your computer to join in.  Yahoo! may install a plug-in to your browser, but any recent browser from Netscape or Microsoft will work well.  Click here to try it out.

Microsoft offers both browser-based chat here as well as a chat program for IRC chat rooms.  You can get it with Internet Explorer at Microsoft.

mIRC offers one of the most popular programs for accessing IRC Chat rooms.  Their page at www.mirc.com also contains many valuable links to help get you started on IRC.

Ok, so now I know about chat. What is Instant Messaging?

What do all those crazy Abbreviations mean?