I'm actually fully aware of this! Discord's ToS just says they can ban you for any reason, and it also touches on API abuse. A lot of past Discord clients (e.g. cordless) don't try to minimize API calls (especially some sensitive ones), and some of that counted towards API abuse.
Dissent tries to minimize API calls by requesting information over the Gateway Websocket and caching them instead. This is actually what the official client does!
It's just way easier to say that it violates the ToS instead of explaining the whole deal, though. You might still get banned, use it at your own risk.
After a quick look at their ToS I too do not see a clear mention.
In a previous HN discussion from September 2021:
[zorkian] It's still against the TOS -- my point is only that we don't specifically look for third party client users and we have no specific plans to do so.
[Note zorkian’s HN profile: “VP, Core Tech @ Discord. Opinions are my own and I do not speak for my employer (unless noted explicitly.)”]
[tumult] Just curious -- where in the TOS are third party clients forbidden? I've read it a few times, and I'm not seeing it.
[dge2020] Probably:
You agree not to (and not to attempt to) (i) use the Service for any use or purpose other than as expressly permitted by these Terms;(ii) copy, adapt, modify, prepare derivative works based upon, distribute, license, sell, transfer, publicly display, publicly perform, transmit, stream, broadcast, attempt to discover any source code, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise exploit the Service or any portion of the Service, except as expressly permitted in these Terms;
It's a catch-all but the best restriction that prevents third-party clients is probably 'prepare derivative works based on' and 'reverse engineer' (which you would need if you want your third party client to use any regular client API calls, or if you want to support signing in with the user-facing login page/qr login).
[tumult] A third party client like Ripcord isn't a derivative work. It also wasn't made by reverse engineering any of Discord's code. Even if it were, these rules still wouldn't apply to using third party clients.
So it seems that, as you note, the ToS do not explicitly mention third-party clients but Discord themselves believe that it forbids third-party clients.
I just read all of the ToS and also didn't find anything which disallows third party clients. I did find some older references to it on Google. Perhaps they changed the rule?
Comments
Apparently, the developers of Dissent have never read Discord's Terms of Service, because it doesn't even mention third-party clients.
I'm actually fully aware of this! Discord's ToS just says they can ban you for any reason, and it also touches on API abuse. A lot of past Discord clients (e.g. cordless) don't try to minimize API calls (especially some sensitive ones), and some of that counted towards API abuse.
Dissent tries to minimize API calls by requesting information over the Gateway Websocket and caching them instead. This is actually what the official client does!
It's just way easier to say that it violates the ToS instead of explaining the whole deal, though. You might still get banned, use it at your own risk.
After a quick look at their ToS I too do not see a clear mention.
In a previous HN discussion from September 2021:
[Note zorkian’s HN profile: “VP, Core Tech @ Discord. Opinions are my own and I do not speak for my employer (unless noted explicitly.)”]
So it seems that, as you note, the ToS do not explicitly mention third-party clients but Discord themselves believe that it forbids third-party clients.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28435490
I just read all of the ToS and also didn't find anything which disallows third party clients. I did find some older references to it on Google. Perhaps they changed the rule?
No, it was never there. Some people assumed it was, said it out loud, and it spread like a meme (as in the original meaning of the word.)