HydraIRC 1.1

HydraIRC is a non-mIRC IRC solution for Windows. The application clearly has nothing to do with mIRC. I say this because these days most applications for IRC are mIRC add-ons. This is not the case with HydraIRC, which apparently built its application from the ground up. The IRC client has a lot of features that make of this a great contender. It supports multiple server connections, tabbed chatting, DCC chat and file transfers, scripts, and more. The great thing about this project is that it is entirely open source, which means that anyone can write features and submit them. Also, since this is not an add-on for mIRC, you don't need to install anything else before being able to connect to the IRC. Other than the previously mentioned features, I have to highlight the fact that HydraIRC is extremely stable and has features that make it easy to use. I especially like the text highlighting features, which highlight text based on your preferences. There are also both visual and sound notifications.