There are a few IRC channels that I frequent, and when I first started out, I was using a trial version of a popular shareware app (sorry no free plug). I wasn’t looking forward to paying the shareware fee, and didn’t really care for some of the features; so I set out to find an alternative.

I found Colloquy. It’s open source, has a great GUI, and isn’t a memory hog… and I’m glad that it’s been recently updated.

New features include:

• Less crashes—disabled the Chat Activity toolbar item until it can be fixed.
• French localization disabled until the English interface is finalized.
• Notifications are back! Check out the Notification preferences. (No bubbles yet—future option.)
• Mode changes show up in the chat area as events now.
• Handles /join commands properly, joining passworded rooms with “/join #room password” works now.
• Slight improvements to URL detection.

>> Colloquy