Hi, newbie here, so I ask that you please be kind. I have tentatively used IRC. Is there a way to find channels of interest without having to list the the entire 50,000 or so channels for each network? I can't find the answer on the IRC site so I'm hopeful someone can enlighten me. Thanks!

Try a site like http://irc.netsplit.de/channels/ or http://searchirc.com/ . Note that McAfee recommends not downloading files from the second one. That does not mean you can't search for channels and join them. Just don't download files from the website itself.

Thank you! That is what I have been trying to find.