Some services offer free SSH accounts, so you can edit and access files anywhere, host websites, use them as proxies (or IPv6 gateways) and some even let you run processes like IRC bots and compilers.

Generally, such free Shell accounts impose a monthly bandwidth quota of a few megabytes, so you don’t use too much of their resources. Some providers are more generous than others, though, and some charge for additional space and bandwidth.

Most SSH providers offer Unix-based hosting. Mitja Sladovic offers a very large list of such free providers.

The most popular service is the SDF Public Access UNIX System, established in 1987. Free users are offered email hosting (POP or IMAP), games, access to the text-based ‘Lynx’ web browser, web hosting, various network utilities and 80MB space. For access to gcc, php etc., one must a one-off fee of $36. In order to validate your account, and receive access to network utilities, one must send them $1 or €5 (in order to deter spammers).

Blinkenshell is another interesting option. Free accounts get 50MiB of space, access to several compilers, an IPv6 tunnel, hosting, email, IRC access and even the ability to have MySQL databases. One can’t use Blinkenshell for IRC bots, though. A few services do provide access to eggdrop, a popular IRC bot, such as Polarhome and aeshells.

Naturally, novices may struggle with such services as no graphical interface is provided. These services do, however, provide a rapid way to compile applications on different platforms (like Linux and BSD) and allow boring processes, like IRC bots, to run for you.

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Given the growing number of social networks, chat addresses and email accounts I had I found it a brilliant solution to keeping it all under check. I also liked the simple but effective design and of course there was that warm early adopter glow of being there to support a growing service from the very beginning.

6 months later and I started to use Pidgin.

This wasn’t a deliberate choice at first, I started dual booting Ubuntu and of course Pidgin is the default chat client. I was immediately impressed by what I saw, it was fast, a lot faster then Digsby and supported a whole lot more chat networks while additionally having some great plugins available.

While Digsby is great in the way it keeps track of social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter the reality is I wasn’t actually using those features very much at all. When I did use them it was through Flock. It did have the very real advantage of Facebook Chat integration which I did use a lot, however I quickly discovered that Pidgin also had a plugin available to achieve this.

Also I found Pidgin had support for IRC Chat which is something I have begun to use a  fair bit lately.

The fact was I was using Digsby, a IM client which was way too resources heavy and susceptible to RAM spikes when Pidgin would do the job better.

I felt a little guilty, but I’m not writing Digsby off at all. I still think it’s great and I really like the direction it’s going in, but I just found a better alternative for my needs at this point in time. Digsby is still a very young client and has a lot of potential. A promised update is coming up to address lots of performance issues and hopefully introduce some new features and I’m looking forward to that.

For now however Pidgin is my stop-gap.

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Hydra IRC is another client that I heard about only recently and it works pretty well. It does come with all the features that one would expect from an IRC client like DCC file transfers, multiple server connections, multiple user identities, channel monitoring and a wealth of other features.

Some would say that the initial layout of the IRC client is a bit messy with lots of information panels everywhere. At start you have the following windows: Server List, Channel List, Channel monitoring with three additional tabs, event log with three additional tabs and the main channel window. Another window is added to the mix when the user connects to a server. This one displays the connected users that are currently in the channel.

The good news is that every window can be removed or minimized to display only the needed ones. Beginners will probably be a bit lost at the beginning because of the sheer size of options and servers to chose from.

IRC is still a nice way to find information pretty fast. Almost every network has channels for programming languages or operating systems where users can receive help when they need it. I’m not sure about the file sharing scene on IRC though if it is still that active and I did not have time to check this out.

Hydra IRC is definitely a nice client for IRC, best of all it is completely free.

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The benefit of a web client is obviously that all the installation and configuration of the IRC client is not necessary. It should also protect the user from all those worms that are spreading on the various IRC networks. Mibbit offers a search over all networks which no client provided back then when I was using IRC. A list displays all the channels sorted from most populated to least that contain the keywords entered in the search.

A click on the result tries to load the IRC channel in a new tab. Mibbit is offering tabbed channels which means that it is possible to connect to more than one channel at a time which is definitely a must on IRC. The layout looks similar to software clients, the page contains a message pane, a user pane and one pane to write messages.

Interaction with other users is rather limit. It is possible to send them a private message, do a whoise or ignore them. I was not able to find out any details about data transfers and think that those are not supported.

Mibbit is a good alternative to IRC clients if you are on IRC to chat, and only to chat. If you are an admin or voiced user or use IRC for file sharing, trading or other stuff then you are still better of using a software client. This is however a great way to connect to IRC with devices that do not have their own IRC software, thinking about video game systems like the Wii, handhelds and mobile phones.

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IRC can be best described as a big chat that supports file downloads as well. Servers like Dalnet, Undernet and Quakenet host thousands of channels of all topics including coding help, game talk, cooking, flirting and downloads. I use it mainly to get an answer to a coding question that I have because you always find some experts that are most of the time happy to help you out.

Talkative IRC is a solid tiny IRC client that is best suited for users who do not want to fiddle around with settings all the time. Connecting to an IRC server is just a click away, it takes some time to find the right server for your needs but once you are in you should begin downloading the groups that are hosted on the server.

Those groups can be filtered afterwards and useful ones can be added to favorites to make it easier to connect to them the next time you are online. Commands are also supported which means that you can for example join a group directly with /join #groupname.

Talkative IRC can be configured to join groups automatically during program start. New networks and servers can be added as well, by default only seven networks are listed.

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Chatzilla opens in a new window, you should take a quick glance at the preferences before you connect to a server. If you do not want to exchange files you should disable DCC in the options. Supported Networks are Efnet, Dalnet, Quakenet and Undernet plus some additional ones. Clicking on a link of a network connects to one of its servers. It is now time to join channels, do so by clicking on IRC > Join channel.

The channel search looks similar to the one offered by mirc, type in a word (xbox, games, counterstrike) and the channel list will display every channel with such a name or topic. Double-Clicking a channel in that list joins that channel and you see the list of users on the right side and the main channel window with the public chat in the middle. If you right-click a user you can open a private chat or send that user a file for instance.

I like this add-on. I sometimes search for specialized information and find that only on IRC. For example if you need coding help you might want to join a channel like #html or #php. The people there are skilled and willed to help you if you phrase your requests properly.

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