14 DAY TRIAL // Discord is all but the default chatting platform of many users from around the world. Owing to a user-friendly interface, an easy way to create and manage communities, as well as a set of capabilities that enable you to conveniently communicate with your contacts, it's clear that Discord very much has an appeal of its own.
By this point, Discord almost has a lock on many communities on the web. Many forum communities where people come together under the umbrella of a shared interest have Discord as the platform of choice for instant messaging.
Perhaps it's the overall friendliness of the UI, whereby it's easy to pick the app up and start chatting even if you're among the most novice of users, or the versatility of the moderation tools that enable server admins and moderators to keep everything in order. Or perhaps it's something entirely different, such as the platform's culture and brand, that makes it so easy to adopt.
A modern take on instant messaging
To begin, once you've created an account and authenticated, the interface puts the latest conversations with your contacts front-and-center. Drag your mouse to the vertical bar on the left, and you'll be able to access the servers you've joined. A Discord server is a congregation of users that have joined the respective community out of a shared interest. Whether it be a hobby, product, or anything really, you can join and create servers as you see fit.
As stated earlier, server admins and moderators are given several tools to more easily manage their community. The channels feature is especially noteworthy here: if a discussion branches out into a different topic than the intended one, moderators can nudge users to continue their conversation in a more appropriate channel.
That may vary from server to server, however, and rules can be as lax or strict as the admins and moderators decide. The same can be said about server hierarchies, where some users may be assigned roles that confer them certain prerogatives, such as access to private channels.
If you're not one for servers, you can instead choose to engage with your contacts via the Friends tab. You can see what your friends are up to, start new conversations or resume earlier ones, and go to town. The Rich Presence feature is especially noteworthy, as it lets both you and your friends know what each of you is up to. Whether you're playing a game or listening to a song, it's nice to have the respective activity shown on your profile.
Various options to express yourself
Chatting through text is the default option, and Discord provides some additional means to express yourself through emotes. While we're all familiar with emojis, these emotes can be user-created and server-specific. This gets to a point where some places have their own culture, which is further cemented by their user-created community emotes. Some servers even feature global emotes, which enables use outside of the original server.
Speaking of chatting, uploading photos and videos is nothing new, but Discord is known to be rather strict with its file size limitations. The recent upping of the upload size limit from 8 to 25MB is a welcome addition that should make users feel less constrained in their sharing.
You may also share your screen, which works as you would expect. The 720p30 limitation has remained unchanged ever since release, which is a bit of a bummer in the world of 1440P and 2160P resolutions. Of course, these limitations can be safely removed by subscribing to Discord Nitro, which can confer you some extra benefits through the $9.99 plan, such as server boosts, custom profiles, and so forth.
Keep everything organized, but don't forget the fun
Organization is key, so the implementation of the Threads and Pinned Messages features does well to accommodate for all kinds of servers, large or small. As you may have already experienced, these functions can help guide users to the proper channels, immortalize noteworthy conversations, or anything, really.
The highlight of Discord is perhaps how channels are handled. There's a clear separation between text and voice channels, enabling users to easily keep track of their conversations. Much of the onus also falls on server admins and moderators, as servers with badly structured channel layouts are often recipes for a bad experience.
Fortunately, as is often the case with the chatting platform, users who want to have fun can do so in a variety of ways. Perhaps it's organizing a little watch-together on YouTube, playing Gartic Phone, or duking it out in Poker Night — voice chatters should have all they need here. And if that doesn't liven things up enough, then what else is better than an aptly-timed sound effect? The Soundboard feature can help you play certain sounds to reanimate the voice chat in those moments. Crickets, drums, and other custom sounds can be played at a click's notice.
Privacy conundrums
Everything's fine and good, but what about privacy? The platform is known to skirt around providing more details about its privacy provisions. As most of us may know by now, nebulous or insufficient data about how a platform handles its users' privacy is hardly preferable.
More than a few debacles have occurred over the years due to this rather poor handling: miscommunication issues, and a generally equivocated attitude, have left some users looking for "hardened" third-party alternatives. A quick search about Discord's privacy debacles is reason enough for some to consider such solutions.
In any case, the platform nevertheless remains in the public eye as all but a de facto choice for most. By this point, it can be claimed that Discord's mindshare is not to be ignored. If we're to do a recap of the last decade on the internet, the messaging platform has embedded itself too much into internet culture to be omitted.
The Good
The platform is very much modern from a lot of standpoints. From being able to connect to several services, for easier integration, to the app automatically recognizing when you're playing a game or listening to a song, the positives are more than just a few. Voice chats are very reliable and work as they should, and having the ability to engage in other activities with your peers within a respective channel is always nice.
You either embrace Discord's culture, or you don't. Your mileage may vary, but while some users appreciate the laid-back and often jocular atmosphere of Discord, others find such behavior less than propitious for their needs. Regardless, the servers and the people you come into contact with are the most relevant here: find a community of like-minded people, and you should be good.
The Bad
Though generally stable, Discord is not too kind to older hardware. The Electron framework behind the platform does not do well on lower-spec machines, which may lead to system slowdowns and an overall bad experience.
The Truth
The privacy concerns are valid, however, and those who do not wish to partake are fully justified. As it stands, Discord is worthwhile, but with this specific caveat in mind: if data collection is a concern, it's best you look elsewhere.
