Freenode is still pretty active. I self-host an instance of The Lounge[0], which basically acts like an IRC bouncer + an account system to easily get friends/coworkers to use IRC.
I primarily use it for giving/getting help on technologies and open-source projects that I'm using.
While Freenode may not compete with Facebook, it's still pretty huge :)
There are 99 users and 84066 invisible on 32 servers
36 IRC Operators online
16 unknown connection(s)
53438 channels formed
I have 5185 clients and 1 servers
5185 5972 Current local users 5185, max 5972
84165 94773 Current global users 84165, max 94773
Highest connection count: 5973 (5972 clients) (476397 connections received)
I primarily use it for giving/getting help on technologies and open-source projects that I'm using.
[0] https://github.com/thelounge/thelounge