is mirc more secure than say, MSN Messenger? How is it different? For someone looking for a good place to chat without all the frills. Thanks.
boogerina

mIRC uses IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Although that is still a way to chat, it is NOT an instant messenger at all. IRC was available long before Instant Messengers. IRC is a LOT of networks, each with a lot of servers, where the biggest networks have over 100,000 different chat rooms. Chat rooms can sometimes have thousands of people in them at once. It's not just a one-on-one way to talk to people. The emphasis is more on community than on individuals.

IM is good for quick conversations between people you know. IRC is good for long conversations, or other things such as trivia and such, with people you don't know yet (and those you do know). You don't meet people on IM very often... it's usually someone you know or else someone who knows someone you know. On IRC, you meet new people all the time.

It is up to you what exactly you're looking for. They really can't be compared to each other. Both have their uses and both have pluses and minuses. I use IM for people I know to quickly contact me. I use IRC to chat with lots of people, play trivia, script, etc. For me, IRC is much more important to me than IM. For others, it's the other way. Some will support IRC and some will support IM and some will support both. Only you can really decide what is best for your needs.

As far as security, it depends what you choose to do with it. You can use SSL connections if you choose to, so that is secure. It's pretty much secure regardless if you use SSL, though.

The biggest thing that can make it less secure is when you run scripts or commands that you know nothing about. I'll warn you right out not to ever type a command that uses $decode because those are usually dangerous in one way or another. As soon as you type a command or run a script that you don't trust and/or know something about, you risk having problems. With MSN, you don't have scripting, so this isn't an issue. In that way, you *could* say MSN is more secure, but you don't *have* to run scripts or commands you don't know, so the amount of security in mIRC is up to you.

Also, remember that downloading anything online, from IRC or IM or FTP or wherever, you risk getting a LOT of viruses.

Finally, mIRC isn't meant to be fancy, or as you worded it, it doesn't have a lot of frills. At least, not plain "vanilla" mIRC without any script running. You can get scripts that can make it into something really fancy and with a lot of frills, if you really want to. mIRC isn't quite as intuitive as IM (it's not as easy to learn), but if you are willing to put in a little effort, it isn't really that hard, either. I definitely recommend it. It can be a lot of fun, and if you feel like learning to script, you can make some really cool things.

If you do check it out and you decide that you want to try out some scripts, I would recommend a source like http://www.mircscripts.org/ because they check all scripts that are submitted for backdoors, keyloggers, etc., so you shouldn't have to worry too much about those ones. You can also ask us here about a script to see if we have opinions on it.

RusselB wonders who he should contact about getting Riamus' reply made into a sticky for others to be able to reference quickly,

An excellent job, Riamus.

Lol!

Thanks.

/me throws crumpled bits of paper at Mentality .

I think he's pretty much the only mod who is active regularly.

-genius_at_work

Dont forget qwerty he recently got the promotion :P

Recently? I thought he was a mod for a long time.

I'm not really very active due to personal reasons, some of the other mods don't post but they are watching (not to mention Tjerk and Khaled)! *g*

Qwerty has been a mod for a couple of months or a bit more. And he watches too. I think.

* Mentality bans genius_at_work from his super secret stash of ParaBrat's cookies due to the paper throwing incident

*waves*

mIRC differs from IM programs in more ways than one could count. First of all, IRC is a protocol made to allow large groups of people share information over the internet in a real-time manner. Various groups around the internet run 'servers' for the IRC clients (and ultimately the users) to connect to - which do all of the routing of the information. Users are then able to chat together in what is called a 'channel', or 1-on-1(almost IM style, if you are stuck on that train of thought) using a 'private message'.

IM protocols do not work in this way at all. With most IM protocols (AIM, Yahoo IM, MSN, ICQ), there are no 'public servers'. Instead, when you connect to one of these services, you first connect to a place that supplies your client program with another server to connect to that is picked based on how much usage that server is experiencing. The second server that you connect to, is based on a giant list of servers that are all run by the company controlling the IM program (AOL for AIM, Yahoo for Yahoo, M$ for MSN, and so on...), or various affiliates. These servers work in conjunction in such a way that they can share messages and certain other information with each other, so that when one user sends a message to another, the message can make it to the other user regardless of the server that they are on.

Now, one similarity between (m)IRC and most IM programs, is the support for direct connections. This just means that instead of sending messages that are relayed through a server or five(five in the case of IM :P), the messages are sent/recieved directly from your computer to your connectee's computer. Either way you go, you have to do this if you want to send binary information to each other - as no server wants to deal with the stress of 'relaying' 100MB worth of data for each user that chooses to do so :P.

Google shows a warning message if i try to open this link: "This site may harm your computer" !?

Probably not the best place to post that. Anyhow, yes, Google shows that as a warning because the site has downloadable scripts for mIRC, which *may* be harmful to your computer. It also has a popup that Google may not like.

Visiting the site is safe. I do it often enough.