cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/26986197

Wayland and audio is fixed, but only on the canary branch for the moment, this isnt lazy either, they changed the whole screenshare flow to suit linux’s permission prompts

  • kyub@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    62·
    1 month ago

    Well, “nice” to have that feature, but you still shouldn’t use Discord, or at least limit your time on it as much as possible. Remember, when you use it, you’re part of the network effect that makes Discord big. You have to resist that. Take a look how Discord compares to pretty much any other messenger or communication tool in existence: https://www.messenger-matrix.de/messenger-matrix-en.html Avoid it whenever possible, get your friends to leave it and weaken its network effect.

    So, some of the drawbacks (there’s probably more):

    • Discord has weak security (see URL above)
    • Discord has non-existent privacy
    • Discord has an incredibly vague privacy policy which means they do what they want. Even companies with strong privacy policies screw users over routinely. Guess what companies do who don’t even care about good privacy policies. They even weakened it further a while back because they need to train their new AI features on your data as well, and probably even their weak privacy policies were in the way before. Well, good thing that the users agreed that they can change it at any time for any reason and be fine with it.
    • You grant all rights of everything you write, say, share or do on Discord to Discord, and everything you type, say, upload or share is being processed by their servers
    • Discord tracks what you’re typing before sending it
    • Discord suspended accounts and required even more user data for “verification”, such as telephone numbers which is completely unnecessary except for tracking and data selling purposes
    • Discord shares chat logs with law enforcement (and they can share everything because they’re collecting everything)
    • The Discord client app tracks what programs you have running so it can for example display what games you’re currently running. That means it contains a process logger. It has to scan every running application and then finds games out of those, and then you have to hope that only the game-specific bits are uploaded to their servers. Maybe that is the case, but can you trust them, and also to never change that? No.

    If you have to use it:

    • Never use their desktop app, always use the web version from a secondary browser (web apps running in the browser have much less rights than locally running applications), and even then limit what the site can access to the least amount of stuff necessary. If you never use your mic or camera then block it in the browser settings. Don’t trust Discord’s own mute setting (this also applies to other proprietary software).
    • Use a fake e-mail alias / telephone number when creating your account, generally give them the least amount of data possible. Opt out of any options or features which are tied to you exposing more data to them
    • Don’t give them additional money e.g. for their premium stuff (you already pay with data they gather from you)
    • Block at least these API endpoints which are purely used for tracking purposes (there may be more though, and they might change) [easy to do with uBlock Origin for example]:
    https://discord.com/api/v*/science
https://discord.com/api/v*/channels/*/typing
https://discord.com/api/v*/track*
    • You can also block these related hosts safely without impairing Discord’s main functions (again there may be more):
    crash.discordapp.com
status.discordapp.com
b.stats.paypal.com
app.adjust.com
client-analytics.braintreegateway.com
        • Communist@lemmy.frozeninferno.xyzEnglish
          2·
          1 month ago

          tbh if you’re on linux there’s kind of an easy workaround

          pactl load-module module-combine-sink sink_name='Stream' slaves='easyeffects_sink'

          ^^ I have this aliased as “gamesound”

          easyeffects is great for this because it’ll just be the default sink, plus easyeffects makes your mic sound good anyway. (if you configure it for that)

          then when the game opens i set it to output to “stream” and bam i can output game audio in a stream without capturing anything else, since i’m on hyprland i can also stream just the window, discord screenshare with audio everywhere.

          • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
            1·
            1 month ago

            Doesn’t mean it’ll be added in an open source application… There has to be a dev/some devs willing to implement that, they can’t force volunteers to implement features because of the selling value it’ll have.

    • Blisterexe@lemmy.zipOP
      0·
      1 month ago

      did you even read the post??

      edit: like seriously i get not reading a long article but the post body is 35 words long

  • x00z@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    I’ve been using Vesktop since forever. They have had it working already for a looooong time.

  • TypicalHog@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    I just wish there was a FOSS version of Discord. I haven’t looked too deeply into existing alternatives, but I have a feeling they all miss features Discord has and are just not as good.

  • Zangoose@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    Can we get actually working global keybinds in Wayland next? Or is that a chromium/electron problem?

    • Blisterexe@lemmy.zipOP
      0·
      1 month ago

      wayland global keybinds are not really ready yet, they’re only properly implemented in one desktop, so i don’t blame the discord devs for not adding them.

    • Blisterexe@lemmy.zipOP
      2·
      1 month ago

      because it’s the communications platform for gamers™.

      But seriously discord screenshare was a massive painpoint for gamers switching to linux, so it’s very nice to see it finally, properly, solved.

        • toastal@lemmy.ml
          0·
          1 month ago

          I will continue to kick & scream at every project that thinks free software is the way to go with their software, but not good enough for the tooling around their project. Fuck Discord. Fuck MS GitHub.

          • Fonzie!@ttrpg.network
            0·
            1 month ago

            In my opinion GitHub is seriously good software, but it is awkward when FOSS software is developed on it instead of on Codeberg, Gitea or another FOSS platform.

            Discord is actually a security risk, it walls information off the outside world (compared to a forum or IRC server) and incredibly difficult to find information in even when you’re in the server (as opposed to documentation or a forum)

            Matrix has 2/3 of these issues, so it being FOSS aside I very much would hate it when development discussion and software documentation is done through Matrix, as well.

            • toastal@lemmy.ml
              01·
              1 month ago

              MS GitHub doesn’t do anything the others can’t besides the social media features which do not need to be so prominent. If you must, it can be one of multiple code mirrors but should not be the exclusive one, or even the primary option.

              Matrix is ass. You cannot reasonably scale an eventual consistency model without centralization & it will be a wasteful network like many of the blockchain projects. We already have had IRC & XMPP MUCs for ages that run on toasters & did not need to be reinvented. Chat has its place tho to help steer folks into asking the right questions, but such questions once formed need to be triaged as bugfixes, issues, FAQs, or forum posts to benefit everyone on the discussion.

    • Blisterexe@lemmy.zipOP
      1·
      1 month ago

      literally not a single person i know uses matrix, and calls aren’t supported on most clients, so getting them to switch would be literally impossible.

      • bruhSoulz@lemmy.mlEnglish
        11·
        1 month ago

        Idk brah I managed to make 3/5 friends switch to it and we almost exclusively use that to chat, and now got 2-3 family members to use it when talking to me too

    • 8osm3rka@lemmy.world
      0·
      1 month ago

      Element is a messenger and will never have the UX of Discord. There is Revolt, which is actually similar to discord but self-hostable

      • bruhSoulz@lemmy.mlEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        Has screen sharing a video calls and group calls and working on addons/extensions, not sure what more people would expect from a project of its size

  • Blisterexe@lemmy.zipOP
    0·
    1 month ago

    Note that the flathub version has not yet been updated. The version with the screenshare is 0.0.79.