BitchX/ˈbɪtʃɛks/ is a freeIRCclient[1] that has been regarded as the most popular ircII-based IRC client.[2] The initial implementation, written by "Trench" and "HappyCrappy", was a script for the IrcII chat client.[2] It was converted to a program in its own right by panasync (Colten Edwards). BitchX 1.1 final was released in 2004. It is written in C and is a TUI application utilizing ncurses. GTK+ toolkit support has been dropped. It works on all Unix-like operating systems, and is distributed under a BSD license. It was originally based on ircII-EPIC,[2] and eventually it was merged into the EPIC IRC client. It supports IPv6,[3] multiple servers and SSL, and a subset of UTF-8 (characters contained in ISO-8859-1) with an unofficial patch.[4]
On several occasions, BitchX has been noted to be a popular IRC client for Unix-like systems.[1][5][6][7][8][9]
^ ab"Opinion: Get online for (free) Linux support!". CNN. June 17, 1999. Retrieved Sep 29, 2009. ("If you're already using Linux, then you have your choice of several (IRC) clients. BitchX is a popular one.")
^How to use IRC guide, Overclockersclub.com (Dec. 4, 2006), Retrieved 2009-09-29 ("There are many different clients available, some of the more popular ones include BitchX, XChat, Trillian, BeserIRC, Klient ....")
^What about P2P on *nix?, Broadbandreports.com (Sept. 13, 2002), Retrieved 2009-09-29 ("There are several IRC clients for Linux. Among the best are X-Chat and BitchX.")
^BitchX Configuration Guide, Linuxhelp.net (last updated Sept. 19, 2003), Retrieved 2009-09-29 ("BitchX is one of the most popular IRC Client available today for *nix systems.")