Friendly IRC-based Web Chat

The History of IRC: From a Finnish University Lab to the Internet’s First Real-Time Chat Revolution. In the late 1980s, long before Discord, Slack, WhatsApp, or even AOL Instant Messenger existed, a Finnish student created something revolutionary: Internet Relay Chat (IRC). Today, in 2026, IRC still powers thousands of communities, gaming groups, tech support channels, and nostalgia-driven hangouts. While it may look old-school compared to modern apps, its influence on real-t