Chat options?

[Routh]

Hey Everyone,

I'm a new bluehost customer, old webmaster. I've been wanting to intergrate a chat into my website for some time. However I've wanted full integration with the user system I have, and therefore have never liked phpmychat, or the other premade scripts available with the cpanel.

Now most hosts outh there are rather closed minded about chats and do not allow you to run anything to have a chat on your hosting. However bluehost seems rather open-minded, expecially with allowing users to have their own custom php.ini and shell access, along with other empowering features. I was curious, while I doubt this could happen, I have to ask. Could we possibly run an irc daemon as our user so we could code a custom interface for it on our website? Or possibly code our own Java chat system for use on the website? Many hosts are against this kind of processor usage, even though it would be minimal since my site is not super busy..

Just want to see what new options I have, if any, with bluehost.com

Thanks

[mrjerryk]

I wouldn't mind hearing an answer to this as well.

[toenail]

I seriously doubt they would let you run an irc daemon but it never hurts to ask. As for coding it yourself, if you did it as a java applet that would work (a hosting company can't really stop you from using an applet because it really runs on the client not the server). But if you wanted some fancy java backend system then that's a definite no, BH doesn't have java on any of their servers (as far as I know). In terms of processor usage, again, if its an applet it barely counts against you (unless it frequently accesses disk or databases or something like that) since it's mostly running on the client side.

[PhreakPhy]

Check out FlashChat

[alligosh]

In general, we are not against chat systems for customers.

Caveats:

1) If you run your own service, you would need a dedicated IP address so that you don't get your service "cleaned up" and killed off (search the forums for discussiona about how this works).

2) we generally don't allow java simply because it is a resource hog no matter how little traffic you have. Having said that, people run it occationally, but usually find a better way after their trials and errors.

3) With a dedicated IP, you are allowed to run a bot to sit on irc. Make sure they tag a note on your account that you are going to do this so it doesn't get "cleaned up" by a well meaning admin trying to discourage the occational script kiddie. And yes, occationally accounts get compromised through cross site scripting in free applications, and the kiddie gets access to that account. We clean those up whenever they show themselves.

4) ircd is generally discouraged as it can require quite a lot to setup and get working right. More important, it seems to be a magnet for the script kiddies mentioned above, and becomes a target more often than not.

[SVFan]

Check out FlashChat

Flash chat is nice if you plan on implimenting a Joomla site since it can share username/password information between the two.

[PhreakPhy]

FlashChat can integrate with a lot more than just Joomla. Check the link, it will list all the CMS it can work with. (Version numbers are not absolute)

[glutton]

I use flashchat on my site along with Mambo and have been very happy with it. I originally used Parachat and tried the chat provided with the control panal as well. None are flawless, but for the money and overall useability, I would certianly recommend Flashchat.