X-Chat IRC Client -- Freeware Builds for Windows
Posted on Thursday, March 23, 2006 at 8:53 PM by Randall
The X-Chat IRC client is open source software and is considered one of the best cross-platform IRC clients. Unfortunately, the "official" Windows built is shareware. According the FAQ on the official build page, this is because "building X-Chat for Windows is a difficult process, it requires quite some skill and expertise to accomplish. It takes time, and is by no means automated." However, who needs an official build when there are freeware builds out there. (This is one of the advantages of open source software -- one development team can't hold the software hostage to their own ideas of how things should be done.) A number of freeware builds of X-Chat for Windows are tracked on this site. I've selected the two that seem to be the best maintained and updated to list here.
The Daemon404 build of X-Chat for Windows is currently at version 2.6.1 and has the fiollowing features according to its web site:
Compiled with MS Visual C++ .NET 2003
Statically linked with MiniGTK.
Uses MiniSSL (Made from OpenSSL 0.9.8a)
Supports DCC64 (Large File Transfers)
Supports /dccserver command
Native IPv6 Support
Plugins Enabled
Includes Easy Installer
Includes plugins for Winamp, X-Tray, /exec, /dns, /ut (Uptime), Perl 5.8, TCL 8.4, Python 2.4, Ruby 1.8
Includes All Current Translations
This build is statically linked with GTK+ libraries, so you do not need a copy of this library set on your system.
The SilvereX build of X-Chat for Windows is currently at version 2.6.10-20050823 and has the following features according to its web site:
40 language translations
encrypted connections using OpenSSL 0.9.8a
native IPv6 support on Windows with IPv6 stack
Perl, Python, Ruby and Tcl language interface plugins for scripting
Winamp, Whois in active window, DNS and EXEC, X-Tray binary plugins
various themes with graphical theme and font utility
While this build is dynamically linked to the GTK+ libraries, it installs its own private copies so you do not need to already have them on your system.
If you need a great IRC program for Windows, there is no need to pay for MIRC, the freeware builds of X-Chat for Windows offer lots of features and all the power the average user -- and most power users -- will need.