Are there easy ways to get an IRC experience without missing messages?

Matrix is a new, open communication protocol that supports bridging with many other services. https://riot.im is the reference client, but others are starting to crop up. It’s federated, like email, so you can get an account on any homeserver and if that homeserver federates (i.e. doesn’t block communication with other homeservers), you can talk to people on other homeservers, like email.

Anyway, the largest homeserver, matrix.org, bridges all of Freenode as well as OFTC and Gimpnet, so joining IRC rooms is just as easy as joining matrix rooms. A Freenode example would be #freenode_#nixos:matrix.org.

It is why I like IRC channels to have public logs. (These can be client-based logs or server-based logs; all I know are client-based, although server-based logs are also possible and this is independent of the protocol; you don't need a new protocol to support them, although of course some way of accessing them would then be needed; Gopher (or HTTP) would work fine, and the topic message could link to them.)

Have you seen https://www.irccloud.com/ ? "IRCCloud is an IRC client with a future. Stay connected, chat from anywhere, and never miss a message."

bnc