Looking for an alternative to the normal chat rooms full of people doing nothing more than starting fights, or else bots searching for people to spam their porn sites with?  Check out Internet Relay Chat or IRC.  It’s a wonderful network filled with hundreds of thousands of people from all across the world.  People on IRC meet for many different reasons.  Some meet just to talk, others meet to be a part of the gaming community.

There are groups for Yorkies, Star Wars, Chuck Norris, and even programmers.  Almost everyone can find something on IRC.  Wondering exactly how to get there?  First I suggest downloading a copy of mIRC which is a client program that you can use to connect to the IRC network of your choice.  mIRC is free for the first thirty days after that it’s only twenty dollars to register and support the talented scriptor who has designed the program.  You can find mIRC here www.mirc.com and download it here. 

Next do a search around www.searchirc.com on the networks page to find a network that interests you.  Some are geared towards specific games, others chat, others specific countries, some are small with less than 40 users total, others are huge and have over 150,000 users at most times of the day.  Some have claimed to find true love on IRC, while I wouldn’t suggest it’s use for a dating channel, it is a great place to meet new people and share ideas, and cultures. 

I spend at least 2 hours on IRC every day, and I have several friends who are in England, Australia, Scotland and other countries that I would have never meet otherwise.  These are a lot of great people who are wonderful to talk to, and who have a great heart and are always willing to answer any questions that you have. 

Where else can you find so many people all in one place who typically share a common goal?  Whether it’s for a particular hobby you have, or just in the search of friendship or learning about other cultures it’s all on IRC.  Forget it’s all on e-bay, its all on IRC you can find almost anything you would ever want.  Friends, learning and just plain old hanging out is all around the IRC world. 

So go check it out, find a network that looks interesting and show some support to the community.  You’ll find it’s more addicting than any normal chat room could ever be.  What’s the harm in that? Nothing better than meeting new people and having fun at the same time.