(general reply)
Apart from the fact that
not all protocols are related to illegal file sharing, I think that not implementing something in mirc because it might aid filesharers is pointless. File sharing was, is and will be thriving for a long time, regardless of whatever support mirc offers for related features. How much damage in file sharing do you really think it's done because users cannot click on a non-http url? If people want to run a url, they'll just copy it and /run it or paste it elsewhere or even get some addon/script that enables hotlinks for protocols. All these are ridiculously easy, so nothing is prevented; the only effect is the inconvenience experienced by "legal" users (yes, there are legal uses of protocols and even legal file sharing, even though it's like 0.001% of the cases). Not supporting or disabling useful (even to a minority) features because "it makes it harder for people to do bad things" has never really worked in the past and this isn't going to change. Especially in this case, where the workaround is so simple that my dog can do it.
Oh and before anyone mentions it (I've heard this argument before), disabling commands that start with identifiers/variables (to prevent $decode viruses) in editboxes isn't a similar case, for two reasons. First, this feature is practically useless: I've never needed to directly execute vars/idents in an editbox, nor can I think of a reason anyone would want to. Second, disabling something because you
know it's going to prevent
security breaches is entirely different than disabling something for ethical or other reasons. In case of $decode, security and the element of deception play an important part, which completely separates this issue from file sharing or other personal activities.
