[Manishearth]

Besides the fact that most people new to IRC are completely intimidated, a good web client solves connection issues as well. I'm behind a university proxy, for example, and port 6667 doesn't work. Currently I ssh-screen-irssi, but if there's a really good web client out there I might switch to it (I hear irccloud is good, though I'm really beginning to like scrollback)

[siculars]

I'm also at a university that blocks 6667. I wrote a blog post on how to get around it.

http://siculars.posthaven.com/ssh-tunnel-to-blocked-sites-wh...

[droope]

If you have a pedantic HTTP proxy, you can use ssh over HTTP(S) with corkscrew.

You might have to set up SSH on port 443, but this is guaranteed to bypass most filters.

Another good option is tethering :P

[nsmartt]

Kiwi seems promising, but I've experienced a number of frustrating bugs