ISP Blocks IRC Ports; Need Work-Around

My ISP blocks the IRC ports (6667,etc). I need a way to use IRC.

My first thought was to use web-based servers, but this solution sucks because a)I like to use the command line and b)they are unreliable.

I then thought perhaps I could get a free shell account with IRC access, but after trying ten servers it seems they're all either not really free or don't really offer IRC.

How can I fix this? Changing my ISP is not an option.

Make a friend at ur ISP, or find someone outside your isp running Linux, ask if they can run a small port fowarding program on their box. The program can for example take all traffic incomming on port 81 and foward it to your.irc.server on port 6667. I know this works with some services, however am not too sure with IRC. DOes anybody else know?

I'm confused. Are you trying to make an IRC server, or just use IRC?

I just want to use IRC.

All my friends do bad things like run Windows and turn their computers off, so while asking someone to install a program like that is a great idea, I don't think I can implement it. Any other ideas?

Find an IRC server that uses a non-standard IRC port? That's a cheap way to do it though...

Originally posted by Guru3 Find an IRC server that uses a non-standard IRC port? That's a cheap way to do it though...

Cheap and effective! Thanks. I found an undernet server running on port 8888.