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Comment by na85 | Hacker News Reader

I would love to see IRC make a comeback but the fact is IRC on mobile is a pain in the ass. Users want persistence and IRC is designed for the opposite.

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I agree. We should evolve the IRC spec to support the modern requirements of common users. Then web clients are just an addition. Call it IRC2 or anything if it offends the original IRC nerds (which I'm part of)

Well, there's IRCv3... Problem with multi-device is you need some way of authenticating multiple TCP connections as the same logical user, at which point a lot of IRC's simplicity of implementation has been lost. Whether that's a worthwhile sacrifice is a different question though; I think it might be (as a young IRC nerd).

Irc over ssh would solve that and add encryption as a bonus.

I feel like certificate based authentication with the server as an optional usermode would solve that.

Yes, I had keys in mind. Some work definitely for UX improvements there, onboarding users.

That’s somewhat the solution irccloud provides, however they need a mobile app. I think the biggest issue with irc is the backlog. It’s somewhat nice to be able to easily search a companies chat history and find some context. The solution to that is correct documentation, however that problem is much harder.

IRCCloud has had iOS and Android apps since 2016. :)

Ha, then mark that problem solved :)

Not only that, their apps are pretty good too.

Signing up for a 3rd party service just to make IRC usable is too much friction to make onboarding new users viable.

Obligatory shoutout to https://thelounge.chat/

Self-hosted an instance two or so years ago and have never run into issues, besides the occasional kick to my reverse proxy. You can create accounts for your friends/family/coworkers, the web app is fast/clean on mobile, and chat logs are persistent.

IRC is pretty much perfect. No "X user is typing" messages. No ads, no tracking, no javascript. No hidden instance of chrome running. The community even self selects in to my own interests.

Dont get why you are downvoted. You list exactly the reasons why we also use IRC.

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