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A history of IRC: from a Finnish university in 1988 to Libera.ChatAlmost nothing built on the 1980s internet is still in daily use. IRC is. The full arc — the summer it was written, live war reporting, the great network splits, the rise and fall of Freenode, and the stable niche it holds in 2026.
Freenode vs Libera.Chat: how the largest IRC network destroyed itself in 2021For twenty years Freenode WAS open-source IRC. In the spring of 2021 it came apart in three weeks. The full timeline of the takeover, the staff walkout that created Libera.Chat, the channel seizures and the database wipe — and what it means if your old docs still say "Freenode."
Is IRC dead in 2026? The actual numbers, not the vibesPeople have filed IRC's obituary every year since 2005. Here are the real 2026 numbers, what actually died, what didn't, and an honest answer to whether you should bother.
Whatever happened to QuakeNet, the biggest chat network there ever was?In 2005 QuakeNet held more simultaneous users than any IRC network before or since — 243,394 at once. Today it runs about 5,500. It didn't die, despite what the internet will tell you. Here's the rise, the fall, and what's left.