There is no truer adage to me than nothings is perfect. And when it comes to anything related to Discord it’s no different.
Discord itself to me has been an issue for years. Its use of data collection, the obsession of companies trying to buy it all were concerning. For me the latest age verification just further reinforces my beliefs. That being said the majority of users who ignored all this and kept going, really nothing would change. Most people I know use Discord lightly and aren’t in large chats that use hentai gifs. I still would tell anyone who would listen to get out of dodge. But if you never cared about data usage then you’re probably not going to start now.
For all the alternatives out there truth is, none are really anywhere near perfect. Matrix and most of its clients while encrypted don’t offer true jump in /jump out game chat. More a kin to Skype really. Foss Discord implementations like Spacebar are to all over the place and for me are not really functional. Stoat while probably my favorite is still really small and not holding up to the stress of the user influx. And of course it’s missing “discord features” and the new kid Fluxer while appealing is still to new and it’s monetization model a little to concerning. 300 bucks as a backer for unproven project ? And of course with the exception of Matrix none of the other projects currently offer encryption.
Truth is no option really is ideal. Truth is all the options have some pretty serious flaws. And truth is getting your large swaths of friends to move might be close to impossible.
So if you are looking to move please do some digging. Ask people who use the apps their opinions. Try to as a group of friends chose to make a move.
And the final truth is it’s a really good thing we finally have some options. No matter the flaws having competition brings innovation.
I hope this posts helps clear up some things for people who might be confused or concerned.
ICQ was perfect in 1996.
Damn, I think I’ve finally forgotten my ICQ number.
I haven’t. Still mourning.
This was probably one of the first times I can remember when our chat programs were under one primary program. Before Discord there was market segmentation abound and I think it made the system better for there were alternate means of contact. Discord becoming monolithic like it it did was a real issue and let’s be honest, we need to have alternatives. I foresee Discord still being used for a bit by most of my groups, but they are certainly considering alternatives.
I wasn’t really sure if the US chatroom app infamous for harboring pedophiles and saving hyperlinks of users’ deleted photos in rooms’ modlog was evil but now that the logo is red and has scary eyes I’m seriously considering it
Fluxer wants to have a ‘monetization’ to give payouts to ‘creators.’ Hard pass.
My wife and I have been using Stoat and it’s been mostly fine, but they’re already implementing age verification.
Stoat being based in UK makes me nervous as their laws are ridiculous. Devs claim that they are going to try to only apply draconian things when necessary but I have my doubts.
Stoat and it’s been mostly fine, but they’re already implementing age verification.
Can you elaborate on this? I can’t find anything about it online
Any source on this Fluxer monetization? I get that they need to sustain the flagship server, but AFAIK the dev said none of these monetization features will limit what you can do in your self-hosted Fluxer (when it comes)
Don’t get me wrong, I’m wary of Fluxer but it seems like the dev does have a plan unlike Stoat that’s has been very slow (already tried it when it was called Revolt and has not changed at all)
Item #9 on the roadmap
thanks. it’s really weird that they don’t make clear if this monetization feature will be limited to their main instance or will be available to selfhosters too
would this add a limitation of some kind, would every selfhoster be required to add this feature do be federated?
i’m gonna keep looking at XMPP at the moment
Read the privacy policies too. I can’t remember which one I was reading yesterday but it read like they were going to monitor every word I said… All the while saying they are privacy advocates and based in Europe
If you can remember please report in.
It might have been fluxer but I’m not positive. I’ve been looking at all of the options because I need an alternative so there’s lots of mixed info in my brain. I should have started a spreadsheet
Even stoat writes on their privacy policy they store everything you write on their servers. That if needed they will hand over what’s required of them as of GPDR compliancy.
Now if that analyze said data and sell it, that’s another thing entirely.
With both Stoat and Fluxer community audits should be done, if Fluxer has had AI generated code that opens up unforeseen risk.
Thanks for the heads up!
Self hosting stoat is gonna be awesome for my community :)
Genuinely curious: Stoat’s Community Guidelines list the legal jurisdiction for their Service Operator as the United Kingdom (sorry for the awkward sentence structure) I know that any online platform that provides “risky” content to the UK has to perform age checks, but I’m curious if the privacy impact increases when the service is hosted in the UK? Eg, would they be required to conduct age checks for all users, rather than just UK users?
Very good catch. Honestly the platform is so small I doubt it will come under fire. Worse case if the platform takes off more can self host and completely avoid these requirements
We switching to Fluxer
Found another “new” discord clone called Kloak. Slightly curious as they claim to use purely a username and key to identify you and nothing else.
Some of the site seems AI generated and the project is entirely closed source. I am curious but I have my reservations even trying it.
Right now it appears registration is closed which is also odd.
Might be worth keeping an eye on. But it might be worth entirely avoiding
isn’t matrix compromised and holding ties to israel?
Matrix was originally developed by Israeli company Amdocs, which has since rebranded and moved to the UK.
But they are sketchy as all hell, denying that their parent company was involved in proven spying incidents.
thank you for the information.
Isn’t Matrix open source? And wouldn’t hosting your own instance unfederated resolve that concern?
Yes Matrix is open source so technically if there’s a backdoor people should be able to find it. But the dev team behind Matrix sketches me out so I wouldn’t be surprised if they sneakily hid a backdoor.
Personally I wouldn’t trust "privacy’ software developed by an Israeli company which has made spyware in the past. It’s not direct evidence that Matrix has backdoors, but sometimes stuff is just sketch.
Good points. I have been trying to spin up my own instance because the alternatives are still not up to snuff but Matrix seemed a decent alternative if self hosted.
I just saw another article today about XMPP which was going to be my last ditch effort, but that will be my next foray it seems!
Managed to get a matrix server up + a web client frontend hosted on same site for friend group .
3 container docker compose: continuwuity, tunnel, premade Cinny image with nginx serving frontend.
Great if you don’t care about voice, but if you do then you’ll need to host a TURN server on a VPS and connect home server to that.
I’ve gone through like 5 different services trying to set one up. Am I dumb or does no one know how to make a straightforward docker compose? I thought the whole point of Compose was to copy-paste a config, change a few variables and hit go. Several of these assume you know so much about how to setup these services and then just leave you to your devices.
I want like 5 or 6 variables in an .env file. No reason I should have to spin up my own database and link it when you should be containerizing the entire thing in the first place. The only services so far that I’ve had any success setting up are Mattermost (which doesn’t offer group calls) and VoceChat (which I can’t get the voice to work in).
All the others either don’t offer voice at all or I can’t get past the setup.
discord was a one-stop shop for multiple very different things.
Retvrn to gamer clans coordinating in forums, talking in mumble, chatting in IRC &c.
one program for one purpose and a community webpage tying it all together
This is the way.
Any opinions on team speak 3?
Proprietary 👎
US based as well, unfortunately.
TS6 is already avaiable and good replacement for many (sadly not all) of discord functions
what about mumble?
For straight up talk it works. UI is dated and I am not sure if you have to self host or not ?
i got a team speak 6 server running for my friend group. there are things i wish were better, but ultimately it’s really not that big of a deal. mainly it’s the separating the text chat from the voip servers, and the text chat not being hosted on my machine. but then again others would rather it was on a companies servers any way
but now it’s just the work of pushing my friends to not stick around due to momentum and the whole “but discord retracted their decision! i don’t want to!”
