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Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

this.alicorn.gay

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Re: Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

#31

Post by nneonneo »

For completeness:

- "Copy link" on images is now producing an image link that has "ex", "is" and "hm" URL parameters

- The parameters can be removed (or altered) without affecting the link's validity (at least, for now)

- "ex" means expiry, "is" means issue time. Both are expressed as hexadecimal numbers encoding a UNIX timestamp. "is" is the time when the link is generated. "ex" is exactly 86400 seconds (24 hours) after the issue time.

- "hm" likely means HMAC. It looks like a SHA-256 hash, and is likely an HMAC-SHA-256 of the link, ex and is parameters. It's not currently being validated, but it would not surprise me if Discord is internally tracking failures on hashes and expiry parameters.

Re: Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

#32

Post by axus »

burnished wrote: post #28
treyd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any of you old nerds yearning for the IRC golden years should try and find a discord server to join. If we're still on IRC then we mostly would clearly have an objection to using discord for the very many legitimate reasons to object to it, such as the mass data collection, phone number requirements for many users, lack of control / selfhosting capability, or just general requirement to use (very heavy) nonlibre so…

At the end of the day its just a chat protocol, not a lifestyle.

The Medium is the Message.

Re: Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

#33

Post by codetrotter »

UnlockedSecrets wrote: post #13
spondylosaurus wrote: post #3

People are using Discord as a file hosting service a la Imgur? Yikes. Hard to blame Discord for cracking down on that, considering it's not a service they intentionally offer.

Yes, For a little while even it became a meme to compress all of shrek down to less then 8MiB using AV1 as that was the largest file you could host on discord without premium. It's not 'great' but considering many websites load more javascript then this entire 1.5 hour movie, It's impressive in it's own right. https://www.reddit.com/r/AV1/comments/hb039t/8mib_shrek_is_b...

It’s a fun experiment. Reminds me of years ago watching some movies on the screens of small iPods.

Also I will give it that it’s a surprising amount of movement for being just 6fps, that file.

Fun experiment, but not really watchable with this much loss of detail :p

(The movies we watched on small iPod screens were surprisingly watchable, thanks to having good audio and image quality in spite of being somewhere around 320x160 px resolution.)

Re: Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

#34

Post by burnished »

tmpX7dMeXU wrote: post #11
ehnto wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and hadn't really considered the Very Online but not technical as a cohort before. Perhaps in contrast to people who are online but not "online natives". Discord has become a defacto platform for online native communities, in the same way many of us treated IRC. It's really the same atmosphere, any of you old nerds yearning for the IRC golden years should try and find a discord server to join.

As an ex heavy IRC user, I couldn’t possibly disagree more with this. Not even for the same “free! libre!” reasons as the other replier. It is just at its core still a gamer chat platform heavily misappropriated for other purposes, with a UX that will spare no opportunity to make you aware of that.

How do you reckon?

For contrast I've gotten a lot of use out of it for connecting with various topic focused communities and I've seen people do neat things with it. The python server manages to offer an awful lot of surprisingly high quality tutoring, all things considered, and a big part of it is through the automation they've built in via bots. Oh! And I found a server focused on electronics when I was looking for help repairing a damaged TV that had knowledge resources the likes of which I rarely see anymore.

In all that I never felt like the experience was hampered by discord's association with gaming. Honestly it felt like a chat client that wanted to be used - if you want to start using IRC as a newb today you first have to pay obeisance and perform the ritual stumbling through. Discord doesn't (or did not as of a few years ago) even need an account to get started, just type a handle and go.

Re: Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

#35

Post by [deleted] »

codetrotter wrote: post #33
UnlockedSecrets wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, For a little while even it became a meme to compress all of shrek down to less then 8MiB using AV1 as that was the largest file you could host on discord without premium. It's not 'great' but considering many websites load more javascript then this entire 1.5 hour movie, It's impressive in it's own right. https://www.reddit.com/r/AV1/comments/hb039t/8mib_shrek_is_b...

It’s a fun experiment. Reminds me of years ago watching some movies on the screens of small iPods. Also I will give it that it’s a surprising amount of movement for being just 6fps, that file. Fun experiment, but not really watchable with this much loss of detail :p (The movies we watched on small iPod screens were surprisingly watchable, thanks to having good audio and image quality in spite of being somewhere aroun…

[deleted]

Re: Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

#36

Post by meiraleal »

personjerry wrote: post #24
treyd wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> any of you old nerds yearning for the IRC golden years should try and find a discord server to join. If we're still on IRC then we mostly would clearly have an objection to using discord for the very many legitimate reasons to object to it, such as the mass data collection, phone number requirements for many users, lack of control / selfhosting capability, or just general requirement to use (very heavy) nonlibre so…

why would being on IRC be synonymous with any of that? maybe people on IRC just want to hang out and chat with people?

That's what IRC was originally for. Later, it took on a counterculture vibe. Now, it's mostly nostalgia for older folks.

Re: Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

#37

Post by HansHamster »

d3w4s9 wrote: post #25
unleaded wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can upload any file below 25mb for free unless it's malware, it's a direct link that works everywhere, and it's quick because you always have discord open. if it's something not too important why wouldn't you?

Because it could go away any day? And is "always have discord open" a reasonable general assumption?

Haven't used discord in years. So it clearly doesn't apply in general...

Re: Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

#38

Post by amatecha »

codetrotter wrote: post #33
UnlockedSecrets wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, For a little while even it became a meme to compress all of shrek down to less then 8MiB using AV1 as that was the largest file you could host on discord without premium. It's not 'great' but considering many websites load more javascript then this entire 1.5 hour movie, It's impressive in it's own right. https://www.reddit.com/r/AV1/comments/hb039t/8mib_shrek_is_b...

It’s a fun experiment. Reminds me of years ago watching some movies on the screens of small iPods. Also I will give it that it’s a surprising amount of movement for being just 6fps, that file. Fun experiment, but not really watchable with this much loss of detail :p (The movies we watched on small iPod screens were surprisingly watchable, thanks to having good audio and image quality in spite of being somewhere aroun…

heck yeah, I watched an entire season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex on an iPod 5.5G Video :) Those were 320x240, maybe you meant a smaller iPod though haha

Re: Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

#39

Post by amatecha »

sjkna wrote: post #22
ZeWaka wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These were added extremely recently with no announcement.

Okay, I know what the tokens do. But how does this guy know they'll start working by the end of the year?

"she/her it/its" right on the page -- not a guy.

Re: Discord as a filehost will no longer be possible by the end of the year

#40

Post by yawnxyz »

This is pretty much what Airtable went through last year, and phased out general file hosting.

It'd be nice if either Discord or Airtable let you give an S3 or R2 bucket URL and you can just pay for hosting yourself, without the file expirations. Doing that makes it a headache for everyone.

I like how Notion handles linked images- they keep the original URL around but also duplicates the file into their own S3; if you serve a website using Notion as a CMS, you can still access the original link — so I've been uploading to my bucket and serving my own hosted files to our Notion docs and Notion-powered sites.

Too bad Discord or Airtable never went down those routes.

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