Discord will switch to temporary file links to block malware delivery

Technology@lemmy.world – 347 points – 8 months ago

Discord will switch to temporary file links to block malware delivery::Discord will switch to temporary file links for all users by the end of the year to block attackers from using its CDN (content delivery network) for hosting and pushing malware.

Can we please stop building everything around Discord? It has its place as a chat app, but it's become like a web parallel to our own, except owned and operated by a single company. It's an information black hole, completely closed off from the rest of the web, unscrapeable, uncrawlable, unarchiveable, and borderline unsearchable. It has everything that is wrong with the web today. When the company dies, all information in the app dies with it. There's no Internet Archive for Discord.

I agree. It's a handy chat app but it's not a replacement for actual forums and, God forbid, an actual support page for a project.

This is not easy when everyone you know is already on Discord.

The network effect is active in full force here.

Its a good point. Eventually discord will find some way to enshittify, I am sure.

They already have

I guess that is what they are doing, but this particular change seems pretty reasonable to me. Discord can't simultaneously be a chat application and a repository for all memes for all time.

Just goes to show that VC funded services are not sustainable infrastructure for anyone.

My university forces its students to use Discord for computer science. They even forced me to use my real name (otherwise they would've kicked me from the channel). It's a privacy nightmare so I hope they will switch now since they were using it to host weekly exams.

It's so hard to delete anything on Discord it's in the permanent record. It's upsetting. I use it too, but it is a nightmare privacy wise and it has all sorts of consequences.

Since I live in the EU, it shouldn't even be legal to force students into Discord. I really hate being that guy but if they do this shit again I will refuse.

Admittedly I really like Discord's user interface. Love the servers that can be organized by channel and channel type, have permissions sets for different roles, etc. All that good shit. What I don't like is the total control of one entity and lack of privacy. I've been looking at Matrix but it still has a ways to go before I could ever think of completely dropping Discord.

Slack was basically the same when I used it

I think at a minimum someone would need to create a semi automated client for Matrix that would have a better interface and then handle the technical changes and configuration automatically. Spaces can use used a "servers" but it involves creating rooms and then adding them and the process is complicated.

Amen

Technically someone could just make a headless browser and then scrape everything that way, Advancements in AI will make headless browsing easier and companies like Facebook won't be able to block automation by changing the HTML multiple times per day.

Yes, instead they will discontinue their websites and make you use their app.

I discontinue any websites that push apps. The reason they make apps is to spy on you.

What are you talking about?
It's literally a chat app. If all discord servers die today, nothing of value will be lost.

unfortunately no, there are several communities where if i ask for some specific information, i am told to go onto the discord because there are guides and information there. specifically, i have noticed this a lot with mechanical keyboard communities, but i know it’s happening elsewhere too. I simply don’t understand it myself, trying to find something on these is like trying to find something in a twitch stream. it’s infuriating.

So, so many modding projects live entirely on discord. I hate having to join a server just to download a single goddamn mod, and then you can't find any info about them because google can't index the discussions.

Technically with headless browsing, nothing can't be indexed. That is at least unless people start getting brain implant and then Big Tech gets to control everything you experience and there's no analog gap where things can be copied.

Nah Discord is like IRC on super-steroids.

You're gimping yourself by holding this view.

Discord is infinitely better then IRC except for the centralization.

It's better flat out. Centralization isn't evil in an of itself. The dogma pushed in this comment section is hilarious.

It creates a single point of failure if the administration ever goes bad.

The "server" nomenclature is also misleading. It's not a big deal and I think it works pretty well for what it's supposed to convey.

Yeah... In sure malware is the reason. It's not that they don't want people using discord for file hosting.

Files are still stored permanently and links inside the client stay permanent as well, only links accessed externally are affected. I don't like Discord either but anyone relying on it as their personal free CDN had it coming for them.

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