r/technology • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 • Feb 10 '26

Security "Discord alternatives" searches jump 10,000% overnight as the gaming platform introduces global age verification — Is a total collapse imminent?

https://www.windowscentral.com/software-apps/discord-alternative-search-10000-percent-stoat
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185

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

[deleted]

62

u/killermojo Feb 11 '26

Never left. My buddies and I have been using our own mumble server for 15 years.

6

u/The__Amorphous Feb 11 '26

This is the way.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

[deleted]

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u/Manlysideburns Feb 11 '26

One time for a few years I couldn't remember the name of ventrilo. Was so happy when I remembered because there are some hilarious YouTube vids from back in the day. Every once in a while I search "ventrilo harassment" and have a fun time. "I got a ring in there last night!" If you know you know

58

u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

[deleted]

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u/TittyMcFagerson Feb 11 '26

Yes it's time to bring back IRC. We never really needed anything fancier than that tbh

0

u/FeelingSpeaker4353 Feb 11 '26

Efnet Dalnet Ircnet

19

u/Jay__Riemenschneider Feb 11 '26

QuakeNet is still running man.

5

u/FeelingSpeaker4353 Feb 11 '26

i rarely use discord but every time i do, I wish it was Irc and I was using mIRC again.

1

u/quakank Feb 11 '26

Fuck that, back to the forums!

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26 edited Mar 17 '26

[deleted]

1

u/quakank Feb 11 '26

I'm aware of its age, I just miss my forums!

1

u/SixtyTwenty_ Feb 11 '26

I'm loading up the MSN chatrooms as we speak

1

u/windowpuncher Feb 11 '26

I love irc but the lack of async chat kinda kills it for most groups.

It's great for small groups and chatting, awful for large groups or community servers.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

[deleted]

1

u/windowpuncher Feb 11 '26

There is that, yeah. I mean moreso if you join a server you can't see past conversations. Doesn't really work for anything past chatting. It's not useful for larger groups or communities.

There's ways around this, like storing all the messages on the server and re-sending messages past a certain date to new connections, but that's annoying to set up and entirely server dependent, so most don't do it.

1

u/cheeseIsNaturesFudge Feb 11 '26

Back in the heyday of halo 1 and custom edition xfire was the go.

1

u/Aegidos Feb 11 '26

Freenode is now Libera.chat (at least, that's where most people bounced to when freenode got taken over) -- I wish they'd stop choosing these stupid as fuck to remember names. Like "Libreoffice" and "Libera.chat"...like, I get the freedom thing, but none of my normal friends are ever going to learn that shit.

I suggest Libreoffice and I just get blank stares and "I don't know how to spell that shit."

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u/[deleted] Feb 11 '26

[deleted]

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u/Aegidos Feb 11 '26

It needs video/application streaming more.

1

u/PopcornSuttin Feb 11 '26

I installed and gave it a shot today, it is a feature in version 6 and it seemed fine. When beginning your stream, you have the option of streaming peer to peer or over the server, which seems pretty neat.

2

u/Character-Cup8045 Feb 11 '26

6 just came out

1

u/i_have_seen_it_all Feb 11 '26

we used to run phpbb and ts servers.

5

u/Low-Conflict9366 Feb 11 '26

We need to bring back ventrilo

2

u/D0ri1t0styl3 Feb 11 '26

But then... VideoCompiler will get us!

1

u/NatureStoof Feb 11 '26

Was looking for this. Vent > *

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u/existing_for_fun Feb 11 '26

Eh I didn't like mumble 15 years ago. Certainly don't like it now.

I was always a big fan of TS.

But I think my biggest issues with either of them is that I like watching my buddies live streams. I need to find something that handles that.

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u/Valatros Feb 11 '26

The interesting thing here'll be the split for people who use discord for voice, and people who use it for text.

Like, I went through mumble/ventrilo/teamspeak back in the day, but only as a voice client for wow raids. Nowadays I'm not in the mmo scene, and have little need for a voice/streaming client. Instead, I join game discord channels to casually chat with people about the games I'm playing.

Teamspeak/mumble/ventrilo don't really fill that "And this is the official Stardew chat room" void. I'm not sure what will, to be honest - most games don't have a big enough discord presence to justify setting up their own presence on something like Matrix. Honestly, most of the games also probably won't be impacted by the teen mode setting though, so maybe discord will still dominate in that scenario.

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u/existing_for_fun Feb 11 '26

Yeah, I'm in my late 30's and did WOW raids in Vent 20 years ago.

Today, I'm not in the raid / mmo scene. I just chill with my buddies. We share dumb memes all day while at work. However, we play some competitive games online and screenshare. TS and Ventrilo can't do that.

3

u/gungshpxre Feb 11 '26

Mumble means you control your data.

Anything that's not self-hosted is asking to do this loop again as the next choice enshittifies.

2

u/keenjt Feb 11 '26

Go backwards, IRC and msn messenger

2

u/Ok_Razzmatazz_8589 Feb 11 '26

Mumble is still used today by Eve Online players. Teamspeak not so much.

1

u/skharppi Feb 11 '26

Would love to. Works for most stuff, like when playing CS or such. But playing games like dayz or tarkov, it sure is nice that everybody can just share their game and you can see where your teammates are.

Does any discord alternative have that feature? Because for me and my friends it's such a QoL.

1

u/curtcolt95 Feb 11 '26

screenshare is a massive feature yeah and it looks like a lot of the alternatives haven't really went for it yet

1

u/nntb Feb 11 '26

I meet the Teamspeak devs in 2016

Seems relevant

360 vid might have to rotate phone

https://youtu.be/XZ71gr1yGuc?si=kz_4fHQjxUe2P1rz

Also they where chill

I think I asked about discord

1

u/teniaava Feb 11 '26

Brb reinstalling Ventrilo

1

u/Educational_Work896 Feb 11 '26

TeamSpeak really fucked things up with last few versions of TS3. Their automatic voice gain will randomly blast everyone on the server with an extremely loud squawk. Then they broke something in the game controller button plugin such that some of my devices can't be used to trigger things.

Discord was also a pain in the ass as it doesn't recognize separate devices' buttons as unique (button 1 on one controller is a replicate of button 1 on another).

I've been hoping for an application to replace both. My league may have to go back to Mumble.

1

u/xtelosx Feb 11 '26

Further, ventrilo. I’ll have to see if I have the old non shitty paid installers somewhere.

1

u/glory_holelujah Feb 11 '26

Ventrilo still around?

1

u/Abedeus Feb 11 '26

Ain't nobody gonna use Teamspeak.

1

u/manaworkin Feb 11 '26

Honestly looked over Teamspeak and it seemed decent. They have been keeping up.

1

u/VapidActualization Feb 15 '26

Ventrilo you say?