What OS X client do you advice? I never used IRC so something simple would be appreciated.

http://colloquy.info/ is by far the best. Not that that's saying much

That's what I use, though I've only used IRC once, which isn't saying much.

From easy to more geeky:

- Colloquy (Free & Open Source)
- Conversation (Free, I think)
- Snak (Shareware, but very Mac friendly)
- Ircle (Shareware, for more advanced users)
- X-Chat Aqua (Free & Open Source, and ugly)
- BitchX (Terminal & GUI apps) (Free & Open Source, for really advanced users)
- Terminal (via telnet commands) (Free, for extreme users)

Make your choice (Website URLs not included cause I don't know them, but Google might)

thanks. Any really thrashy places I should visit?

I don't know, but the iDevGames channel is located at: irc.freenode.net #iDevGames

irc.freenode.net #macdev is a pretty good place.

I know everyone and their dog dismisses X-Chat Aqua as a piece of crap, but it's worked solidly for me forever. Yes, it uses a few extra CPU cycles, and yes, it feels like Mac OS 9 GUI all over again, but it's very functional. That said, I think it's time I give Colloquy another shot...

I gotta agree with blobbo, xchat's perfect as long as you figure out what its doing. One thing for example it saves xdcc downloads (by default) in an invisible folder (.xchat/downloads).
But ive never had any problems with it apart from it quits the instant you press cmd-q, which can sometimes be annoying as you would expect an are you sure you want to quit dialog.

Colloquy is the best gui client. Failing an NCurses client, I think Telnet shows the way.

http://www.zen22638.zen.co.uk/ben/telnet_irc.png

Best free GUI client maybe, but if you have to do some serious op work, then Colloquy is just plain crap. X-Chat Aqua may be ugly, but works better for this. But in the end, I'm an Ircle guy.

Irssi is the client of the future. Or at least its what I've used for the last 4 years.

X-Chat ftw! Tried some of the more simple, more cocoa-like apps, but its like they pay some functionalty and usability for the interface. X-Chat aqua is very effecient once you got it set up to fit your needs. But thats prolly just me.