One of the most powerful IRC client applications for Mac OS X, Textual is a breeze to use. Textual sports a stunningly designed multi-column UI, which, with its dark and light variants, is a sheer visual delight, especially on Retina devices.

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But there’s more to Textual than just eye candy. The fully loaded yet lightweight application packs in all the modern IRC related features, such as native IPv6 support, full compatibility with IRCv3 specifications, and client-side certificate authentication. And that’s not all. Textual’s feature set also includes stuff like a diverse range of keyboard shortcuts, iCloud synchronization of preferences, auto-completion for nicknames and commands, full text formatting, and ZNC integration. One of the highlights of Textual is its stress on user privacy, as evinced by its use of Off the Record Messaging technologies.

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Platform Availability: Mac OS X 10.8.3 and later.

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Price: $4.99; 30 day trial available.