WinShoe

With the rise of social media, instant messaging and collaborative video conferencing tools, IRC’s popularity is not was it used to be before the ‘00s. Nevertheless, there are still people who enjoy simple text conversations and being able to create their own text-based chat servers. A dedicated client is needed to connect to IRC, and one of the available ones is called WinShoe.

This particular application comes in two flavors: as an installer and as a portable tool, both delivered to you in the downloaded package. Using the portable version requires no installation and leaves no traces on the host system, which are two of the most important reasons why you should try it out.

As most IRC clients, WinShoe displays its status within the main window and allows you to connect to the desired IRC networks, opening up a new window for each new connection to help you monitor its state. SSL/TLS connections are possible.

The application comes with a generous selection of networks that you can choose from and it shows the number of servers for each. It is easy to manage networks, servers and channels, as the lists are editable in app dialogs.

While a basic IRC client at core, WinShoe does come with a few extra features that make it stand out in the crowd, as described below.  For your convenience, it features a Windows jump list task command that you can use to bring all the WinShoe windows to the foreground while using another software.

Working with WinShoe is easier thanks to the quick connect button its alias commands. It comes with options to modify the right-click popup menus as you consider fit.

Other features worth-mentioning are its ability to cross post from one network to another and its support for automatic quizzes, states and timers.

There is more to discover about WinShoe than shown above so, if you are a fan of IRC, this client is one of the tools you can use to connect to your favorite servers.