Back before discovering Matrix, I mainly used IRC to talk with friends. Those were simple times, mainly spent using either mIRC or WeeChat.

Recently, I needed some help getting BIRD working on the latest version, which meant I had to go on Libera Chat, and ask there. I then searched “IRC” in my Flatpak browser and found out about Halloy.

Halloy is a free and Open-Source IRC client created in 2022, with its first version being released in june 2023, written in Rust and licensed under the GPLv3.0 licence.

So far, using this client has been a breeze. It looks good by default, has support for IRCv3 features, and receives updates really frequently (about once a month at the time of writing). Early on, I had some questions about configuring some aspects of Halloy and the people in the Libera Chat channel (including the main developer) were quick and really helpful.

If you still use IRC for whatever, consider giving Halloy a try, it works nicely.