You can keep your AIM, MSN, and Yahoo chat clients with the flashy graphics and the bloated features… IRC has been around almost two decades (it’s 20-year anniversary will be August of 2008.). It is still going strong because simple text with a few commands and features is basically all you need. It is also one of the few places left where you can reliably find some pretty wise individuals. Sysadmins, hackers of hat both black and white, developers, Wikipedians, pirates, and specialists of every stripe inhabit IRC, making it a kind of Mos Eisley Cantina of the Internet.

And the Chatzilla plug-in for Firefox makes IRC just as user-friendly as the other chat protocols. You’ll be very relieved to see that this client requires no complex command lines. On installing, it slips into your “tools” menu. On activating, it will fire up a welcome page that remembers your last user-name and lists both networks to connect to and places to find help, with clickable links. Click a server and it connects you.

You can configure your own color schemes and styles, set modes, and even list and join channels all from the menus at the top. No more having to rack your brain remembering those arcane commands and +/- option switches; it’s all click ‘n’ go!

ChatZilla has been with me for some time – so long that I forgot to review it! It hits a sweet spot between being just enough without being too much.

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