Discord is banned in Turkiye. The reason is some data theft, blackmail, AI montage photos, etc. As usual, our government made the easiest and most illogical move :)
I am looking for an alternative platform to talk and chat with my friends. Which platforms do you recommend?
The ones I tried:
- Revolt: Voice chat is not stable. They do not accept new registrations.
- Matrix: Unstable overall.
- TeamSpeak: ancient interface. We can still try it.
- XMPP: It has an old interface like TS. Not sure if it has voice channels.
- Your recommendations?
Revolt seems to be the best for now. Today they got a lot of money and I hope, they’ll make their best to make it a reasonable discord alternative
waits for matrix fanboys to still chime in
Matrix is the only discord clone I know about. Does it have massive problems?
Yes. Without a question of a doubt.
Eh, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. There is a lot of room for improvement, but it works pretty well today, especially if your rooms are relatively small (e.g. a few dozen people) and you don’t use an overcrowded instance (e.g. not the main Matrix.org one).
If you can host your own, you can adjust the resources so it works well for you. If you can’t, just avoid the main instance.
My client shouldn’t be bugged when I enter a room with a long history, right? Right?
Hey, they’re fixing that. Soon. Really. Any day now. For reals!
(That’s the #1 thing that makes Matrix utterly unusable for me: if there’s more than like, 10 messages, it’s a game of is-it-broken-or-is-it-just-crap.)
Tbf, they actually are. Element X and the sliding sync are ready I think. If the server and client both use it, I think you can use it today. Or maybe the whole matrix 2.0 where that’s all integrated isn’t pushed into main/master yet. Im any case, I read it was ready maybe a few weeks ago.
Element X is still missing a lot of features, “ready” is an exaggeration I feel
No Spaces support in particular is a dealbreaker for me
Ahh, good point. I have only been “testing” matrix for a year and haven’t enabled sliding sync so haven’t bothered using element x yet.
Well then theyre right- one day it might get done. 😄
I’ve found that Conduit handles it a lot better than Synapse does.
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The lack of interest in it even amongst tech communities and bridges (they can link Matrix servers and Discord servers) constantly being down has kept me from giving Matrix a second chance.
I think it was a Linux gaming community last time that got flooded with hate content after the bridge went down and the Matrix side was left to itself.
There isn’t a full replacement for Discord out there, it’ll have to be old school with multiple things together.
Teamspeak is great for voice comms (or Mumble). And you could use Matrix or XMPP for text chat. Matrix should be a lot better if you either self-host or join a smaller server that isn’t so overloaded all the time.
For game streaming Broadcast Box paired with OBS Studio seems like a good option for low latency streaming.
Your experience with XMPP will vary depending on the client you use. It’s not a 1 to 1 replacement for discord, and I’m not sure if there’s a client that can do group calls, but It can do 1 on 1 calls and group text chats. I’d recommend Cheogram for mobile, and possibly movim for desktop.
For group audio calls, if you found matrix unstable, then Mumble is likely your best bet, or perhaps Signal, if that’s not banned as well.
matrix: unstable overall
“Unstable” is an understatement, and this comes from a girl who uses it all day every day.
Isn’t it generally better if you use a smaller instance/host your own? Most of the complaints I’ve heard have been on the busier instances.
That said, I only use it occasionally to catch up on dev updates.
self-hosting matrix is possible, and after I got it set up, it works fine. That said, push notifications were acting up a lot at first (might have been fixed by an update since that hasn’t been an issue in a while), and it is rather annoying to get your desktop and mobile clients set up to not be annoying about not being verified (iOS apps seem more fiddly with verifying than Android apps in my experience)
Despite my annoyances at first, the Element client really is the best and most mature one out there, and I do recommend it. Don’t bother with any of the other ones; despite what the fluffychat settings want you to think, Element is the only client that can do any kind of audio/video calling, and most of the other clients only have web apps, so there’s no hope for getting push notifications on mobile.
Ultimately it has worked for me, but my demands are three humans in a voice call once a week, no screenshare (use Parsec for that), and occasional text messages.
The Element X is supposed to be the best client, but I can’t find a way to join rooms within a chat. So for now I use Fluffy to join rooms, then back to Element X for actual usage. Kind of bothersome but I’m sure they’ll figure it out since the original Element app has the ability to join rooms.
Discord was based off of Slack and Microsoft Teams is a trash knockoff. All depends what you intend to use it for.
Matrix is probably the closest to Discord overall. If Element is bugging out on you, it might be worth trying other clients. Nheko worked well when I tried it, for example.
Mumble.info is great for voice. If your text chat needs are pretty basic, it might be a good fit. I don’t think it saves message history.
XMPP is a protocol, not an app. If you you saw an interface you didn’t like, you could always just use a different app. I don’t usually recommend it, since setting it up with all the features people usually expect is a bit complicated and error-prone, but it would probably be manageable among a small group of friends if one of them has tech skills. I don’t think it offers voice, at least not in any widely-supported way.
Our group uses mumble for voice and discord for text and backup voice or external voice. The voice quality is better, free, faster on mumble. Extremely low server requirements. It technically saves chat history but as server logs, not for the client.
What do you do when you want to share your screen?
XMPP/Jabber has whatever interface you choose (determined by the client you use), and does voice pretty darn well.
I’m currently using Jmp.chat as a SIM/data provider, and they provide an XMPP account via Snikket. I can connect to that account with pretty much any XMPP/Jabber client.
To me, XMPP/Jabber is the most flexible, because it’s a protocol, and you choose which parts you want. And you can choose which clients you use. I have 2 clients on my phone and one on my laptop. They all work fine with the same account, with messages showing up at all simultaneously. One client (Snikket) has multiple accounts in it. The thing is XMPP/Jabber as a protocol is like SMTP - it’s a standard, so all clients can communicate with each other, if they support the same features (eg OMEMO encryption, which is popular now).
Alternatively check out:
Teleguard, it’s from the folks at SwissCows. They claim E2E, and from the way you connect devices, and that you can’t recover an account from them, I tend to believe it. Though I haven’t seen a third party evaluation (I belive they’re closed source, unfortunately). So do with that what you will.
Simplex Chat, self hostable, they claim it’s very secure. I’ve used it some, the phone app is a bit heavy on ram use.
There are numerous others out there.
xmpp is a protocol, it doesn’t have interface. you may be thinking about some specific software using xmpp, in that case you have to say what software you are talking about.
Which is exactly what I said. You get the interface you choose.
I setup a Mattermost server for me and the boys. It’s more slack than discord. But chat, rooms and voice all worked. Push notifications worked on android and Apple. But, I had to admit defeat. No one wants to leave discord because they all have at least 1 friend who won’t leave it.
I tried to self hosted matrix, but it suffered the same feigned interest.
We need client compatibility with discord
Discord is a closed source system. Matrix with a discord bridge would work. You just use your matrix server and a bot to send and receive on your behalf. There is functionality between but technically the two systems are independent. I also see issues with it not being 100% all the time. Typical of something bridging to a closed system.
What compatibility are you looking for? A non discord application connected directly to a discord server and can send text, audio and visual via discord infrastructure? Nah, probably won’t happen. Bridging is the closest right now.
Discord is banned in Turkiye.
Considering the nature of these programs, I think the most important thing to hone in on is: what’s popular in Turkiye? Features and functionality don’t mean squat if no one’s around to enjoy them.
…tad off topic, but this thread is making me miss xFire. That shit was better 10 years ago (maybe more like 15? idk, I’m old) than Discord was at its peak. …litigated out of existence by Yahoo’s frivolous weaponization of our legal system. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Edit - Fuck you, Yahoo.
Eh, I’m honestly trying to give Yahoo another shake now that Google is so terrible. That said, Yahoo still sucks to use, and it lost most of the charm that it had in the 90s. And BTW, the xFire suit was around 20 years ago, so you may be older than you want to admit.
the xFire suit was around 20 years ago, so you may be older than you want to admit.
There comes a point where it kinda just blurs together. I’m old enough that when people ask how old I am, I have to stop and think what year it is, and do some quick head math to figure out the answer.
Ohhh, xFire, that takes me back. To a time of dedicated servers and not that bullshit service game fuckery.
When it got banned? My Friend is from Turkiye. He still used it.
Todays news
https://www.turkiyetoday.com/turkiye/turkiye-bans-discord-amid-concerns-over-platform-safety-62896/
For now, Discord users in Türkiye face limited access to the platform, though it remains unclear whether a full ban will be implemented in the coming days.
Still working for my on hotel wifi.
Oh Thanks for info
Some groups have allegedly used the “901” tag in their usernames to identify themselves, raising alarms among officials and parents alike
What does this mean? I can’t seem to find info on what a 901 tag even is.
Looks like a gang, similar to the 764 gang in the US.
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What did you end up going with?
None. There’s no true Discord alternative.
