Articles tagged `#news`

news

• bIRC is a new native macOS IRC client — and the timing could not be betterA genuinely new Mac client with deep IRCv3 support, bouncer compatibility, DCC and JavaScript scripting, arriving into a platform that just lost Textual and has been watching LimeChat rot. The catch: it is closed source.
• Ergo 2.19.1 fixes three security holes — update your IRC server nowTwo high-severity authorization bugs and one SSRF, all affecting every Ergo release up to and including 2.19.0. Account suspensions could be bypassed and users could delete messages they had no right to touch. Upgrade to 2.19.1.
• Halloy 2026.7 released, with a new Windows installerHalloy 2026.7 continues the monthly-ish cadence of the best modern IRC client — and swaps the Windows MSI for a per-user installer. Update paths for every platform.
• Halloy 2026.8 released — channel monitor, in-app config editor, keyring supportThe July release adds a combined view of every joined channel, lets you edit the config without leaving the app, and moves passwords into the system keyring. Undo/redo in the input box too, which is rarer than it should be.
• HexChat dropped from Debian testing, two years after its final releaseDebian has removed HexChat from testing, and Flathub has delisted it — the slow packaging goodbye that follows a discontinued upstream. What HexChat users on Linux should expect next.
• IRC in the first half of 2026: what actually changedReplies and reactions became real IRC features this year, not experiments. Six dead clients were struck off the record, AI provenance got its first disclosure norm, and a Commodore 64 got an IRC client. The developments that actually reach users, and what they mean.
• IRCv3 drops six abandoned clients from its support tablesHexChat, LimeChat, IceChat, Colloquy, Ambassador and Moon Moon were removed from ircv3.net on 7 August, each with a stated reason. It is the clearest single signal yet of which desktop clients the ecosystem now considers over.
• IRCv3 now flags AI-assisted clients in its support tablesA small grey robot icon has appeared next to three entries on ircv3.net, meaning "development assisted using AI". The Lounge is one of them. The change landed on 4 August and is the first disclosure norm of its kind in IRC tooling.
• mIRC 7.84 releasedThirty-one years in, mIRC keeps shipping: 7.84 is out with the usual mix of fixes and refinements. Where to get it, and why the update cadence itself is the story.
• Palaver has disappeared from the App StorePalaver, one of the last classic native iOS IRC clients, was quietly removed from the App Store in early January. What its users should do, and what is left for IRC on iPhone.
• Textual, the macOS IRC client, has been sunsetAfter fifteen years, Textual's developer has archived the repository and ended development. The final release is 7.2.7. What existing users should know, and where new Mac users should look instead.
• The Lounge 4.5 is out — and now requires Node 22The Lounge 4.5 drops Node 18 support and requires Node 22 or newer. What self-hosters need to check before upgrading, and the patch releases that followed.
• WeeChat 4.10 adds themes — and finally stops looking wrong on light terminalsA real theming system: a /theme command, themable config options, and a built-in light theme applied automatically the first time you start WeeChat in a light terminal. Plus faster /upgrade and a quicker chat area.
• WeeChat 4.9.4 fixes two serious relay and logger vulnerabilitiesWeeChat 4.9.4 is a security release: an authentication bypass in the relay plugin and a path traversal in the logger. If you run a relay — and relay users are exactly who this hits — update now.
• WeeChat 4.9.5: this time the bugs are not just in the relayA week after 4.9.4, WeeChat shipped three more advisories — and two of them are in the IRC plugin itself, triggered by traffic from the server you are connected to. One affects every version since 0.3.6. Update.