IRC Troubles.

Okay for a while now, but especially today I have been experiencing IRC problems with the sites IRC. It won't even let me sign in sometimes and it says it does then I can't type anything making me angrily go and sign back in because I don't know I'm signed in. Also I have problems typing stuff and it not coming up? I would like an answer to this as well. Mainly I think their are other clients such as Mirc which is quite annoying and complicated for me to use. Amui told me to download Trillian, but I can't get the IRC to work on that. I think a few others here know a few other ways as well to access the IRC if you could help me I would enjoy that a lot thanks .