Techrights

Freenode 3 Years After the IRC Network's Collapse

Posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jan 22, 2024

Freenode (aka Leenode) in 2024:

freenode in 2024

THIS may be rather hard to believe, but this coming spring Freenode's epic collapse turns 3 and "its servers reported an average of 7333 users," based on this survey from Andreas. It once peaked at nearly 100,000 (around 2015). The other day it had a serious abuse problem (noticed by at least a pair of us) and then a netsplit. To quote from IRC:

>

MinceR leenode's working great lately

MinceR 21 062005 [freenode2] -!- Cannot join to channel

freenode (Channel is full)

MinceR also, yesterday a bot run by one of their

dumbass ircops versioned me 9 times, apparently they believe

that version strings change all the time and yet they're meaningful

MinceR also on the topic of irc networks run by drooling

idiots, ircnet has about 3 usable servers out of 40 lately

schestowitz <MinceR> also, yesterday a bot run by one

of their dumbass ircops versioned me 9 times, apparently they

believe that version strings change all the time and yet they're

meaningful

schestowitz not just yesterday

schestowitz is that harambe?

schestowitz there was a g-line after that, but another user

schestowitz * Received a CTCP VERSION from Harambe

schestowitz * Received a CTCP VERSION from Harambe

schestowitz * Received a CTCP VERSION from Harambe

schestowitz * sbp has quit (G-lined)

schestowitz netsplit the following day

schestowitz 5:19 UTC

MinceR yes, harambe

Last year, mainly due to dropping Matrix, Libera.Chat fell from around 50k users at peak times to an average of 33k. Should Matrix users have been counted at all? Fair question, as many them just lurk and seldom contribute anything. The same goes for IRCCloud users, at least in our experience. With about 32k users online, albeit we estimate about 15% of them are bridged over/across from Matrix, OFTC has nearly caught up with Libera.Chat, users-wise. This renders it almost the "largest" network (among roughly 500 decent-sized networks), with an estimated cross-network userbase of a quarter million. IRC is still a thing! GET USED TO IT! Learn how to use it. We use it a lot. IRC makes people productive (not many clicks like in social control media, not many delays/overhead/lag either).

IRC is still intentionally underrated by the media. Does old mean bad? Was USENET (NNTP) so bad?

You want to share images/videos? Not a problem! Use another, peripheral protocol. Drop a link into a chat/channel. Don't drop every imaginable thing directly into the same platform! It begets bloat and security fiasco.

IRC turned 35 in the middle of last year and it's still going. We're thankful, grateful and appreciative of the work Freenode "staff" did in the years we were there (2008-2021), but now we stand on our own feet with our own IRC network. It can run from two different servers in two different countries, which makes it incredibly hard to censor (logistical barriers). Most of our collaborative work is done over IRC and SSH, both in publicly-logged channels and public channels that are not logged. IRC works exceptionally well for our needs.

As Ryan put it last week in his rant about supposedly "modern" and "secure" things: "“Secure” and “Modern” are increasingly marketing buzz words, which translate to “Heinously bloated” and “under the control of someone else”, counter-respectively. Typically, when someone starts throwing those words around to the point of abuse, I just start tuning out."

All the "modern" communication systems tend to be privacy-violating, bloated, and they're often just IRC copycats that do the same poorly, unreliably, and very inefficiently. █