Hi all,

I haven’t used Discord in a while, but it became so that now I have to use it for communication with certain people getting support for some services that I use. What I’m doing currently is:

  • using a separate randomised e-mail address only for the Discord account
  • using a randomly generated username
  • no profile picture
  • tweaking the settings as best I can for privacy

Other than these points, I’m also being wary of talking about anything personal on Discord. Would you add anything so I can be even safer when using Discord?

  • refalo@programming.dev
    4·
    5 months ago

    The biggest issue IMO is the random phone-walling. Eventually, all the things you try to do to increase privacy will just cause Discord to force your account into phone verification. This happened to me many times. It’s now to the point where I cannot even sign up for discord whatsoever because it immediately transitions from the logged in screen to “something suspicious going on” and forces you to give out a personal mobile number, which I refuse.

    • tmpod@lemmy.ptM
      3·
      5 months ago

      Yeah, they have upped their “paranoia” quite a bit in the past couple of years. A while back, I discovered smspool.net while trying to register for Claude (wanted to give it a shot, was disappointed) and was so satisfied by their interface and prices I’ve used it again in 3 other occasions. There may be other similar services out there, you should give one a try next time Discord prompts you for a number.

      • refalo@programming.dev
        2·
        5 months ago

        thanks for the recommendation, but unfortunately due to my privacy settings, most cloudflare sites do not work, I just get endless “are you human” prompts that never go away.

        Plus any site that uses crimeflare isn’t private anyway because they can MITM all your traffic including credit card info etc.

        • tmpod@lemmy.ptM
          2·
          5 months ago

          If you’re on Tor, that’s the very unfortunate reality atm. If you’re on a VPN, you may try switching providers or servers inside the same provider. I can recommend Mullvad, which works very well, even if you get some CAPTCHAs.

          • refalo@programming.dev
            1·
            5 months ago

            Neither, it happens because my browser settings make it more difficult for them to fingerprint me which makes it think I’m a bot or something untrustworthy.

            • tmpod@lemmy.ptM
              11·
              5 months ago

              Interesting, my Discord profile is also very hardened, and while it prompts me for confirmation, it’s always doable in a moment