Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels,[1] but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages[2] as well as chat and data transfer,[3] including file sharing.[4]
| International standard | RFC 1459 |
|---|---|
| Developed by | Jarkko Oikarinen |
| Introduced | Late August, 1988 |
| Industry | Instant messaging |
| Superseded by | Not yet superseded IRCv3 (standards process working group) |
| Internet protocol suite |
|---|
| Application layer |
| Transport layer |
| Internet layer |
| Link layer |
Internet Relay Chat is implemented as an application layer protocol to facilitate communication in the form of text. The chat process works on a client–server networking model. Users connect, using a client—which may be a web app, a standalone desktop program, or embedded into part of a larger program—to an IRC server, which may be part of a larger IRC network. Examples of programs used to connect include Mibbit, IRCCloud, KiwiIRC, and mIRC.
IRC usage has been declining steadily since 2003, losing 60 percent of its users.[5] In April 2011, the top 100 IRC networks served more than half a million users at a time.[6]