IRC, is it slowly dying out?

Kahr · Joined: 27 Oct 2004 Posts: 67 Location: Svelvik, Norway

As of lately, it has come to my attention that it seems to be dying. I don't know why, or even for how long it has been like that, but everything seems to slow down. People leave... People stop talking. Tons of people I know are IDLE 90% of the time they're online. Or even more. I've seen nicks that don't speak for several weeks, that simply drops a line and then goes idle again.

My question is if IRC is dying, or if I am simply in all the wrong places with all the wrong people? It just doesn't seem to be what it once was to me.
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"One Ring to link them all, One Ring to ping them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness sniff them"

ed · Joined: 27 Oct 2004 Posts: 12 Location: Houston, Texas

IRC isn't dying a fast death, that's for sure. I think a few aspects may contribute to its demise.... (or maybe "sense of demise" may be a better term)

- The rise of warez on IRC networks. We are now seeing networks started with the sole purpose of providing warez. IRC was never created with file-trading in mind. I think this has a lot to do with the "lack of activity" seen. More and more users are coming to IRC to trade files, not to chat.

- The rise of small networks. (This isn't a Bad Thing, to an extent). It used to be, that the majority of chatters were on one of the main (large) networks. Now we have thousands of networks that are hosting chatters... this decreases the change of seeing active chat.

This said, I still make visits to networks, and see quite a few with very active channels - sometimes you just have to look hard Wink

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SearchIRC

Asmo · Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 11:05 am?? ?Post subject:

I sincerely think that the security issues around IRC will ultimately mean the end of it.

The way IRC is being abused currently by users to host bots will in the end not be tolerated anymore by governments.

Also how light heartly those users use ddos to ddos servers for whatever reason (or no reason at all) will mean sponsors will stop investing in the medium. They dont gain anything out of it anyway, only waste bandwidt, and loss of services due to ddos now and then.

We'll all have to move to MSN or so in the future ;) Unless the way IRC works changes radically. We already have seen networks adding hosthiding, removing server notices and other info, etc. But how things are now, with all the networks implementing their own idea's I see things black for the future of IRC as a whole.
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Asmo

webmaster www.IRC-Junkie.org

Kahr · Joined: 27 Oct 2004 Posts: 67 Location: Svelvik, Norway

Well, could be that something completely new and more secure will be developed in the future. I don't know. IRC always seemed more appealing to me than MSN. There is so much more than just... "Chatting to someone in fancy MSN-colors". And if we have some smartasses out there, perhaps they will see the truth of this and try to knock their heads together for a better IRCristing future. Something new. Something better. But still the same old interface we're used to. I actually think that might be a great idea.

Just don't ask me to code anything. Razz

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"One Ring to link them all, One Ring to ping them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness sniff them"

Mentality · Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 32

I don't think governments will have much to do with it, but the threat of quality ISPs/companies/etc not offering their bandwidth is a real threat. That said, the question "is IRC dying?" has been seriously suggested ever since DALnet started to get attacked ages ago. It's still not got any less popular though.

A lot of people know my views on using IRC for warez. It is, strangely, keeping IRC alive and at the same time killing it off. The former, in the sense that more and more people are using IRC for file trading, the latter, in the sense that there will be no more chatting channels soon enough, and everything will just be warez, warez, warez. Would DALnet still be only a 30-35k strong network had they not banned warez?

I don't care if people use Kazaa or iMesh etc. for file trading, the legalities is not something that gets to me (as much). It's just using IRC for it really gets my blood boiling. It is not helped by certain people though - netsplit.de links to several IRC XDCC search engines, and when I spoke to netsplit.de's webmaster about that, the response was basically "I don't like it either, but it's better to work with the file traders than against them." I also see some #mIRC channels (specifically, EFnets) willfully offering a URL which gives help on file trading. The URL also strongly emphasises the dangers of file trading, but I think this is a useless approach. People do not care about the dangers - which is, in turn, leading to the demise of IRC. The webmasters of irchelp.org should take that page down in my opinion.

Warez is one of the main sources of the lack of security on IRC. It is also the death of the letter C in IRC. And yet, despite this, nobody will take forceful action to stop it. They'd rather preach about the rights of freedom on the Internet and all that rubbish. No single one person can, but people will not agree to ban file trading - EFnet admins won't do it, nor will Undernet opers enforce it, it would seem. Each come up with excuse after excuse. Rizon admins won't do it either, and that's only because their popularity is solely dependant on file trading and the admins prefer having power over lots of users than the future of IRC. I understand that if all the big IRC networks stopped allowing it, people would move to elsewhere but that would take time. Then, after that, pressure should just be put on those IRC networks too.

*sigh* what's the point in ranting I ask myself. Very few care, none of whom can do anything about it. A terrible shame though. Sad

Regards,
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Mentality/Chris

Asmo · Posted: Thu Oct 28, 2004 8:29 pm?? ?Post subject:

Ib3N · Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 89

Pardon me if it has already been said, but IMHO IRC is not dying, its just de-centralizing. The trend to stay on smaller nets with ~1000-3000 users has increased, and the smaller nets grow becaus of this.

Another reason for users idling alot, is that with mIRC6.0 it finally implemented multiservers, so many more users are active on other nets than their primary one (like quakenet, dalnet, undernet efenet)

My 2 cents

DjSlash · Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 4 Location: Netherlands

DjSlash · Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 4 Location: Netherlands

For being on topic, I don't think that IRC would ever die. My guess is, that people are flooded on the net, without knowing what the internet is all about. Thinking that internet is only somewhat browsing and email (well, and warez), people should be more informed. But when people are longer active on the net, people can get more information out of it and learn that there is more, like IRC. With that, they will be seen more on different networks.

Secondly, don't forget that there ARE thousands of networks, which make combined together a lot of people on IRC. Despite the drones/bots/scripts, many people are familiar with chatting, becoming more active at IRC. So, to my conclusion, I would say that IRC is waiting for many people to come.
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DjSlash
Technical manager, Global-Security VOF
http://gs-hosting.nl/ - http://djslash.org/ - http://selkoppel.nl/
Server Admin, irc.drlnet.com - http://drlnet.com/

Asmo · Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2004 3:22 pm?? ?Post subject:

DjSlash · Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 4 Location: Netherlands

I've never seen a good program on TV about computers and internet (at least not in the netherlands). Only when something is notifyable, is there some news about it. But that only lasts a day. The media should pay more attention to the internet, make people know what there is. And schools should learn kids more about it.
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DjSlash
Technical manager, Global-Security VOF
http://gs-hosting.nl/ - http://djslash.org/ - http://selkoppel.nl/
Server Admin, irc.drlnet.com - http://drlnet.com/

Asmo · Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2004 3:49 pm?? ?Post subject:

Then you havent seen last weeks interview with that idiot who ddossed regering.nl (our governments site) at Twee Vandaag, one of the prime news programs on Dutch TV? Or the item in Tros Radar (also last week, one of the prime Dutch consumer TV shows) about spyware and trojans, and how to prevent those?

And if I dig a little deeper I can come up with more such programs.
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Asmo

webmaster www.IRC-Junkie.org

DjSlash · Joined: 29 Oct 2004 Posts: 4 Location: Netherlands

No, haven't seen those. But I don't watch that much TV anymore. And those program's aren't ment for it, what you mentioned are news items, just for one moment. You have to see it, to catch it. If there whould be some program, especially about computers (just like those many damned car programs), there would be commercials about it, more talks about it and people can see what items are being handled.
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DjSlash
Technical manager, Global-Security VOF
http://gs-hosting.nl/ - http://djslash.org/ - http://selkoppel.nl/
Server Admin, irc.drlnet.com - http://drlnet.com/

equalslashed · Joined: 30 Oct 2004 Posts: 2

Actually, the IRC for warez killing chat is kind of wrong. Only those who use bottlers are killing the chat element. However, I've seen many chat channels of warez channels have great chatting activity.
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ClubCX · Joined: 30 Oct 2004 Posts: 1 Location: Bournemouth, UK

I think some of the blame has to fall on the rise of broadband internet. Back then nobody had cable modems, we all had dial-up. When you logged onto a network even a small one, you knew that everybody was at the keyboard and usually active in at least one channel.

Now that cable modems are so common, people are just idling on irc 24 hours a day, too busy with their lives to actually get online except at the weekends, and it's much more difficult to find decent conversation because of it. Small networks in particular aren't doing themselves any favours by allowing it.

There are still a few good old-fashioned networks out there. I put their success down to the fact that most of their users are on webtv and hence only log on when they're active. Banning warez helps too ofc.