Embedded web IRC client requires captcha, doesn't work for old PPC systems
Problem
https://www.adelielinux.org/contact/irc.html uses https://kiwiirc.com for an embedded IRC client. This sometimes requires reCaptcha, which one user on #Adelie-Support can't run, attributing it to using Firefox on PPC. He didn't seem to be aware of how to connect to the channel without our embedded client. A lot of privacy-conscious visitors or visitors with limited vision might also be unable to use reCaptcha.
Possible solutions
- We could run our own instance of KiwiIRC with captchas disabled and the
restricted
setting enabled. This would require a moderate amount of resources because it needs to maintain long-polling HTTP or WebSocket connections. I would need some additional maintenance time from us too. It's a;sp a big pile of JavaScript. This is fine if we stay on Interlinked, but other networks like Libera.Chat or OFTC might not like us running our own IRC gateway, and I don't think they provide WebSocket access. KiwiIRC has a WebSocket proxy, but it's written in Go. - We could run our own instance of CGI:IRC. It uses Perl's CGI.pm, has only a small amount of JS, and even has a mode that works without JS. But it's slow and has bad user experience. We'd also need a web server that can do plain old CGI.
- Use some other alternative service. I don't really know these well.
- Maybe just change the page to link to instructions on how to set up various IRC clients, or provide a prominent link on the page with KiwiIRC pointing to such instructions.