I know it is confusing. Basically, if I want to use mIRC (or any other chat client) to chat on that chat site, I have to pay the $7.77/year. They say it is to cover the cost of bandwidth. If I use java, there is no fee. I understood your explaination and reasoning. It costs them money to run a chat server and charging to access their chat server with mIRC covers that cost. Thank you