The steam voice chat feature really improved and is very intuitive to use now. I'll frequently use that.

Look at Mumble. It's FOSS (Free Open Source Software)

https://www.mumble.info/about/

I've tried Fluxer but it's been a bit fiddly for me on Linux. It's okay, voice chat works, but there are bugs for me with video chatting or screen-sharing. If it starts getting fixed, I'll stick with it, otherwise I'm gonna keep looking.

Fluxer appears to be the most promising, though it is still very new and they are working furiously to get it up to par with a tiny dev team that consists of two (three?) people. Most basic features are quite usable now, though.

Ventrilo. Hobbles away on my cane.

Element, or whatever Matrix client of choice if you prefer a different one.

We use matrix

TeamSpeak or an old fashioned LAN Party

Stoat and Fluxer so far

Back in the day we used Ventrilo for voice chat.

Stoat seems like a nice, newer alternative to Discord.

Still using Discord here. Never sent them a face photo. Can't say either way for the other people I still talk to on there.

Prior to that I remember using TeamSpeak, which apparently still exists. Still proprietary and monolithic though, which might not be to your preference.

I use a self-hosted TeamSpeak6 server with my friends. My friends use Discord without me afaik. I can't make people share my principles, but they're slowly coming around to how bad companies can be with their encroaching data hoarding.

I use a matrix client called "Commet", but for easy sign-up, I guess it's Stoat or Fluxer.

Signal, but I don't play with randos, just people I know.

Discord is still king. People are way too invested.

Matrix is decent for me. Voice, video, and screen share, works well. Have not had issues with small friend groups

I went back to using in-game communication and social features and I can't believe we stopped doing it. It is so much more immersive to hang out in, say, a guild hall to chat with whoever happens to be online, than to be available 24/7 in an outside app.

Fluxer for me and my friend group. Signal was actually the primary plan but it doesn't work for two main reasons for us, both related to the fact that we record ttrpg sessions. Since I don't think this would affect most people, I'd also recommend Signal, though some people dislike needing a phone number to sign up.

Mumble + phpBB

for only voicechats, mumble seemed good

web.fluxer.app is your best choice.

I don't do online multiplayer. If I'm playing a video game with someone, they're in the room with me and we can just talk.

Element works fine for me

The dust hasn't settled yet. Still waiting for options like Fluxer or Stoat to cover the basic use cases fully.

When i play with my brother we use our phones to, get this, call each other. Obviously harder to do with more people but if its just you and a buddy your phone can be used as a phone.

I'm very tired so I thought you were saying discord was gone and what would I do then and I was like "well. Me and twin game from adjacent rooms so we'd open the doors and yell but husband would be annoyed" and now I understand you mean new program.

I'd probably go back to ventrillo since I know it existed.

Discord shelved these plans due to major backlash for at least 6 months, so it's stil going to be Discord.

The other alternatives aren't up to it yet.

Teamspeak 3, we like sticking to the older version and its nice to have not things change or look super polished and web-page like. Also Mumble, but thats only for groups that require it.

Telepathy

only used it for some testing purposes, but sharkord seemed good.

Matrix is really good i have a homeserver setup with a livekit instance using sable client and its really good. VC works really well theres a soundboard that you can customize if your willing to mess around with the element call src code (hopefully that changes at some point to be easier) screensharing does work but desktop audio doesnt tab audio does seem to work but only from chromium based browsers (i.e brave) (this can be workd arround by routing audio through your mic but is a bit of a pain hopefully it gets implimented soon. (Also sable doesnt yet have a desktop or mobile site but the web app works well in mobile browsers)

So all they're doing it making you a "teen' account if you don't want to verify. All that means is you can't join "mature" discords like porn and stuff like that. For gaming with friends it won't matter.

Go over to their house in person, maybe?

xbox party chat

if you were on Playstation we just couldn't play

WhatsApp, Signal