mIRC is an

Internet Relay Chat IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for Many-to-many, group communication in discussion forums, called ''#Channels, channels'', but also allows one-on-one communication via instant mess ...

(IRC) client for

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

with an integrated scripting language allowing the creation of

extensions Extension, extend or extended may refer to: Mathematics Logic or set theory * Axiom of extensionality * Extensible cardinal * Extension (model theory) * Extension (proof theory) * Extension (predicate logic), the set of tuples of values t ...

. The software was first released in 1995 and has since been described as "one of the most popular IRC clients available for Windows." mIRC is

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

and requires payment for registration after the 30-day evaluation period.

History

mIRC was created by Khaled Mardam-Bey, a British

programmer A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming. The professional titles Software development, ''software developer'' and Software engineering, ''software engineer' ...

born in Jordan to a

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

father and a

Palestinian Palestinians () are an Arab ethnonational group native to the Levantine region of Palestine. *: "Palestine was part of the first wave of conquest following Muhammad's death in 632 CE; Jerusalem fell to the Caliph Umar in 638. The indigenous p ...

mother. 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 clients for Windows lacked some basic

IRC IRC (Internet Relay Chat) 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 ...

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. He also jokingly states that the "m" in mIRC stands for "moo" or " MU" (meaning 'nothing' in Japanese and Korean). mIRC 5.91 is the final version 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 ...

Windows; 6.35 is the last to support

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

, NT 4.0, 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 successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

and later. The application makes an appearance in the 2006 music video for " Boten Anna" by Swedish singer

Basshunter Jonas Erik Altberg (; born 22 December 1984), known professionally as Basshunter, is a Swedish singer, record producer, songwriter and DJ. As indicated by his stage name, Basshunter is known for bass-heavy Eurodance music. Born and raised in Ha ...

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 DCC may refer to: Biology * Netrin receptor DCC, human receptor protein, and the gene encoding it * Dosage compensation complex Business * Day Chocolate Company * DCC plc, an Irish holding company * Doppelmayr Cable Car, cable car company * D ...

protocol, featuring a built-in file server. Starting with mIRC 7.1, released on 30 July 2010,

Unicode Unicode or ''The Unicode Standard'' or TUS is a character encoding standard maintained by the Unicode Consortium designed to support the use of text in all of the world's writing systems that can be digitized. Version 16.0 defines 154,998 Char ...

and

IPv6 Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communication protocol, communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic ...

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

heir Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offi ...

mIRC 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.

Reception

mIRC has been downloaded over 40 million times from CNET's Download.com service. In 2003, Nielsen/NetRatings ranked mIRC among the top ten most popular Internet applications.

References

External links