If you value your privacy, skip discord
I usually don't speak about tech, but I am a huge fan of Linux, and I wanted to make a tech post about discord (and xmpp).
Ok,I get it. Discord is the bread and butter for many people online. It's great if you play games, or if you want a large community of like minded people to chat with, but I'm not going to praise it much. It's a confusing mess of a platform, and although the UI is sleek, it's not very smooth to use.
Discord’s messaging system lacks true end-to-end encryption, meaning communications are stored and accessible on centralized infrastructure. Because the platform is entirely proprietary and centrally controlled, its availability ultimately depends on a single company and could disappear or change policy at any time.
Or worse, it will soon ask you to verify your age by scanning your license. Which is the antithesis of internet privacy. It's not privacy focused at all.
Instead, look to XMPP, a decentralized, open protocol that supports federation, self-hosting, and modern encryption extensions such as OMEMO.
I've had XMPP for a little over two years. I don't want to act like I've used it for much longer than that because, I really haven't. I'm not one of the people that was around when the internet was first born. I'm much younger than that.
I grew up in an era where MySpace was already on the downhill, and IMVU and the Sims 2 was what was hot online. I faintly remember Maplestory, and I remember playing RuneScape.
I veered off topic, but here's the summary:
XMPP is great for private chats, and it's incredibly easy to set up. XMPP has been around since the 90s, and it's a great messaging protocol that is incredibly easy to set up and use. You can even self host it on your own server so that it is entirely private.