this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2024
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Hello. I'm looking for a more private (for obicous reasons) and fast discord client for android, since the app is terrible and preforms terribly on my relatively old phone. I can't change to something like matrix/signal, since I can't convert other people.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Discord is adding ads soon. Currently, they don't enforce the TOS violation of custom clients, but maybe after they add ads, they will begin to do so. I would be very careful with any of this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Oh well, I don't really have any other way to comunicate with some people.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Not what you're looking for... I just hope when They will add ads, people will switch to revolt...

But People don't care, so they don't give a fuck...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Revolt is very interesting but it's basically going through a complete rebuild now and it's not fully featured yet. We all want people to switch to better software but Revolt needs some more time I think (unless you don't care about absence of native mobile clients and video calls). We don't want new users immediately getting frustrated and switching back to the big tech garbage

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Other platforms with ads haven't really seen people move off those platforms. I feel like once it reaches that critical mass of being nearly ubiquitous it takes a massive problem to push people off of it. Look at SMS in the US and how it's refused to die compared to other markets because it has reached saturation and now the only challenge to that ubiquity is iMessage who basically lives off being a fake SMS service.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

It's always good to have another self hosted option

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Whatever client you use, there is no privacy with Discord. Period. Full stop.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Yes, I aknowedge that, I just don't have a choice.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Privacy isn't the only reason to use free software. Some people have contacts on Discord that they don't want to lose touch with. Of course, like all proprietary silo networks, Discord is best avoided if possible.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

They are "looking for a more private" client. With the centralized Discord service that does anything it wants with any message there is no such thing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Aliucord is a good client mod, not of the new react native version, but the old 126.21 version. much faster than the laggy react garbage

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

This. It's also a bit more private, since it removes most of the tracking by default

It's not completely open-source, because Discord itself isn't, but i don't think any open-source discord front-end actually exists...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Discordo is a completely open-source frontend, and it's a native TUI app written 100% in Go - no Electron/HTML/Javascript crap.

If you want a GUI app and something not so barebones, there's Dissent - a GTK4 app, also written in Go, with no Electron/HTML/Javascript crap.

And if you're a Qt fan, there's also QTCord, written in Python.

cc: @[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Thank you for providing links to true third party clients and not just webview wrappers and mods for the first party client.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

ok this is crazy, I might stop using the webapp and start using Dissent instead, thanks

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago

Oh wow i might try thease apps on my pc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

yeah none do. dev behind opencord tried to do it but it's been on hiatus ever since

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

I never had good experiebce with this app. It's too buggy, it crashes alot and plugins usually don't work.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Here's a full repo listing third-party stuff for Discord including clients. https://github.com/Discord-Client-Encyclopedia-Management/Discord3rdparties

SpoilerNone of them exist on Android. You have Discord clients mods like the recommended pre-react version, Aliucord which while outdated (But still working and supported by the project !) fix the slowness issues of the current version. Vencord has a proof-of-concept WPA app too but it's still mostly just browsing the main website so it ain't ideal. ~~I would like to point out Beeper https://www.beeper.com/, which is Matrix based and aim to easily use their self-hosted (Or your self-hosted !) bridges to different services, including Discord ! Not ideal outside of small servers or just DM's however (but you can customize which synced servers you want in it).~~

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Wow, thanks for the info. Pre react version is actually somehow performant. I couldn't really sefhost beeper, since I don't have my own home network.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

You could just also use your own VPS but i digress. It seems they plan on keeping their app proprietary with just the bridge tools to be able to be used with their app. (You could do use the individual matrix-bridges services however as an alternative but again, Beeper seems to be the only service that offer such hosting for direct usage)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

For similar reasons to your own, I tried a few different Discord frontends a while back so I could chat with one of my friends who lives abroad. I never found a winner. They either wouldn't connect or would be missing tons of features (for example: one of them only let you watch the chat, not participate in it). I also seem to remember reading somewhere that Discord is pretty aggressive when it comes to third party apps. It's their app or nothing. You might have better luck than I did, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

And as others have mentioned, if you're looking for privacy, Discord ain't it. Sorry I couldn't give you a more helpful response.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

FWIW I've been using purple-discord for several years (and made some contributions to it) and have yet to be banned.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks. Is Beeper actually fully foss or is it partialy closed. It never looked trustworthy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Its bridges are FOSS, but its client (an Element fork) doesn't appear to be.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

I use Vesktop on my PCs and Aliucord on my phone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

use a matrix bridge to your discord account: https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager and use any client you want, or use beeper.com if you cant host the bridges yourself

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Well as far as I know beeper is still closed source and probably as private as the oficcial Discord app. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Beeper is proprietary but their Matrix bridges are all free software, as far as I am aware. I think you can also use a free software client with Beeper's service (that's what people have said in the last Beeper thread I've seen).

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

well, i wouldnt go that far, as their privacy policy is better, and their server-side is open source. But i wasnt really recommending using beeper (the app), i was recommending self-hosting the beeper bridges

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Oh ok, I might try it, if or when I have my own home network.