Filesharing Overview

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Download Anything Free with IRC!

IRC is an incredible tool for finding files. Learning how to navigate is a challenge, but once you do, you'll quickly find IRC to be an invaluable resource for the files you need. Many of the files that are on other P2P programs initially appear on IRC. It is only after these files appear on IRC or the newsgroups do they trickle down to P2P networks. Generally speaking, if you look on the P2P networks and Bit Torrent sites and cannot find something, you still have a great chance of finding it with IRC. No kidding, it’s huge. I love it. You’ll even find PSP games here!

Using IRC will be different than other P2P programs, as chatting was its original purpose. However, once IRC file-sharing was established, it exploded and channels, or chat rooms, dedicated to music, movies and applications were created. Within these rooms, people run File Servers (called “Fserves” in IRC lingo). Inside these channels, it's possible to conduct searches, chat, and make a file request. Although you'll have to connect to a central server to join an IRC network, file transfers are pure P2P. IRC is made up of hundreds of servers which are organized into smaller, independent networks. You'll discover a world of file-sharing that blows the previous P2P communities away.

How do you tap in to all this excitement? Like any other network, you need a client (program) to connect to it. I have just the one for ya:

mIRC is the most popular IRC client, and for good reason. mIRC is feature packed, and fully customizable. It is easy to use for the beginner and has advanced features once you get to know your way around. There are several key setup options that need to be made so mIRC can download properly. Follow the installation and set up instructions carefully! The problems people most frequently encounter are usually caused by improper set up. Once you are up and going you will find IRC to be loaded with music, movies, games, programs, video clips, e-books, and everything else you could possibly want!

After you have installed it, let’s get started. Open the program. Click “View” at the top, select “Options.” Find “Sounds” on the left, click it, then select “Requests” underneath that. Remove the check from “Send ‘!nick’ file as private message.” After that, click on “Connect” on the right, then fill in the information. Click “Servers” and scroll down until you find an Undernet server that is closest you. Click “OK.”

Tip: You can use a fake name and email address. I do. Also, make your nickname and it’s alternative very unique. There are a ton of people on IRC. It’s not too important, so random letters would work.

Now we need to get you logged on. Click the fourth icon from the left on the toolbar at the top. In the “Match Text” field, enter “mp3” and click “Get List.” After it is done searching, you’ll have a list of servers sharing mp3s that shows how many people are in the room. Obviously the more popular rooms have a bigger selection to choose from. Double click a room to enter.

When you first log on, it’s a little confusing and looks like a chat room with a million people talking at once. That’s ok. You’re not there to see what they are saying. Once you know what you are looking for and how to get it, it’s a breeze. In the example, we will assume that you are looking for a particular song.

In the chat room, everything is done with text commands. There are 2 main search commands: @locator and @find. Which one you depends on the chat room you enter. If one doesn’t work, use the other. So, type “@ find Sinatra” to find songs that contain the word “Sinatra.” The query will hit every server in the channel. If the song is available, an Fserve will message you (You will see a blinking bar at the top of the screen. Click it.) They will then give instructions on how to download.

Let’s say you get a response from an FServe, named “Sinatra1.” To access his list of files, you will need to type “@Sinatra1” in the chat room. A small popup window will appear asking if you want to download his text of available files. Click yes. The server will then send you a text message with a list of all files available on his server.

Whether you browse an Fserver's file list or search for a specific file, the command to download the file is very similar. Depending on the Fserve, you may have to copy and past more than just the file name. Each Fserve is a bit different. Make sure you read the instructions they send.

After you are placed in queue, don't leave the home channel or you will be kicked off the queue list.

That’s all there is to it. Using that example, you should be able to start navigating the IRC channels. There are a ton of useful ones. You can find channels for e-books, movies, programs, games, whatever you want. We have barely scraped the surface of what IRC contains. If you are looking for something in particular that you cannot find, Change main servers. Search again. If still no luck, do a Google search for “Search IRC” There are a few sites that can actually search IRC, one is http://www.searchirc.com. Have fun with this huge source of files!