>>106475419
Some servers give you a free cloaking (rizon). Anywhere else you can use free bouncers (which you will have to "trust", but your messages are exposed to server admins anyway so it is the same level of privacy) and these bouncers cache messages while you are offline AND hide your IP.
>>106475711
The programming related channels can still be useful. Also file sharing is still going strong there.
>>106480980
I assume most people have those ignored. Every other IRC client has an option to ignore them.