Well, I don't really know all the details behind Mibbit's implementation. Interesting that they pass on the IP. But the problem would then be that people can then use any of a number of proxies, etc, to get around that - Mibbit certainly does not have any incentive to block proxies, it's interested only in ad views. So it seems there would be a conflict of interest between Mibbit, interested in maximising users, and freenode, interested in maximising quality. Anyway, obviously freenode couldn't easily get around it, otherwise this news item wouldn't exist, right?
Funnily enough, I'm currently writing my own (toy) IRC server too, though I doubt it will (or could) ever serve the numbers you're talking about! Amazing that it has never really progressed beyond RFC2812, and even that was old news when it was written in 2000. I'd like to see IRC 2.0.
>> Mibbit certainly does not have any incentive to block proxies, it's interested only in ad views.
Mibbit blocks all known web proxies, tor, etc and has done for a long time. You really do think the worst of everyone don't you. I wonder what that says about you? :/
Funnily enough, I'm currently writing my own (toy) IRC server too, though I doubt it will (or could) ever serve the numbers you're talking about! Amazing that it has never really progressed beyond RFC2812, and even that was old news when it was written in 2000. I'd like to see IRC 2.0.