This is my old account that I just logged in today. Just joined a server and Discord asked for email verification. Okay, that’s not hard, thankfully Discord doesn’t restrict email to only big providers. But then suddenly DIscord asked to verify by phone number, because “something is out of ordinary”. What’s out of ordinary from that??? Joining a server > Discord asks to verify > I verify.
I was losing my mind seeing people suggesting moving to Discord when Rexxit happened. Like WTF, it’s even worse than Reddit. Non-indexable content, worse privacy, needing account just to access the said content, etc.
I really hate how services nowadays require your phone number just to use their service. Unfortunately most people just don’t care of privacy, thanks to “I have nothing to hide” mindset.
Actually a big problem. Companies think it simply means adding another layer where user proves they’re human (not bots) and also can’t be ‘faked easily’.
I hate it. It has fundamental issues like:
- geographical privacy breach
- some countries have strict ID req for phone numbers
- sms can be intercepted by social engineering alone
- there are apps and sites providing fake numbers, so…
Being generous, it’s an extra layer of annoyance to deter spammers. Big places like Discord won’t accept numbers from simple google searches. In my case, I actually paid an sms verification website so discord could “knew I was on $CheapCountry and bought a sim card”, lol.
And seriously, fuck discord and fuck everyone thinking chats can replace forums. It fucking doesn’t, goddamn people.
Yeah phone number kinda sucks here ever since it requires your govt. ID just to register. Back then I could just buy any random number and activate it.
I actually paid an sms verification website
What service did you use? I’m looking for similar service but I don’t trust recommendation from articles enough.
In my case it was smspva. A word of caution, the prices listed are cheap, but they require depositing 5 USD into your account first (I used bitcoin). Only after that you can spend it on phone numbers to receive sms messages into. I used whatever the cheapest european number there was to register discord and google accounts. Sometimes it was straightforward, other times it took 2-3 times cycling through to find the right number, in bad days it wouldn’t work at all (Google is the worst personally speaking). The website didn’t charge me for using a failed number, so there’s that.
Err… is it smspva.com or .eu? Also the .com domain throws an error certificate warning on my browser…
It’s the smspva.com site. Gotta admit the site does look sketchy. Dunno about the cert issue, but I warn you. I haven’t been there for a year and I did all my transactions in TorBrowser plus bitcoin back then.
I just don’t use services that require a phone number. 🤷
That’s what I’d love to do, but everyone and their grandma keeps making communities in Discord.
I simply don’t understand how so many communities, especially the tech ones, are on Discord instead of Matrix.
Is Matrix that new? Or hard to use? Because I found it just as convenient as Discord without the laundry list of downsides.
I think the main reason people still prefer Discord over Matrix is the fact that everyone is on discord but very few people are on matrix (at least, non-tech people).
If your entire family uses Discord, your friends use Discord, your classmates use Discord, at some point you will have to use Discord too.
And if you’re forced to use Discord, then why also have a Matrix account too? That’s a bit redundant when you think about it
God, I remember when Discord blew up and basically destroyed Teamspeak and Mumble overnight. I didnt think teamspeak was lacking ease of use, but I was wrong. It was really big on MMOs. Being able to go straight in your browser and type “discord.gg/guildname” without downloading anything got people who NEVER used voice chat on to servers. Everybody eventually downloaded the desktop version later, but many of those people would never download desktop IRC/teamspeak and remember an IP address.
Of course it also helped that it was free to host 24/7 with zero tech knowledge, so any moron could host without needing to pay for a server or leave their computer on for it to stay up. But even people who could host quickly moved to discord.
Now Discord owns basically everyone’s gaming chat and can moderate your server whether you like it or not, compared to if you had a server on your computer nothing could take it down except actually getting the police on your ass.
They’re going to start trying to really profit off it soon, and it’s going to get a lot worse.
I’m really bummed IRC hasn’t recovered since Discord took all the crowd.
These are basically my sentiments, both towards Discord and Matrix. I have been seeing more and more matrix communities around the places I browse, which is definitely a good sign. Hopefully, the growth continues significantly. I am lucky in that I managed to get my friends to use Matrix, whether that be switching entirely or just using it alongside discord. So, i’m fortunate to be in a situation where I almost never have to open Discord, except in exceptionally rare circumstances.
I just use websites which provide temporary phone numbers (for free) for the purposes of phone verification. I don’t remember if Discord in particular requires use of 2FA, but this works for sites which do not do that. Even those with 1 account limit per phone number can be circumvented this way if you care enough to spend the time trying a hundred different numbers.
Depends, have you noticed some services reject the phone numbers from the free temporary numbers pages a lot?
I’ve noticed this constantly, they will either flat out ban VOIP numbers (which is usually what these free services use) and/or the number will already be used up for the service you want to use. Paid number services are the only things i’ve ever personally gotten to work.
I hope one day phone aliasing services become more widespread like email aliases because this is getting out of hand.
I actively avoid services which require phone verification; however, there are services which allow you to fake it, like crypton.sh which is a paid service where you can buy phone numbers (both anonymously with cryptocurrency and with credit/debit card). I’ve used it in the past, when phone numbers are unavoidable and for one reason or another I have to use the software. Haven’t had to use it in many years though.
Thanks for that link. I’ve been looking for that kind of service but I don’t trust the websites that show up in search engine’s top results.
Also considered using that service. How was it when you used it? I ended up using something else since it was too expensive and I didn’t need a persistent number.
It works exactly like how I wanted it to work, you get (a) number(s) that people can text you from and you have a little GUI to see all your received texts. It’s pretty much exactly what you expect, not many extra bells and whistles, but you don’t really need there to be.
They should really just use captchas instead
There are captchas actually, which I’d filled 3 times. First one when I just logged in, second one when I was forced to change my username, and last one when I joined a server.
Captchas are even easier to get around, and when a spammer buys a bunch of VOIP numbers there’s a pattern that can be blocked/banned whereas if they pay some workers a few bucks to solve a few thousand captchas there’s not exactly anything as identifiable there.
