Quote:
Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic
What's popular today? Efnet? Linknet? Unfortunately we cannot host an IRC bot ourselves or our ISP will shut us down.
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Best to stay away from what's popular and use a semi-private network. Usually a bit stricter controls to prevent all the script-kiddies from causing problems. Though it's definately a struggling protocol for anything but the more, ahem, lucrative topics

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sff.net does have an IRC setup, and for the more mainstream user that doesn't want to bother with a IRC client they have a Java based IRC frontend on their website.
Another option, though heavier on the backend as a result is a chat program called Flashchat which is surprisingly well made for a program that only costs $5. I've used it on several forums and other then IRC I think it's the best chat available. Integrates quite well with a variety of forum backends.
http://www.tufat.com/s_flash_chat_chatroom.htm
-MJ