Quassel IRC, or Quassel, is a graphical, distributed, cross-platform

IRC client Internet Relay Chat (IRC) 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 and ...

, introduced in 2008."Changelog"
. Quassel-IRC.org. It is released under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

version 2 and version 3, for

GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

and

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

operating systems,

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, and

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

. It has also been ported to

OS/2 Warp OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 re ...

due to its cross-platform nature. Since the release of

Kubuntu Kubuntu ( ) is an official flavor of the Ubuntu operating system that uses the KDE Plasma Desktop instead of the GNOME desktop environment. As part of the Ubuntu project, Kubuntu uses the same underlying systems. Kubuntu shares the same repositor ...

9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) Quassel is Kubuntu's default IRC client.Overa, Adam (October 19, 2009)
"Large IRC Clients"

Tom's Hardware ''Tom's Hardware'' is an online publication owned by Future plc and focused on technology. It was founded in 1996 by Thomas Pabst. It provides articles, news, price comparisons, videos and reviews on computer hardware and high technology. The si ...

. Quassel uses the Qt application framework.

Structure

Quassel is based on a

client–server model The client–server model is a distributed application structure that partitions tasks or workloads between the providers of a resource or service, called servers, and service requesters, called clients. Often clients and servers communicate over ...

. The core application uses a LAN or the Internet to connect to one or more clients, and also various IRC servers. The client does not communicate with the IRC server directly; it does so through the core. This way, the connection to the IRC network is maintained by the core, even though no clients are using it."10 of the Best Free Linux IRC Clients : Quassel IRC"
LinuxLinks.com. August 30, 2009. A ''monolith'' version of the application is also supported; which acts like a normal IRC client, with no separation between core and client. Android (Quasseldroid) and iOS (iQuassel) clients are also available. This system is similar to what

Irssi Irssi ( ) is an IRC client program for Linux, FreeBSD, macOS and Microsoft Windows. It was originally written by Timo Sirainen, and released under the terms of the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later in January 1999. Features Irssi is written in the C progra ...

, WeeChat with

GNU Screen GNU Screen is a terminal multiplexer, a software application that can be used to multiplex several virtual consoles, allowing a user to access multiple separate login sessions inside a single terminal window, or detach and reattach sessions from ...

, and

Smuxi Smuxi is a cross-platform IRC client for the GNOME desktop inspired by Irssi. It pioneered the concept of separating the frontend client from the backend engine which manages connections to IRC servers inside a single graphical application. Arch ...

use.

Features

Quassel allows simultaneous connections to multiple IRC servers. Different identities can be created, and used on one or more of the servers the core connects to. These identities each contain default nicknames, fallback nicknames, away messages and so on. Each identity can be assigned to one or more servers."About Quassel IRC"
Quassel-IRC.org Quassel stores discussion history in either a

PostgreSQL PostgreSQL (, ), also known as Postgres, is a free and open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) emphasizing extensibility and SQL compliance. It was originally named POSTGRES, referring to its origins as a successor to the In ...

or a

SQLite SQLite (, ) is a database engine written in the C programming language. It is not a standalone app; rather, it is a library that software developers embed in their apps. As such, it belongs to the family of embedded databases. It is the most ...

database. When scrolling up through the chat window, older sections of chat are loaded automatically from stored logs. In this way, one can seamlessly view logs of past discussions. Aliases, command ''shortcuts'', are also available; with these, a user can create an alias for a long command with many parameters. The connection between the client and the core can be encrypted using

Secure Sockets Layer Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. The protocol is widely used in applications such as email, instant messaging, and voice over IP, but its use in securi ...

(SSL), and proxies are supported. In a 2009 roundup of large IRC clients for

, Adam Overa described Quassel as being "fully featured" with "tons of options", and said "even new users should have no problem connecting to servers and finding channels using the GUI tools for server presets and channel lists."

References

{{IRC clients Internet Relay Chat clients Free software Cross-platform software Windows Internet Relay Chat clients Unix Internet Relay Chat clients Software that uses Qt

Structure

Features

See also

References