Is there a way you can use an IRC Client such as hexchat for ports 80/443 out to connect into freenode for example?
I understand that http://webchat.freenode.net/ has a gateway into IRC over port 80 that then connects into 6667 through a host.
Is there a gateway or setup I can connect to from hexchat, on port 80/443 that will give me a connection into an IRC Channel on 6667?
Thanks
No, simply since that's not how it works.
"Webchat.freenode.net" is actually an instance of qwebirc - which is a irc client with some special settings that let it pass on user information to the server.
qwebirc does not act as a proxy (or in IRC parlence) a bouncer, and uses clever things like http and websockets. Hexchat does not speak HTTP.
So, no, it will not work. Certainly not as a way to get around naive protocol or port blocks. Its like asking someone who speaks only Chinese directions in esperanto.
You CAN however run your own service like webchat, if you have your own (virtual private?) server on the Internet.
One such solution is - Convos:
Convos is the simplest way to use IRC. It is always online, and accessible to your web browser, both on desktop and mobile. Run it on your home server, or cloud service easily. It can be deployed to Docker-based cloud services, or you can just run it as a normal Mojolicious application.
Learn more about how to install and configure Convos in the guides or just run the two commands below to install and start Convos:
$ curl https://convos.by/install.sh | sh - $ ./convos/script/convos daemon 