Personally I used to use Pidgin, but since I moved my XMPP to Gajim because of OMEMO I have no need to stay tied to it necessarily. So I'm looking to expand my horizons, and I figured here's as good a place as any to start a discussion about Linux IRC clients.
Only tried issri on CLI Linux… Hexchat on windows I couldn’t eve get to connect lol. What are people using to keep IRC open, so you can look back on chats? Pretty new to it
I use a GUI, selfhosted and web based instance of The Lounge. Ive been using it for a few years now and its wonderfull. I can be connected at all times without leaving my laptop on. Before that i used Hexchat, dIRC (was a wonderful client for windows, so mist have been around 2000) and mIRC, which i think is still one of the biggest clients.
I tend to vacillate between Konversation and Quassel, although I'm not on IRC anywhere as near as often as I used to be.
Just for fun, I sometimes still fire up BitchX, which I used to have running 24/7, fullscreen, in a dedicated virtual desktop, to feel like the good old DOS days. Given that the latest release was in 2014 (and the last Git commit was in 2019), it's probably not a great idea to use it, though.
I use The Lounge, it's a self hosted server/bouncer that you use through a web UI. That makes it so I can stay online 24/7, and can access IRC from any device including my phone. It even supports push notifications, so when someone pings me on IRC, I get notified on my phone and can go open up the client and look at my chats. It's pretty good!
Not as lightweight as a terminal client, but keeping a Firefox tab open for it isn't that memory hungry. Negligible when you have dozens of tabs open and a few Electron apps anyway.
I'm guessing it's because IRC is proven, robust, simple, and has established communities. It's also extensible and can be run on anonymous networks like i2p