mIRC is an
Internet Relay Chat
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...
(IRC) client for
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
, created in 1995. It is a fully functional chat utility and its
integrated scripting language makes it
extensible
Extensibility is a software engineering and systems design principle that provides for future growth. Extensibility is a measure of the ability to extend a system and the level of effort required to implement the extension. Extensions can be t ...
and versatile.
mIRC has been described as "one of the most popular IRC clients available for Windows."
It has been downloaded over 40 million times from
CNET's
Download.com
CNET Download (originally Download.com) is an Internet download directory website launched in 1996 as a part of CNET. Initially it resided on the domain ''download.com'', and then ''download.com.com'' for a while, and is now ''download.cnet.com'' ...
service.
In 2003, Nielsen/NetRatings ranked mIRC among the top ten most popular Internet applications.
History
mIRC was created by Khaled Mardam-Bey ( ar, خالد مردم بي), a
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
programmer. He began developing the software in late 1994, and released its first version on 28 February 1995.
Mardam-Bey states that he decided to create mIRC because he felt the first
IRC
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called '' channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat an ...
client
Client(s) or The Client may refer to:
* Client (business)
* Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer
* Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuabl ...
s for Windows lacked some basic IRC features. He then continued developing it due to the challenge and the fact that people appreciated his work. The author states that its subsequent popularity allowed him to make a living out of mIRC.
mIRC is
shareware and requires payment for registration after the 30-day evaluation period.
The developer states that version 5.91 is the final one to support
16-bit
16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors.
A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mo ...
Windows;
6.35 is the last to support
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...
,
NT 4.0
Windows NT 4.0 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 3.51, which was released to manufacturing on July 31, 1996, and then to retail ...
,
98, and
ME. The current version supports
Windows XP
Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...
and later.
Music video released in 2006 for "
Boten Anna
"Boten Anna" ("Anna the Bot") is a song by Swedish musician Basshunter, from his first studio album, '' LOL''. Following the single's release in 2006, Basshunter gained popularity in his native Sweden, as well as Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Norwa ...
" by
Basshunter
Jonas Erik Altberg (; born 22 December 1984), known professionally as Basshunter, is a Swedish singer, record producer, songwriter and DJ.
Basshunter has recorded five studio albums: ''The Bassmachine'' (2004), ''LOL'' (2006), ''Now You're Gone ...
features mIRC.
Main features
mIRC has a number of distinguishing features. One is its scripting language which is further developed with each version. The scripting language can be used to make minor changes to the program like custom commands (aliases),
but can also used to completely alter the behavior and appearance of mIRC. Another claimed feature is mIRC's file sharing abilities, via the
DCC protocol, featuring a built-in file server.
Starting with mIRC 7.1, released on 30 July 2010,
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
and
IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. IPv ...
are supported.
mIRC scripting
mIRC's abilities and behaviors can be altered and extended using the embedded mIRC scripting language. mIRC includes its own GUI scripting editor,
with help that has been described as "extremely detailed".
Due to the level of access the language has to a user's computer — for example, being able to rename and delete files — a number of abusive scripts have been made. One example of abuse was that executed with the $decode identifier which decodes a given encoded string.
The issue was reported in August 2001; even five months later, users were still being reported as having fallen prey, tricked into executing commands on their systems which result in "handing control of
heirmIRC over to somebody else".
[Lo, Joseph, ed. (January 4, 2002)]
"IRC News Jan 04 02 Happy 2002 - //$decode trojan keeps going and going... "
. and
"Aug 30 01 mIRC $decode() exploit." IRChelp.org. This led to changes being made in mIRC version 6.17: according to the author, $decode is now disabled by default, and various other features which can be considered dangerous are now lockable.
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mirc
Windows Internet Relay Chat clients
1995 software
Windows-only shareware
