mIRC Facts for Kids

mIRC

Screenshot of an unmodified mIRC 7.27 running on Windows 7
Original author(s)	Khaled Mardam-Bey
Developer(s)	mIRC Co. Ltd.
Initial release	28 February 1995 (1995-02-28)

Stable release	7.32 (May 23, 2013; 12 years ago (2013-05-23) )

Written in	C/C++
Operating system	Windows XP and later
Platform	IA-32
Type	IRC client
License	Proprietary/Trialware

mIRC is a special computer program called an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client. It lets you chat with people online in real-time. Think of it like a super-powered chat room program for computers running Windows. It has its own special language, called a scripting language, which makes it very flexible. This means you can change how it looks and what it does!

mIRC was first released in 1995. Since then, it has become one of the most popular IRC chat programs for Windows computers. It's a "shareware" program, which means you can try it for free for 30 days. After that, you need to pay a small fee to keep using it.

How mIRC Started
mIRC Through the Years
Cool Things mIRC Can Do
- Make mIRC Your Own: Scripting
- Sharing Files and More
Images for kids
See also

How mIRC Started

mIRC was created by a British programmer named Khaled Mardam-Bey. He was born in Jordan. He started working on mIRC in late 1994. The very first version came out on February 28, 1995.

Khaled Mardam-Bey decided to create mIRC because he felt that other chat programs for Windows were missing some important features. He kept working on it because he enjoyed the challenge. Also, people really liked what he was building! He says that mIRC became so popular that he could make a living from it. He even jokes that the "m" in mIRC could stand for "moo" or "MU," which means "nothing" in Japanese and Korean.

mIRC Through the Years

Over time, mIRC has been updated to work with newer versions of Windows. Older versions of mIRC supported very old Windows systems. For example, mIRC 5.91 was the last version to work on 16-bit Windows. Version 6.35 was the last one for Windows 95, NT 4.0, 98, and ME. Today, the current version of mIRC works on Windows XP and all newer Windows operating systems.

You might have even seen mIRC in a music video! It appeared in the 2006 music video for the song "Boten Anna" by Basshunter.

Cool Things mIRC Can Do

mIRC has many cool features that make it stand out. One of the best is its scripting language. This language gets better with each new version of mIRC.

Make mIRC Your Own: Scripting

The scripting language lets you make small changes to mIRC. You can create your own custom commands, called "aliases." But you can also use it to completely change how mIRC looks and acts! It's like building your own special tools inside the program.

mIRC even has its own built-in editor to help you write these scripts. It comes with very detailed help guides.

Because these scripts can do a lot on your computer, like renaming or deleting files, some people tried to create harmful scripts. For example, there was a problem reported in 2001 where some users were tricked into running commands that could give others control over their mIRC program. To fix this, mIRC made changes in version 6.17. Now, some features that could be risky are turned off by default or can be locked down to keep you safer.

Sharing Files and More

Another neat feature of mIRC is its ability to share files directly with other users. This uses something called the DCC protocol. It even has a file server built right in!

Since mIRC 7.1, which came out on July 30, 2010, the program also supports Unicode and IPv6. Unicode helps mIRC show text in many different languages from around the world. IPv6 is a newer way for computers to connect to the internet.