The following article contains the list of five free Windows IRC clients. These IRC clients let you chat with anyone on any IRC server, IRC channel, or directly with any IRC user. All these IRC clients for Windows are small in size, and have a nice looking UI.
If you have no clue about IRC, do check out “What is IRC?”
Now here is a list of five popular free IRC clients for Windows:
X-chat 2:
X-chat 2 is one of the most popular Windows IRC client software. It has a nice polished UI, which can be easily be understood by beginners, while experienced users can customize by using plugins available for it. The best part about it, it is open source. X-chat 2 supports multi-server, multi-channel, and dialog windows. X-chat 2 also offers a host of external downloadable plugins, which makes it highly customizable and configurable. X-chat 2 supports auto completion of commands and nicknames too. This free IRC client handles multiple windows using tree interface which makes navigation a breeze. All these features makes it one of the most popular IRC client for Windows out there.
IceChat:
IceChat is another popular Windows IRC client. It comes with most of the major features that a good IRC client must have, plus a little more. It looks really nice and comes with loads of features. The software is stable and it is in constant development. The design of this IRC client is very simple and elegant, so even beginners can use the software without any problem.This IRC client supports emotions, multi-servers, skins, scripting and customizable popup menus and multiple profiles. This makes the application good for everyone from beginner to advance power users
Quassel IRC:
Quassel IRC is one of the most modern looking free IRC client out there. The application is cross-platform, which makes it even better. This IRC client offers slick and clean-looking UI. It is one of the best IRC clients for beginners. It comes with a unique distributed IRC client architecture. Basically, even if you open multiple instances of this IRC client, it will run just one copy of the main software, still letting you work on multiple instances of client. So, it does not uses too much system memory even when you are running multiple instances.
Nettalk:
Nettalk is a simple yet powerful open source IRC client for windows. The software is made in a way that makes it feel much like a native Windows application. This IRC client for Windows is really easy to configure and supports good amount of UI customization. One of the best feature on the application is ability to auto complete commands, syntax, and nick names. And offers the ability to display on-screen messages.
HydraIRC:
HydraIRC is a small, light weight, fast, open source IRC client. It has really nice UI. The software supports host of features. The interface might look overwhelming for beginner but in a while you will notice it has been designed in such a way that a beginner can start experiencing advance features with ease. After a while you will get used to it.
So, all these are my favorite IRC clients for Windows that let you quickly experience IRC. If you have any other personal favorite, do mention in comments.
