Vortec IRC Chat

Being active in IRC chat, I always am looking at various IRC Chat Clients. I've been chatting since the infancy of IRC and have tried about every client that came along. Most of the time, I have reverted back to Pirch98 because of it's simplicity and realiability. My wife Meg is a die hard Pirch98 user so needless to say we have it on all of our computers. The main problem with Pirch98 is it hasn't been supported ot updated since 1998.
I recently discovered Vortec IRC. Vortec is freeware developed by John Kirkland. As is the usual case with projects of this type it has to be a labor of love for John as he devotes a lot of time to the project. Vortec isn't Pirch98. To quote the Vortec webpage, "Vortec IRC was developed as a response to a lack of Pirch updates. Vortec is not meant to be a replacement for Pirch, but rather a client which looks and behaves similarly in order to offer a logical choice to users who would like to try something new, but still maintain the same ease of use and flexibility which was characteristic of Pirch."
That is exactly what Vortec does and it does it well! I always have liked the way you could write an Alias in Pirch98. For those not familiar with what an alias is, it is a method of designating a short /command of a few letter or numbers to perform a command in IRC or provide strings of text without having to type out the text. The alias function in vortec works exactly as it does in Pirch98. That in itself earns an A+ from me. For those that like to utilize Popups in chat, the capability to get creative with them can be had in Vortec.
As with any software, Vortec has had it's share of bugs. There is a support forum on the vortec site and John is very responsive to getting the bugs fixed. Another A+ for Vortec.
Below is a screen shot of Vortec. The display, font and color options are nearly endless. Click on the image for a larger view.




Click here to get your copy of Vortec.
While Vortec is freeware, a small contribution to the program can be made via Paypal on the the site to help defray costs involved with making it available. Money well spent!