TLDR for freenode registration is:
- Open an IRC client which is either https://webchat.freenode.net or install
hexchat
https://hexchat.github.io/ (note that the non-windows store version is free)
- Download hexchat
2.1 On Linux hexchat should be packaged by your distribution so you can install it for example using
apt install -y hexchat
2.2 On windows use https://hexchat.github.io/downloads.html and download windows 7 executable which is free - Open hexchat and navigate to Server List
- On server list find Freenode