php Free Chat is a free, simple to install, fast, customizable and multi languages chat that uses a simple filesystem for message and nickname storage. It uses AJAX to smoothly refresh (no flicker) and display the chat zone and the nickname zone. It supports multi-rooms (/join), private messages, moderation (/kick, /ban), customized themes based on CSS and plugins systems that allows you to write your own storage routines (ex: Mysql, IRC backends …), and your own chat commands !
Sample screenshots.
Simple
You only have to copy/paste few lines of code to have a nice working chat. It doesn’t require MySQL or any SQL database, messages and nicknames are simply stored in files. No problems with firewalls, this script is based on HTTP so you only need a web browser and an internet connection. (everyone can easily chat!) No problems with none-latin characteres ! Are you Russian, Japanese, Turk, Chinese, or Arabic? Whatever language you speak, phpfreechat will nicely display your characters because it uses XML with UTF-8 to encode characters.
Fast
AJAX technology is used to smoothly refresh (no flicker) and display the chat and nickname zone. Messages and nicknames are stored into a simple filesystem, so that server resources are saved as much as possible. Bandwidth is preserved because the server never transmits the same data twice, only new messages are transmitted.
Customizable
You can write your own customized CSS stylesheets, to completely change the appearance of your chat. All chat functionalities are customizable. For example, you can change the messages refresh time, you can ban users for changing their usernames, etc. The plugin system allows you to write your own storage routines. For example, you can write a plugin to store the conversations into your database.
Requirements
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A Web server (Apache, IIS, Xitami …)
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Write access on the Web server (SSH, FTP, or other)
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Doesn’t works with “suphp” apache module enabled for versions < 1.0-beta5
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PHP in your webserver
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PHP ? 4.1.0 for pfc 0.x and pfc ? 1.0-beta8
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PHP ? 4.2.0 for pfc ? 1.0-beta9 (because of “ctype” functions family)
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In some cases “safe_mode=On” makes problems
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“ctype_*” function family should be enable in your php for pfc ? 1.0-beta9
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flock php function needs to be available
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By default, you don’t need a Mysql database. The chat uses files to store messages and nicknames.
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Host that doesn’t insert advertisement.
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Known good hosts .