OdysseyChat IRC Clients

[Eugene]

Before recently, I usually logged-on to OdysseyChat using the web interface. That was all fine and good, but the KiwiIRC interface no longer works and I don't like the Mibbit ads. So I installed Pidgin on my PC--which is pretty great and does exactly what I wanted it to do.

But I also wanted to get it on my phone. So I downloaded an app I found called IRCCloud. It's basically an IRC client in the cloud, so you can stay logged in across devices. You create an account on their service... and then you connect to OdysseyChat through that. I've been loving it! The interface is so nice--and has a DARK MODE --with a modern look and great use of colour to distinguish between users. It also lets you auto-login to protected usernames, as you'd expect. It has notifications that you can turn on and off... AND if you turn on the setting, it will automatically inline any images/GIFs that people link to... which is pretty slick.

They do have a paid version of the service that costs about $5/month, but after the trial period, you get the free version! The only thing is that it will log you out after two hours of inactivity if you close the app or web app and you can't save chatlogs permanently. You also don't need a credit card.

If anyone wants to try out a new IRC client, I highly recommend this one!

What client do you use to connect to OdysseyChat? Any other recommendations?

[Danadelfos]

I'm using LimeChat on my Mac. It was the easiest one I could find and free for Mac. But I don't have anything to compare it to so I'm not sure how it compares.

[Kaida]

I use Mibbit. I have an account and go through the Mibbit client. I can keep track of all my logs there and customize what the chat looks like for me. So I made it look all pretty. Well.. as much as I could. Also I don't see ads because I have adblock on chrome.

[snubs]

Been using Pidgin for yearrrsssss. But I'm now thinking of using IRCCloud, if only for my phone, because I currently I don't have anything to use while mobile.

[Pengwin]

I use the same thing as Kaida and my browser comes with ad blocker so I don't see the ads. I like it because you can enable sounds for when you receive a PM, someone says your name, or if someone said something in general. I use that to tell when the chat is active and just mute the tab if I don't want to hear the sounds. I like that I can keep logs there too. I barely started keeping logs this year though. On mobile, I use AndChat (only for Android) which I don't know if it's on the Google Play store anymore but bookworm found the place to download it for Kaida and I.

[DanP740]

I use HexChat on the computer, have for years. There used to be a really nice Android app called AndChat that I used, but they got rid of the free version a while ago and I haven't bothered finding another.

[EK]

I used to use mIRC wayyyy back in the day.

[Eugene]

Oh man, it's cool to hear about all of these clients. I do remember mIRC for some reason... though I don't think that I used it myself.

Yanno what's funny and cool? I've noticed that many people are using IRCCloud now--which is really neat! I hope those who've given it a spin are enjoying it as much as I am!

Would be cool to see the custom smilies in the KiwiIRC interface... I don't think I was around when that got added.

[Bren]

I switched to IRCCloud and am quite pleased with it. Glad I switched.

[snubs]

I'm really liking being able to get on the chat on my phone now. IRCCloud works really well, and looks nice. I'm pretty happy with it! I haven't tried it on my PC yet, but I think I'll just stick with Pidgin for my computer.

#DownWithTeaEss #SpillTheTea

[bookworm]

* Note: Due to Android system changes since this post was originally made, neither of the apps I previously recommended function well anymore on modern phones. I am leaving the post as originally written below, just for reference, but my new recommendation for chatting while on a mobile device is an app called Atomic IRC. This has a very similar interface to what AndChat had, but also properly supports GameBot features like SimpleIRC did, so it is the best of both which can be used for all purpose Chatroom use! Link to download the file and instructions for configuring it are found on this webpage.


I connect to the Chatroom almost exclusively on my phone, switching between two apps depending on what activity I'm doing.

If I'm chatting, I always use AndChat and highly recommend it to anyone else as a mobile client. It's one of the original IRC apps and still one of the best. Great layout, nice functionality, and reliable. It's no longer actively offered for download, but it can still be used if you have the install file. It can be found on apk archive sites, or if you prefer to download directly from me so you have assurance the file is safe and is the exact one I used on my phone you can get it from this webpage.

The only time I don't use AndChat is when we're using the GameBot. For the games to be played properly your chat client must allow two things: notice messages to be displayed in the channel rather than the server tab, and rendering of colored text. Every mobile client I have tried out only allows either one or the other of those things except for one. SimpleIRC is the only app I can find that can do both. So when we start up a game I will drop out of my other client and hop into that for playing. If anyone else needs to do the same the installer is on this webpage along with instructions for configuring it properly for use with GameBot.

[Eugene]

That's good to know, bookworm! Thanks for the links too. My primary phone is from Apple, but I also have an Android that I sometimes use around the house and for development, so I'll try them out on there!

Just wanted to mention that IRCCloud also supports coloured text and notice messages in channels. So that's an option for people who want to interact with GameBot on an iPhone too!

Edit: Apparently IRCCloud only supports notice messages in channels with their web client and not in the mobile apps.

[bookworm]

That's great to know, thanks Eugene!

Edit:

I just installed it to check it out, but I'm getting notices in the server window. Guessing you have to change it like with SimpleIRC, but I can't find the setting for that?

[Eugene]

I just installed it to check it out, but I'm getting notices in the server window. Guessing you have to change it like with SimpleIRC, but I can't find the setting for that?

Oh man...I guess that I'm misremembered. I really thought that IRCCloud did that on mobile too. I just checked and it does it in the web client, but seemingly not in the mobile app...so maybe I was just thinking of the web client? That or I'm confusing it with one of the other IRC iPhone apps I tried over the past month. Weird.

Oopsie, sorry for the bad info.

[bookworm]

Yeah I'm looking at their GitHub and it seems channel notices was requested but never implemented. Unfortunate.

[Bob]

Logging is extremely important to me, so many of my clients were picked with that #1 in mind. I tried at least one online client, Mibbit (on their website), but the logging just flat out refused to work, so I gave up on it. I find applications more accessible than in-browser, anyway.

Windows: I used IceChat and HexChat, but settled on the latter for some reason that seemed evident at the time. Even HexChat had flaws, though; maybe it's because I used the Microsoft app store or something, but I remember the logs being more difficult to get to than they should've been. I'd probably have used mIRC if I was willing to pay, but I wasn't.
Linux: So far I mostly use Konversation, but I've tried Pidgin too and liked it. I think Quassel does do logs, but for various reasons I remember it being more of a hassle than it was worth. I can't speak for the console-based clients, as I never tried them. GNOME's Polari was sleek but had no features, and gets an anti-recommendation.
OS X (macOS): Textual seems to be the gold standard, but it does have a price tag. If you plan on using IRC all the time, though, I feel like it pays itself off eventually. If I still used a Mac day to day, I expect I'd have stuck with that. Colloquy for Mac has apparently been discontinued, which is just as well - it was acceptable, but old, and more importantly, its logging was bad, because the logs were basically only readable in Colloquy itself; if you loaded them in a text editor, you had to sift through a lot of formatting. Snak was the 'old battleship' of Mac IRC clients, but it isn't supported anymore (the company released a free registration for it; you can still get that on Archive.org), and needs an older version of the OS to run. It had a Classic Maccish aesthetic with fancy HTML logs, though.
From the stock irc.odyssey.chat options, Kiwi is the best and well-liked by almost everyone who used it, but it's hit and miss whether it will be active or not; I suspect it updates itself when Tim's not looking, and the updates break it. Most chatters, in practice, seem to stick with Mibbit. The Java and CGI clients are for legacy support more than anything else, and if you have such an old machine, chances are you'd get a far better experience by using a dedicated IRC client.

I'm clueless when it comes to mobile. I looked at different options for my iPhone but nothing looked good; I eventually figured that maybe I'm just not meant to use IRC on mobile devices. I don't use the phone that much anyway if I can help it, so it isn't that big of a deal.