well, you have to find someone in a 'room'...even if it is a private room....and files are sent often thru something called DCC (direct connection or something)...I have not used IRC in 2-3 years, but it worked pretty well.......the trick is in locating the right place on the right 'server' Have you got a drop-down list of IRC chat servers? like Dalnet..etc? you do need to learn the ropes, as IRC works a bit dfferently..(it was around long before the WWW, and has some procedures that may seem odd, till you see how useful they are...)

and it is 'live'...no archived threads (you can log your conversations, but it is not done for you)