ClicksAndWhistles is a free IRC client for Windows. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time Internet text messaging allowing you to communicate with others in IRC channels (chat rooms) and one-to-one communication via private messages. You can also connect directly with another user to chat or send/receive files.

There are hundreds of IRC networks and thousands of IRC servers providing channels covering a wide variety of topics; you can even start your own channel with little or no fuss. Websites such as Search IRC and irc.netsplit.de let you search for channels on specific topics.

Features

*Multiple server connections and multiple "identities" allowing you to have different nicknames on different servers.
*Unicode (UTF-8) support.
*Channel favourite list with configurable key press shortcuts.
*User groups (buddy lists) and user highlighting allowing you to associate different colours with different users.
*Keywords letting you know when somebody has mentioned something of interest to you or perhaps has mentioned your nickname. Optionally play a sound when a keyword appears.
*Support for emoticons including animated ones (GIFs). Optionally play a sound when an emoticon appears.
*Two text display modes ("normal" or "column").
*Configurable themes, image backgrounds, outline fonts, colour gradient effects.
*Text formatting (colours, bold/italic/underline).
*Different window modes (tabbed, "place on desktop" and MDI).
*Minimize to tray with activity popup and sound event notifications.
*Full logging support including archiving and "scrollback logs" (previous session history).
*File transfers (DCC SEND) and direct chat (DCC CHAT). Identd support.
*Secure (SSL) server support. This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit. (http://www.openssl.org/).
*"Connection scripts" (a simple list of commands to run once connected) and "macros" (use one command to automatically run a series of other commands).
*Customizable message text.