Welcome to IRC. People who use IRC will generally leave their client open and not be there to chat they are called Idlers. Also many are bots.
It can be hours before someone replies.
Try the channels with the most people on maybe someone will talk to you but yeah most probably won't.
If you see your sent messages it is working you are on a channel.
I recommend connect to DalNet network more people chat there. You could be trying many servers before you find your "tribe" to communicate with.
I think where IRC is most popular these days is places that don't speak English on completely opposite time zones.
I recommend windows 98SE with Mirc 6.21 and perhaps sygate personal firewall.
Many of the servers listed on the old mirc are dead or now encrypted.
You need patience with IRC it's still alive though.

Heres a thread that talks about other IRC clients if your curious Best IRC client for Windows 98?

zapbuzz wrote on 2026-04-01, 20:33:

Welcome to IRC. People who use IRC will generally leave their client open and not be there to chat they are called Idlers. Also […]
Show full quote

Welcome to IRC. People who use IRC will generally leave their client open and not be there to chat they are called Idlers. Also many are bots.
It can be hours before someone replies.
Try the channels with the most people on maybe someone will talk to you but yeah most probably won't.
If you see your sent messages it is working you are on a channel.
I recommend connect to DalNet network more people chat there. You could be trying many servers before you find your "tribe" to communicate with.
I think where IRC is most popular these days is places that don't speak English on completely opposite time zones.
I recommend windows 98SE with Mirc 6.21 and perhaps sygate personal firewall.
Many of the servers listed on the old mirc are dead or now encrypted.
You need patience with IRC it's still alive though.

Heres a thread that talks about other IRC clients if your curious Best IRC client for Windows 98?

Interesting, I didn't realize most channels are more or less dead or that there are so many idlers, I'll check out that version of mIRC. I've heard you need to register some versions of mIRC though, is it applicable to that version?

I gave up with IRC about 3-4 years ago, using Discord instead. Yes, lots of idlers and very few talkers.

Used to have Sygate Firewall on my windows 2000 machine, back in the day. It worked pretty well but it hasn't been updated since then. It would nag to get registered at every boot.

bunghole102 wrote on 2026-04-01, 22:06:

zapbuzz wrote on 2026-04-01, 20:33:

Welcome to IRC. People who use IRC will generally leave their client open and not be there to chat they are called Idlers. Also […]
Show full quote

Welcome to IRC. People who use IRC will generally leave their client open and not be there to chat they are called Idlers. Also many are bots.
It can be hours before someone replies.
Try the channels with the most people on maybe someone will talk to you but yeah most probably won't.
If you see your sent messages it is working you are on a channel.
I recommend connect to DalNet network more people chat there. You could be trying many servers before you find your "tribe" to communicate with.
I think where IRC is most popular these days is places that don't speak English on completely opposite time zones.
I recommend windows 98SE with Mirc 6.21 and perhaps sygate personal firewall.
Many of the servers listed on the old mirc are dead or now encrypted.
You need patience with IRC it's still alive though.

Heres a thread that talks about other IRC clients if your curious Best IRC client for Windows 98?

Interesting, I didn't realize most channels are more or less dead or that there are so many idlers, I'll check out that version of mIRC. I've heard you need to register some versions of mIRC though, is it applicable to that version?

even discord isn't much better and mirc does need to be registered but when the shareware expires whos gonna tell on you for removing mirc from the registry to restart another 30 days I won't tell if you don't or perhaps find an old xchat version if you prefer non expiry (and that wants to be registered too)

Robbbert wrote on 2026-04-02, 07:09:

I gave up with IRC about 3-4 years ago, using Discord instead. Yes, lots of idlers and very few talkers.

Used to have Sygate Firewall on my windows 2000 machine, back in the day. It worked pretty well but it hasn't been updated since then. It would nag to get registered at every boot.

When I install sygate it says register so I fill the form out then it launches web browser to a dead connection after that no more nags.
Its not up to date but I have a good hardware firewall I use Windows Me with patched upnp that talks to the firewall I just have sygate it warns of apps trying to access the web that would otherwise just connect or broadcast without warning.