IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a text-based chat system for instant messaging. IRC is designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels, but also allows one-on-one communication via private messages as well as chat and data transfer, including file sharing. Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRC

IRC XDCC servers have similar content to many torrent sites, but unlike torrents you don't seed, you just download. You can also automate downloading, see !help in any channel.

SceneP2P

Server: irc.scenep2p.net
Ports: 6697 or 9999 (SSL/TLS)
Channels: #the.source #the.lounge

Rizon

Server: irc.rizon.net
Ports: 6697 or 9999 (SSL/TLS)
Channels: #elitewarez #elite-chat

Abandoned

Server: irc.abandoned-irc.net
Ports: 6697 (SSL/TLS)
Channels: #zombie-warez #zw-chat

Abjects

Server: irc.abjects.net
Ports: 9999 (SSL/TLS)
Channels: #moviegods #mg-chat

Channel Commands:

!help - for all commands available.
!search or !s - to find any release.
!get or !g - to download release.
!request WhatYouWant

IRC Commands:

/msg NickServ HELP -- Shows a list of NickServ commands and their usage.
/nick YourNickName -- Changes your current nickname to YourNickName.
/msg NickServ REGISTER [password] [email] -- Registers your current nickname with a password and email.
/msg NickServ IDENTIFY [password] -- Logs in to your registered nickname.
/msg NickServ GHOST [nick] [password] -- Disconnects ghost sessions of your nickname left connected from before.
/msg NickServ INFO [nick] -- Displays information about a registered nickname.
/msg NickServ RELEASE [nick] [password] -- Releases your nickname if it’s held by NickServ (after a disconnect).

Account Security: (after you register your nick)

/msg NickServ SET KILL ON -- Turns on auto-disconnect for users impersonating your registered nickname.
/msg NickServ SET SECURE ON -- Enables extra protection requiring you to identify before using your nickname.
/msg NickServ SET PRIVATE ON -- Makes your NickServ info hidden from other users.
/msg NickServ SET HIDE QUIT ON -- Hides your quit messages from others when you disconnect.
/msg NickServ SET HIDE EMAIL ON -- Keeps your registered email address hidden from other users.
/msg NickServ SET HIDE STATUS ON -- Hides your online status from other users.
/msg NickServ SET HIDE USERMASK ON -- Hides your user mask (host/ident) from others for privacy.

Its recommended that you always use vHost masking. This will hide your ip in channels from everyone except irc admins.

Host Masking

/join #vhost
!vhost what.you.want
(wait a bit, useally not long)
/msg HostServ ON

XDCC Search Engines:

IRC Software:

top 38 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] BlueSquid0741@lemmy.sdf.org 24 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Used to have mIRC downloading music videos on the brand new 56k modem.

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 days ago

Good old days, I remember downloading movies than splitting it into many floppies to share. Once i could get my hands on CDs/DVDs/USBs, collection grew like wildfire, and of course sharing was so much faster. Now I can't use anything except HDDs/SSDs, just so much easier.

[–] bjoern_tantau@swg-empire.de 21 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Not too loud. Don't want the suits to find out.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 11 points 4 days ago

Usenet has existed just fine for decades doing the same thing. They’ll never prosecute for downloaders, only uploaders. And encryption is just getting more and more powerful so that’s unlikely to change.

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 4 days ago

Honestly, I think they are preoccupied with other things right now.

[–] MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Oh wow, an xdcc post, let me use the rare opportunity to plug my project: https://github.com/MaggiWuerze/xddcwebloader

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Very cool, good job!

[–] MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Thanks. I built it mostly for subsplease anime releases and just recently learned that there are actual search engines for this, so I'm currently looking into adding an option to integrate search engines of choice

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's actually not that hard to build your own search engine for specific server/channel.

[–] MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm looking more for a generic approach, so users can register any search engine of their choice (as long as it returns a json result set I guess)

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I think only one has api SunXDCC and its bad. Best code your own apis for that.

[–] MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 2 points 3 days ago

Yeah, probably will have to build some parser to use whatever I get from their endpoints. And so far I haven't added authentication for servers that need it, so thats also on the to do list :D

[–] MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Ok, so from xdcc.rocks, xdcc.eu and skuldxcc.com only xdcc.eu doesn't return its search results as json. For that one I'll have to find a way to parse an html table :D

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I highly recommend coding your own api from parsed html data.

[–] MaggiWuerze@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Having parsed HTML before (or tried to) I'm not sure if that was sarcasm :D

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 days ago

You asking me? If you are of course I did its very easy.

[–] hesh@quokk.au 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Glad to see the old ways still persist

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

IRC never left the scene. 😜 I recommend trying at least scenep2p you wont regret it.

[–] MissingInteger@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Nice list. Some additional information:

You don't need to register on abjects to download in ´#moviegods´.
To download in irc://irc.scenep2p.net/THE.SOURCE you apperently now do need to register to download. This didn't used to be the case.
sunxdcc.com has been superseded by skullxdcc.com. Made by the same person as sun and on sunxdcc a popup even tells you to switch.
irc://irc.rizon.net/nibl is a channel for anime downloads; no registration required. Can be searched via nibl.co.uk/search
irc://irc.xertion.org:6667/MK is another channel for anime; this does now seem to require registration. Can be searched via xdcc.animk.info

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

#moviegods - used to required this, but they don't allow any proxy.
scenep2p - you can use #the.source.nospam without registration, and proxy is allowed as long as you behave.
I dont think skullxdcc.com was built by same people, style of coding completely different unless they did ai vibe coding than its possible.

[–] MissingInteger@lemmy.zip 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I used #moviegods on and off for years without ever registering without problem (maybe they briefly required it when I wasn't using them?)
You need to register now to actually download even if you use #the.source.nospam. You can interact in the channel without registering, but as soon you try to message a bot to actually download you get the following automated message "You must identify to a registered nick to private message this user"
skullxdcc.com seems to be made by the same person.

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

#moviegods maybe it changed now, but this was like 2-3 years ago. Before the second they detected you are using proxy/vpn you were auto banned.
#the.source.nospam maybe it changed now, few months ago you were able to use it unregistered. But its alwasy recommended to register your nick and use SASL/SSL to authenticate.
skullxdcc I looked at the style of coding and it seems not, but i dont know.

EDIT: My bad for some reason I confused skullxdcc with xdcc.rocks. You might be right.

[–] r00ty@kbin.life 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Wait this is still a thing? I remember writing a DCC download bot in arexx on the amiga, back in the mid 90s.

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

Of course it is, I'm still using custom script I wrote long ago. But irc servers/channels intentionally try to stay low =))

[–] x550@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Nice one OP thanks for sharing

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

Thank you, I was actually suprised this will be so popular. I thought EVERYONE already knew about this.

[–] StitchInTime@piefed.social 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

IRC, DCC, Rizon, Nickserv, his post makes me feel 20 years younger! Can’t wait to try out IRC again later tonight.

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

I tell you what, in 2026 using IRC makes me FEEL younger every day.

[–] CactusEcho@piefed.social 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This fails to mention the download queues, and the active and passive bots (btw, fuck the channels that don't follow the expecting naming conventions). If you are behind NAT there are stuff you can't download because it's the wrong type of bot.

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago

scenep2p allows three requests per person and you can ask any release on Pbot to be on regular, but a lot of new stuff is not on Pbots.

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Wow. Blast from the past. I see znc is still a thing too

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 hours ago

I dont know about other servers but on scenep2p znc is allowed also all of this servers offer host masking. I'll add this into the post.

[–] comrade_twisty@feddit.org 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Guess I’ll have to travel back in time again and check it out. thanks for the writeup

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I'm from back in time, and I can tell you that present timeline sucks! I don't know if I can stay in this timeline, might have to travel back. Just need to fix oil in my time machine and i'm good to go.

[–] Taleya@aussie.zone 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Polaris2k 4 lyfe

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

CLI IRC for life =)))) >>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WeeChat

[–] vodkasolution@feddit.it 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Kvirc memories coming back...

[–] B4DR0B0T@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 3 hours ago

Neah, I'm WeeChat (https://weechat.org/) fan.