Always consider what you say on Discord as potentially public, since there is no E2EE.

getting support for some services that I use

NAME AND SHAME please.

I know interested people don't like to talk about it...but we, the people, should really be moving away from Discord. A bucket of water doesn't fix a burning house, ya know?

Discord works hard not to private

Use vencord, which bundles OpenAsar, which disables the built-in tracking from the app.

Discord doesn't have encryption and, according to the terms of service, can read your messages. If you care about privacy, I definitely would not recommend using it for private conversations, especially after recent rumors about adding ads. I think they won't lose the opportunity to use your DMs for it

Don't waste time your life on harm reduction over solving the root, removing Discord completely.

Depends a lot on your threat model, of course, but here's what I do:

• use a temporary (but recoverable) email
• use smspool or similar to verify my phone for less than a dollar
• run Discord in a hardened Firefox profile (hardened browser settings + uBlock)
• turn everything relevant off in Discord settings just in case
• don't share PII in conversation
• use a VPN (or Tor)

Using a hardened browser and not giving them your real phone are likely the most effective steps, everything else is either less relevant or overkill. As I said, depends a lot on your threat model and on your requirements (some things may be unachievable if you're forced to use Discord by your employer, for example).

Nope

You can use it in a browser or opt for WebCord.

Note that any text send to discord currently stays there forever. I don't know when, but you can bet your ass they will be investigated for a violation of the GDPR, which hopefully stops that for good.

In that situation, I would also:

• Only use it through a browser (with fingerprinting protection), never a Discord app.
• Dedicate a browser installation, or at least a user profile, to Discord.
• Only use it over a VPN connection dedicated to Discord, or Tor if it's allowed.
• Have an alternative channel (maybe Matrix?) ready and waiting for contacts who might be willing to switch.

You forgot the VPN.

No way when this https://lifehacker.com/tech/discord-data-sold-to-ai-and-law-enforcement and this https://spy.pet/ exist

If youre just talking to friends directly without joining servers so this might not matter. But discord might require a phone number for verification? Im not sure what triggers it specifically- I dont think its required just for an account though

What is your threat model?

If your running discord on your computer, you have to assume they know its your computer, your location, and any other PII on your computer.

If you just dont want third parties (other than discord) to know which groups your in, then what you describe is probably fine.

The biggest issue IMO is the random phone-walling. Eventually, all the things you try to do to increase privacy will just cause Discord to force your account into phone verification. This happened to me many times. It's now to the point where I cannot even sign up for discord whatsoever because it immediately transitions from the logged in screen to "something suspicious going on" and forces you to give out a personal mobile number, which I refuse.

Use a Foss client that blocks the client tracking aspects, tor to connect, and only post pgp encrypted messages on it?

Use any matrix client unstead.

I'll give you the most extreme solutions I can think of, and let you decide how much of each you want to enact.

First and foremost: use a secure and privacy friendly OS—Qubes on a burner pc or GrapheneOS on a burner phone—with secure and privacy-friendly networking—use DNS-over-HTTPS, or self-host as much of the infrastructure as you can, consider a VPN, keep the device on an isolated VLAN—use a secure/private web browser like LibreWolf.

General rules of online interaction apply for maintaining privacy within the servers: e.g. don't talk specifics about your location, your age, your physical appearance, your childhood, your employer, etc.

As with most modern apps, the web app is necessarily less intrusive than the installable binary. Use the web app when you can, and limit your usage to only when you can use the web app on a computer and network you own—privacy enforcing habits are more important than all the software stopgaps in the world.

If you absolutely must use a binary, consider breaking Discord's TOS and using a modified front-end: I know some people who use Aliucord for Android, and I just this moment learned about GoofCord for desktop

don't install/run any software without verifying the integrity of the developers/distributors and binaries yourself, or building from source and verifying the code

It's better to have Discord stealing your browsing data to sell you shit than have some random github malware rootkitting your phone.

Did you sign up with a VPN turned on? Are you always using a VPN and private DNS? You could also use a voice changer.

You can use Armcord or other Discord client which is for sure better than the offical.

Don't share any personally identifiable information and use the TOR network when using it for additional privacy.

A VPN and the other stuff you mentioned will deal with it