11 ms·

There are many problems with discord, and GPU is not the worst one. Discord Snap has to block many unusual activities, but I still see these: * attempt to `pt

by miga 4y ago

There are many problems with discord, and GPU is not the worst one. Discord Snap has to block many unusual activities, but I still see these: * attempt to `ptrace` processes all the time; * using 99% CPU; * to work Discord needs some non-standard interfaces to be connected; * Discord tries to track which other programs you run by default and shares it. * too frequently restarting desktop integration snap until the logs make machine non-functional (got 500GB.) * blocking other programs using desktop integration for file dialogs: latency of several minutes, sometimes dialogs never appear. Discord is as dodgy app as can be. Hope we will not find it is actually another distribution of spyware. Since programs with so many bugs and crashes are frequently prone to security issues, I recommend to replace Discord with another app that allows push-to-talk.

nextaccountic 4y ago
> * attempt to ptrace processes all the time; There are Discord employees on the thread so I gotta ask.. what's the justification on this one? Shit like this makes open sourcing the client a must for me
- charcircuit 4y ago
  >Shit like this makes open sourcing the client a must for me The client is written in javascript. It's not hard to go look at the source.
  - nextaccountic 4y ago
    Open source isn't about looking at the sources. It's about legally forking the client to remove malware and other unwanted features. Open source is about giving back users control over their own computer
    - mmis1000 4y ago
      'Open source' didn't mean you can legally modify and republish it. 'Free software' does.
      - charcircuit 4y ago
        Yes, it does. See point 3. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd
ChuckNorris89 4y ago
I yarn for the simpler days of IRC, Pidgin and Skype where these apps ran fine on a 1GHz Pentium 3 chip with 256MB of RAM. Now you need a quad core 3GHz chip and 8GB RAM just to run a chat app reliably. Where did we go wrong?
- dmonitor 4y ago
  I will never miss skype. that application was a buggy ass POS near the end.
  - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    I meant the pre-Microsoft Skype. That one was magic. It used p-2-p over port 80 so it would always reach its destination no matter the firewall rules on your network, and it allowed file transfers up to 2GB(!) in size, in 2005(!). Can present day Discord do that?
  - inetknght 4y ago
    > skype was a buggy ass POS near the end. Skype was great at first. Then Microsoft bought Skype and turned it into a shithole. Then Microsoft said that this product is trash and migrated everyone to use MSN. Thanks, Microsoft!
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  They ran fine on machines a hell of a lot weaker than that. If you had an actually-good desktop OS (uh, BeOS is the only example I know of—Linux, at the time, couldn't do this, even with minimalist window managers) you could even browse the web, have chat open, and be playing mp3s, and not hear so much as a pop or skip on the music, on a 166MHz Pentium (that's a single core, kiddos) with 128MB (luxury!) of memory.
  - mnw21cam 4y ago
    I used to be able to do that on my 25MHz Amiga with 10MB of RAM. Static absolute task priority scheduling is actually a very good way to ensure your MP3 will play without stuttering.
rob74 4y ago
So then I guess the advice is, if you have to use Discord, stick to the web version?
- SSLy 4y ago
  That, or use armcord if you want something that lives outside the browser session.
- Zetobal 4y ago
  I use ripcord for discord and slack bonus it's a native app and uses about 20mb of ram.
  - derelicta 4y ago
    wow had no idea there were good native apps for discord. im totally gonna try this once im home :))) thx again :)))
    - spoiler 4y ago
      This apparently breaks their TOS, but I don't know if anyone got in trouble over it yet
      - tumult 4y ago
        Can you show where in the TOS third-party clients are disallowed? (The Discord TOS does not even mention third-party clients.)
        j16sdiz 4y ago
        https://twitter.com/discord/status/1229357198918197248?lang=en https://twitter.com/discord/status/1229357198918197248?lang=... > All 3rd party apps or client modifiers are against our ToS, and the use of them can result in your account being disabled. I don't recommend using them.
belltaco 4y ago
> attempt to `ptrace` processes all the time; Isn't that for showing what game you're running as your status? If you turn that feature off it should stop doing that.
- capableweb 4y ago
  Couldn't you do that by just scanning `px aux` or even just `/proc` rather than running a tool that is meant for observing and control the execution of other processes? A simple name matching should be enough, rather than digging into the execution of the process itself.
  - ShamelessC 4y ago
    You're aware that the majority of users are running Windows or Mac OS?
    - capableweb 4y ago
      Well, they have equivalent functionality I assume where you can get a list of process names that are currently running, without having to resort to using ptrace?
      - ShamelessC 4y ago
        Fair enough.
  - stonemetal12 4y ago
    I am surprised anti cheats don't detect and ban everyone with discord installed if it is really doing ptrace all the time.
    - mmis1000 4y ago
      Dos anticheats even run on linux?
  - deleted 4y ago
bob1029 4y ago
>> blocking other programs using desktop integration for file dialogs: latency of several minutes, sometimes dialogs never appear. I think HN may have solved one of my most annoying technology mysteries... Definitely taking discord out of automatic startup. Moving back to teamspeak or some other system is quickly becoming a thing for me. I used to run a TS3 server for years.
- causi 4y ago
  Mumble is a much better experience than Teamspeak, at least in my experience.
  - OkayPhysicist 4y ago
    Mumble is probably the best VOIP solution on the market. The main issue blocking its wider adoption, IMO, is the lack of support for persistent, multi-media friendly, text chat. I've suspected for a while that Discord could be totally replaced by someone duct-taping Mumble and some forum software together.
    - HideousKojima 4y ago
      Discord's biggest sell is being able to spin up your own "server" for zero effort and for free. Some kind of federated Mumble that people could rent servers from (or join their own self-hosted servers to) would be able to eat into some of Discord's market share but the free hosting is a huge draw ro Discord.
    - UI_at_80x24 4y ago
      You call that a bug, i call it a feature.
      - spoils19 4y ago
        When did they ever call it a bug?
    - unethical_ban 4y ago
KyleSanderson 4y ago
Discord has supported Push to Talk since 2016 (on Windows atleast), if not earlier...
WheatMillington 4y ago
Me and my friends started using discord early in its life. It was a joy to get away from Skype, google meet, etc. It was such an elegant solution. Sadly it has become a gigantic, bloated, buggy mess trying to do absolutely everything. I hate it. Can anyone recommend a better solution?
- Insanity 4y ago
  To pile on (somewhat). I've been enjoying using discord for the chat features. We just have one channel that I use with long-time friends to chat. Recently, we started playing games together (cross play), and Voice Chat _usually_ doesn't work well on the Xbox. I'm not sure if it's an Xbox or Discord issue though, as I'm the only PC gamer and don't have access to an Xbox to debug it :-)
- UI_at_80x24 4y ago
  mumble The stand-alone server is small, and efficient. There are countless clients that will work with it. I've run it on Linux & FreeBSD systems.
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  I used to use Mumble. I still think decentralized, encrypted chat is great. But there is nothing like Discord for free. If Mumble could do streaming/video and rich text support, I think people could be peeled off Discord a tad. But I don't know what you're talking about regarding buggy. Discord runs pretty much perfectly for me, excepting one issue (it was either Discord or Corsair Wave) that was giving fuzzy audio with a particular virtual audio input. For how complex the server/channel/DM/text chat/"voice channel" text chat schema is, I think it's a pretty impressive product.
- questiond 4y ago
  https://tavrn.gg/ https://tavrn.gg/ maybe?
Animats 4y ago
Good argument to run Discord in the browser instead. "Discord is worse with the app".
p1necone 4y ago
> Discord tries to track which other programs you run by default and shares it. You might not want it, but it's not like this is unexpected behaviour. Tracking the currently running game and sharing that information with your friends is an intentional, advertised feature.
- zeta0134 4y ago
  I wouldn't mind this feature so much if it were optional. However, while it's possible to disable the sharing of the information, as far as I'm aware the only way to stop Discord from being able to probe the running processes (so it can display them in the corner to the user) is to run it in a web browser. As such, the desktop apps do not get to run on my machines.
stusmall 4y ago
> * attempt to `ptrace` processes all the time; This is the one that got it removed from my machine. It runs just fine in the browser so I do that. The feature I lose are ones I don't want anyways.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
sdnas211 4y ago
* blocking other programs using desktop integration for file dialogs: latency of several minutes, sometimes dialogs never appear. That's a Chrome/Chromium thing. Often, if I try to open the Nvidia control panel, it will not appear until I close Chrome. I've had something similar happen with rpcs3 (a ps3 emulator) - only with that, it wouldn't start compiling shaders until Chrome was closed. They continued just fine after reopening it.

by miga 4y ago

nextaccountic 4y ago

> * attempt to ptrace processes all the time; There are Discord employees on the thread so I gotta ask.. what's the justification on this one? Shit like this makes open sourcing the client a must for me

charcircuit 4y ago
>Shit like this makes open sourcing the client a must for me The client is written in javascript. It's not hard to go look at the source.
- nextaccountic 4y ago
  Open source isn't about looking at the sources. It's about legally forking the client to remove malware and other unwanted features. Open source is about giving back users control over their own computer
  - mmis1000 4y ago
    'Open source' didn't mean you can legally modify and republish it. 'Free software' does.
    - charcircuit 4y ago
      Yes, it does. See point 3. https://opensource.org/osd https://opensource.org/osd

ChuckNorris89 4y ago

I yarn for the simpler days of IRC, Pidgin and Skype where these apps ran fine on a 1GHz Pentium 3 chip with 256MB of RAM. Now you need a quad core 3GHz chip and 8GB RAM just to run a chat app reliably. Where did we go wrong?

dmonitor 4y ago
I will never miss skype. that application was a buggy ass POS near the end.
- ChuckNorris89 4y ago
  I meant the pre-Microsoft Skype. That one was magic. It used p-2-p over port 80 so it would always reach its destination no matter the firewall rules on your network, and it allowed file transfers up to 2GB(!) in size, in 2005(!). Can present day Discord do that?
- inetknght 4y ago
  > skype was a buggy ass POS near the end. Skype was great at first. Then Microsoft bought Skype and turned it into a shithole. Then Microsoft said that this product is trash and migrated everyone to use MSN. Thanks, Microsoft!
yamtaddle 4y ago
They ran fine on machines a hell of a lot weaker than that. If you had an actually-good desktop OS (uh, BeOS is the only example I know of—Linux, at the time, couldn't do this, even with minimalist window managers) you could even browse the web, have chat open, and be playing mp3s, and not hear so much as a pop or skip on the music, on a 166MHz Pentium (that's a single core, kiddos) with 128MB (luxury!) of memory.
- mnw21cam 4y ago
  I used to be able to do that on my 25MHz Amiga with 10MB of RAM. Static absolute task priority scheduling is actually a very good way to ensure your MP3 will play without stuttering.

rob74 4y ago

So then I guess the advice is, if you have to use Discord, stick to the web version?

SSLy 4y ago
That, or use armcord if you want something that lives outside the browser session.
Zetobal 4y ago
I use ripcord for discord and slack bonus it's a native app and uses about 20mb of ram.
- derelicta 4y ago
  wow had no idea there were good native apps for discord. im totally gonna try this once im home :))) thx again :)))
  - spoiler 4y ago
    This apparently breaks their TOS, but I don't know if anyone got in trouble over it yet
    - tumult 4y ago
      Can you show where in the TOS third-party clients are disallowed? (The Discord TOS does not even mention third-party clients.)
      - j16sdiz 4y ago
        https://twitter.com/discord/status/1229357198918197248?lang=en https://twitter.com/discord/status/1229357198918197248?lang=... > All 3rd party apps or client modifiers are against our ToS, and the use of them can result in your account being disabled. I don't recommend using them.

belltaco 4y ago

> attempt to `ptrace` processes all the time; Isn't that for showing what game you're running as your status? If you turn that feature off it should stop doing that.

capableweb 4y ago
Couldn't you do that by just scanning `px aux` or even just `/proc` rather than running a tool that is meant for observing and control the execution of other processes? A simple name matching should be enough, rather than digging into the execution of the process itself.
- ShamelessC 4y ago
  You're aware that the majority of users are running Windows or Mac OS?
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Well, they have equivalent functionality I assume where you can get a list of process names that are currently running, without having to resort to using ptrace?
    - ShamelessC 4y ago
      Fair enough.
- stonemetal12 4y ago
  I am surprised anti cheats don't detect and ban everyone with discord installed if it is really doing ptrace all the time.
  - mmis1000 4y ago
    Dos anticheats even run on linux?
- deleted 4y ago

bob1029 4y ago

>> blocking other programs using desktop integration for file dialogs: latency of several minutes, sometimes dialogs never appear. I think HN may have solved one of my most annoying technology mysteries... Definitely taking discord out of automatic startup. Moving back to teamspeak or some other system is quickly becoming a thing for me. I used to run a TS3 server for years.

causi 4y ago
Mumble is a much better experience than Teamspeak, at least in my experience.
- OkayPhysicist 4y ago
  Mumble is probably the best VOIP solution on the market. The main issue blocking its wider adoption, IMO, is the lack of support for persistent, multi-media friendly, text chat. I've suspected for a while that Discord could be totally replaced by someone duct-taping Mumble and some forum software together.
  - HideousKojima 4y ago
    Discord's biggest sell is being able to spin up your own "server" for zero effort and for free. Some kind of federated Mumble that people could rent servers from (or join their own self-hosted servers to) would be able to eat into some of Discord's market share but the free hosting is a huge draw ro Discord.
  - UI_at_80x24 4y ago
    You call that a bug, i call it a feature.
    - spoils19 4y ago
      When did they ever call it a bug?
  - unethical_ban 4y ago

KyleSanderson 4y ago

Discord has supported Push to Talk since 2016 (on Windows atleast), if not earlier...

WheatMillington 4y ago

Me and my friends started using discord early in its life. It was a joy to get away from Skype, google meet, etc. It was such an elegant solution. Sadly it has become a gigantic, bloated, buggy mess trying to do absolutely everything. I hate it. Can anyone recommend a better solution?

Insanity 4y ago
To pile on (somewhat). I've been enjoying using discord for the chat features. We just have one channel that I use with long-time friends to chat. Recently, we started playing games together (cross play), and Voice Chat _usually_ doesn't work well on the Xbox. I'm not sure if it's an Xbox or Discord issue though, as I'm the only PC gamer and don't have access to an Xbox to debug it :-)
UI_at_80x24 4y ago
mumble The stand-alone server is small, and efficient. There are countless clients that will work with it. I've run it on Linux & FreeBSD systems.
unethical_ban 4y ago
I used to use Mumble. I still think decentralized, encrypted chat is great. But there is nothing like Discord for free. If Mumble could do streaming/video and rich text support, I think people could be peeled off Discord a tad. But I don't know what you're talking about regarding buggy. Discord runs pretty much perfectly for me, excepting one issue (it was either Discord or Corsair Wave) that was giving fuzzy audio with a particular virtual audio input. For how complex the server/channel/DM/text chat/"voice channel" text chat schema is, I think it's a pretty impressive product.
questiond 4y ago
https://tavrn.gg/ https://tavrn.gg/ maybe?

Animats 4y ago

Good argument to run Discord in the browser instead. "Discord is worse with the app".

p1necone 4y ago

> Discord tries to track which other programs you run by default and shares it. You might not want it, but it's not like this is unexpected behaviour. Tracking the currently running game and sharing that information with your friends is an intentional, advertised feature.

zeta0134 4y ago
I wouldn't mind this feature so much if it were optional. However, while it's possible to disable the sharing of the information, as far as I'm aware the only way to stop Discord from being able to probe the running processes (so it can display them in the corner to the user) is to run it in a web browser. As such, the desktop apps do not get to run on my machines.

stusmall 4y ago

> * attempt to `ptrace` processes all the time; This is the one that got it removed from my machine. It runs just fine in the browser so I do that. The feature I lose are ones I don't want anyways.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

sdnas211 4y ago

* blocking other programs using desktop integration for file dialogs: latency of several minutes, sometimes dialogs never appear. That's a Chrome/Chromium thing. Often, if I try to open the Nvidia control panel, it will not appear until I close Chrome. I've had something similar happen with rpcs3 (a ps3 emulator) - only with that, it wouldn't start compiling shaders until Chrome was closed. They continued just fine after reopening it.