Latest 30 Comments

Quoting: KimyrielleYes. Politicians wanted to end anonymity on the internet since it became a thing, because they hate it when they can't control or see what their subjectscitizens do. The "there is too much crime on the internet" argument didn't work at first, so it's now "for the children!!!!"

As a friend of Blåhaj, even if my ID is 'right' (that was a headache and a half...), I certainly wouldn't to share it with *any* American corporation these days. It just sucks to feel like we're being pushed underground, but I guess I'm 'lucky' to have the stereotypical computer-touching neurospice.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Liam DaweIt doesn't really matter what alternatives there are - anything chat / social media will end up having to use these types of controls. Otherwise, they will end up getting blocked by various governments.

Is IRC blocked anywhere?

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: sonic2kkWhat are the options for video calls and multi-participant screenshare (with audio) without usage limits and with support on Linux and Android? I checked out Element but the usage limit is a bit of a turn-off. TeamSpeak 6 looks interesting and seems to have the features mentioned, but wondering what others have to say :-)

I spun up a NextCloud instance locally for my wife and I, and while we just use it to de-Google things like sharing photos and the grocery list and such, I believe it's meant to be groupware that can do those things. It's just... not trivial to deploy and kind of overkill.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Liam DaweIt doesn't really matter what alternatives there are - anything chat / social media will end up having to use these types of controls. Otherwise, they will end up getting blocked by various governments.

Anything corporate and open to the public, sure, but an invite-only thing one hosts for their friends and no one else? They can certainly try... 😉

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: Liam DaweIt doesn't really matter what alternatives there are - anything chat / social media will end up having to use these types of controls. Otherwise, they will end up getting blocked by various governments.

Yes. Politicians wanted to end anonymity on the internet since it became a thing, because they hate it when they can't control or see what their subjectscitizens do. The "there is too much crime on the internet" argument didn't work at first, so it's now "for the children!!!!"

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: BrokattI miss my Mumble server. Too bad there is no streaming support.

you can always make a teamspeak server they are still around and the new teamspeak6 client has 1440p 60fps screen share streaming

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

What are the options for video calls and multi-participant screenshare (with audio) without usage limits and with support on Linux and Android? I checked out Element but the usage limit is a bit of a turn-off. TeamSpeak 6 looks interesting and seems to have the features mentioned, but wondering what others have to say :-)

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

The problem is that Discord wasn't even vaguely private to begin with, and as the biggest general-audience tech platform they have no incentive to resist or even engage responsibly with (see the leaked IDs thing) these anti-privacy laws.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

It doesn't really matter what alternatives there are - anything chat / social media will end up having to use these types of controls. Otherwise, they will end up getting blocked by various governments.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Ooh, Carmageddon 2? It felt so... 'edgy' for its time, but would probably barely draw attention these days. (Admittedly I was way too young to be playing it - and the first one before it - but my parents didn't mind as long as I kept my grades up, and I did... 😅)

I think the original was pure software rendering, anyway, but by the time 2 came out I think we either had a Voodoo Banshee (slightly nerfed Voodoo 2 plus 2D card built in, no VGA loopback required!) or a Voodoo 3 3000 with this then newfangled 'AGP' interface... (that wasn't compatible with the lower voltage AGP... 2x/4x of the Radeon 9800 Pro that I still have in a 'retro' PC!).

I guess the other option alluded to is to run something like nGlide to 'pre convert' that path to OpenGL? I also seem to remember something called [dgVoodoo2](https://github.com/dege-diosg/dgVoodoo2) but it looks like the maintainer there has recently stopped & archived it.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: GoEsrI'm left wondering when governments will come for Steam accounts. My account is over 18 years old, so maybe they'll implement the same system Nexus Mods did.

Mine is 21 years old, so it can drink! lol

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: williamjcm

Quoting: ArehandoroMost people will prefer to accept their fate rather than looking to move to platforms like Mattermost or Element.

I've heard a few horror stories about Mattermost, especially from bot developers, and Element is just a client for Matrix, a chat protocol that's so focused on security that they forgot to implement safety features (like banning/muting accounts and servers).

Is Matrix that bad? That's where I was hoping to direct some friends.
They're currently looking at Revolt (or, Stoat, as it's called now). I don't like them, but it's like 1/4th because their only socials are Bluesky/Reddit without a Mastodon, and I see Bluesky as emblematic of "marketable, but questionable big tech alternatives"...

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Verify this, Discord etc.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: GoEsrI'm left wondering when governments will come for Steam accounts. My account is over 18 years old, so maybe they'll implement the same system Nexus Mods did.

I'm only 13yo in steam years. No sakura games for me. :-/

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: apocalyptech

Quoting: JarmerOMG I love this so much because it will destroy discord. YESSSSSS I ragehate discord so much so anything that takes measures to destroy it is the best thing ever.

Heh, while I don't hate Discord with the same fervor as you, I am certainly not a fan. Perhaps this'll end up encouraging more people to start adopting open platforms for online discussion, over corporate-controlled walled gardens! Though through the cynical eye of historical observation, I think it's more likely that the majority will just grumble about it and acquiesce anyway. Alas!

That's most likely the case. The majority will go along with it and move on. The guy raging is in the minority.

What I'm more worried about is how they are going to ruin discord usability from going public. I'm expecting them to begin shoving ads in anywhere they can into the client and possibly locking features behind a paywall to push people onto Nitro+. I'm expecting BetterDiscord will be C&D'd or blocked in the not-too-distant future. If that happens, then I'm out. It would become unusable for me.

I did the whole rise up and leave the platform in protest thing with Reddit when the blocking third-party apps thing happened and I ended up being one of the very few who actually did it and I regret it all the time.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

A new ASUS Armoury driver to bring more ASUS hardware tweaks directly on Linux.

I've been waiting for this, as a ROG Ally owner who uses rog control center. Though, the Decky Desktop GUI is more relevant there since I started to use Ally Center plugin.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I'm left wondering when governments will come for Steam accounts. My account is over 18 years old, so maybe they'll implement the same system Nexus Mods did.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I get to be a teen again, nice!

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Well, guys, maybe take a look at https://stoat.chat/. It is a great alternative for my usage of Discord.

I refuse to give sites my ID. What if it gets leaked? I'm not going to risk identity theft!

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: williamjcm

Quoting: ArehandoroMost people will prefer to accept their fate rather than looking to move to platforms like Mattermost or Element.

I've heard a few horror stories about Mattermost, especially from bot developers, and Element is just a client for Matrix, a chat protocol that's so focused on security that they forgot to implement safety features (like banning/muting accounts and servers).

Damn, I wasn't aware of this :(

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

This is gonna suck because there is no other platform that is as fully featured as discord is. Trust me, I [really looked.](https://alternativeto.net/software/discord-app/) It's always lacking some essential feature that is used regularly, like streaming, embedding youtube videos and file uploads, long term message history, etc.

Sure do hate that so many communities decided they were too good for classic forums and decided to centralize all their valuable information on a non-open internet searchable IRC. There is information about game engine development I can ONLY find on discord.

Wish Valve would hire a team to improve the group chat feature on Steam to give it feature parity with discord.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Video selfies for facial age estimation never leave a user’s device.
Identity documents submitted to our vendor partners are deleted quickly— in most cases, immediately after age confirmation.

In other words: Trust me, bro!!! It's so laughable how corporations always go ahead and tell people you can trust them, when there are entire libraries filled with examples why you can't.

Also, "in most cases", makes me laugh really hard. I'd love to hear their excuse why the materials would EVER remain in their hands after completion of the process.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

GCN Hawaiian Islands still going in 2026. AMD graphics cards on Linux can basically be divided into two categories; Post-GCN 1.0 and the before times.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I refused to hop on the discord train since its initial rise and this is just further vindication for me.

Gamers should never have abandoned mumble which is self hostable, open source and IMO superior for the purposes of simple accessible game chat.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I knew I would end up lamenting joining, but unfortunately there are so many interesting communities you can reach only there 😡

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Sounds good to me. If they can come up with an easy way to get Steam going, without using the Flatpak, maybe I could make the switch to KDE Linux. It would be nice to have a "purer" KDE+Plasma experience than what Bazzite offers; hopefully less drama too.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

An assessment ran whilst reading this article… turns out I'd rather not use Discord than entrust them with information I barely want to show a TSA agent

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

...and my friends thought I was crazy for deleting my Discord account entirely after $USPolitics thing(s) happened and it became super obvious everything was neatly hooked up to their various three letter agencies. Then rumours of them going public with a big IPO, and we all know how the enshittification train goes when that happens.

They said the same thing when I deleted my Twitter and FB accounts, what, in 2017-2018? (Actually, FB was first - once the band I was in fell apart, no need to post shows there...)

If it's not fully open source and I can't host it myself on my own infrastructure with no hard requirement to even have working internet connectivity once set up, I'm not interested. Same for if the company behind it (*cough*Matrix*cough*) just loves the taste of boots.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

Quoting: ArehandoroMost people will prefer to accept their fate rather than looking to move to platforms like Mattermost or Element.

I've heard a few horror stories about Mattermost, especially from bot developers, and Element is just a client for Matrix, a chat protocol that's so focused on security that they forgot to implement safety features (like banning/muting accounts and servers).

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment

I hope this reverses the trend of open source devs using Discord as their development hangout places. A support forum is one thing (though still way worse than a real forum for documentation), but the actual development happening via Discord is terrible. "Think you've found a bug? Come tell us on Discord before opening a issue here!" - nope.

View this comment - View article - View full comments - Report this comment