Mr Fowles,
Thank you for your reply. I had no idea you had used the same method to instruct, or rather point the users to an easy install of mIRC. I was just trying to help. My father visits this site, and he asked me to try and help with the "chat" problems (hence the name). So I tried my best to explain it in a step by step method.
I feel your pain in the fact that it is hard to get a "direct" chat link of people who are not directly connected to the same program/internet provider.
However, I could suggest doing a google search for those java chat applets. There are
many of them out there, but the longevity of those clients lasting is up in the air.
In my experience, mIRC will work best. The "BOOT" factor people are reffering to is this; when you connect to a random server, on efnet for example, not all of you are using the same "access server". This results in downtime or "parsing" of some servers that all relate to efnet. If this happens people on those servers will be disconnected from the efnet environment.
This problem can be avoided by using a set server, not just the random placing irc.efnet.net. But then again, it will experience downtime. I cannot truely give you a better idea.. you will have these problems with ALL chat progams you decide to utilize.
A solution I will profer is this: try getting everyone to install an IM client (yahoo would be my choice) and you can then invite people from your buddy list, or what not, into private chat rooms that are facilitated by that program. That will enable the drop out rate to be immensely disabled to only the people who are connecting's internet connection stability.
That is the best advice I can give. Yahoo, Powtalk, etc.
A link to Yahoo Messenger;
http://messenger.yahoo.com/.
If you decide to go this route, I can once again do a step-by-step account of how to access and create the desired effect within Yahoo.
Good Luck.