Cutting off Discord

TL:DR; Discord sucks. - Published on 2026-02-12

Have you seen me on Discord recently? Well, starting today, I am aiming to no longer use or rely on it. The communities I care the most about have IRC channels, XMPP MUCs, and Matrix rooms or spaces. The only big issue is that most if not all of the people in FRB are using Discord with no intentions of switching. Although, a bunch of members are using Bluesky, which will work well enough for me. This applies for other communities I am in.

Why should I leave Discord?

I have quite a few reasons, which I will ask as questions, to you, the reader.

  • Why should Discord scan and restrict images you or your friends send just because it's on Discord CDN?
  • Why should you give up your ID to join a stage, or see images my friends send to you under the failure of Discord's automated detection?
  • Why should you force yourself to use a buggy, bloated web application, because not doing so is TOS violation? (admittedly not really enforced though)
  • Why should you give Discord your phone number when connecting with a VPN, especially if Discord is blocked in your country?
  • If you are consious about your privacy, why should Discord collect your geo-location, device information, as well as the history of your account?
  • Why are there no ways to encrypt messages natively on Discord?
  • Why do many other messaging platforms not have all of these issues, yet Discord does?

The last issue sums the whole thing together. Firstly, I've never had any Matrix homeservers ask for my government-issued ID, let alone any XMPP server, or any IRC server I have made an account on, and Discord is the only one that has asked. Secondly, I can also choose whatever client I want, I can use a VPN or even Tor, I can have end-to-end encrypted messages on at least XMPP and Matrix, yet I cannot have any of that on Discord. Finally, while my data may be stored, it is at least encrypted with both my XMPP server and Matrix homeserver, or isn't logged in the case of my IRC servers, yet it is logged and stored unencrypted on Discord. Why should I use this?

Where should I contact you?

I use many platforms, some I have already mentioned here. If you want a list, you can find it at this page. Feel free to pick your favourite, most convenient, or most secure option. If you see any account that isn't here, it is either I haven't documented it, or that is an impersonator. Either way, report it to me. Do not attempt to message me over Discord, as I have disabled messages, and you are wasting your time.

When are you using Bluesky and Mastodon?

Whenever I want. These options also serve as communication methods between friends or communities that do not know how to use another chatting platform, but know how to use those select microblogging services, although Mastodon also serves as my main microblogging spot.

What should I be using?

I do not want to dictate your choices. However, I can offer you resources for finding your chosen community. As such, here are the three useful resources I have found. I recommend not choosing the official instance for Mastodon however, out of respect for their decentralisation:

Otherwise, I would also suggest using these services:

Finally, these are the main two IRC servers you can use:

Most of these platforms have web UIs, but you can use whatever client you want with them. I can recommend a few resources to find the one you want:

Conclusion

Discord is not the only real-time chatting solution, and there are much others better than it. However, this does not mean other protocols doesn't have their own issues. Feel free to choose your favourite one, even if it throws privacy, security and anonymity out the window. It's my choice for me to not use Discord, but it's your choice for you to use whatever you want. Cheers.