GoofCord: A Privacy-Focused Discord Client With Less Bloat and More Control

If you use Discord daily and feel like the official app is getting heavier, noisier, and a little too interested in your personal business, than a Discord client like GoofCord something you should look at. Goofcord is a free, open-source, cross-platform Discord client that focuses on privacy, speed, and customization without relying on modding the offical Discord desktop app. You run it, pick the options you want, and get a leaner Discord more customized experience.

GoofCord runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, with a portable version available for Windows, which is nice if you like keeping tools on a USB stick and avoiding installers.

There is one thing you should know upfront. Using third-party Discord clients technically goes against Discord's Terms of Service. Bans are rare, but not impossible. If that risk bothers you, stick with the official client. If not, GoofCord is about as clean and sensible as these alternatives get.

What GoofCord Is

GoofCord is not just another Electron wrapper slapped around the Discord app. It is a standalone desktop client built on open source foundations. That matters if you care about transparency or just want to know what your chat app is doing behind the scenes with a community around it to keep thing honest.

The focus of the app is control. GoofCord's intent is to give you some interface control and block as much Discord telemetry as it can. It adds optional privacy features like message encryption, and lets you heavily customize how Discord looks and behaves, if you like. If you are the type who already runs custom themes, tweaks config files, or installs browser extensions to customize your world, this fits right in.

Features We Like

GoofCord manages to pack in features without turning into a mess of menus and toggles.

• Privacy-first design that blocks a lot of Discord tracking and telemetry by default, with extra tools like optional message encryption if you want to go further.
• Noticeably faster performance than the stock Discord client, especially on older systems or machines already loaded with background junk.
• Standalone client, meaning it does not depend on the official Discord app being installed at all.
• Plugin and theme support via popular client mods like Vencord, Equicord, and Shelter, letting you reshape the UI and add features Discord will never officially support.
• Global keybinds so you can mute, deafen, or trigger actions system-wide without tabbing back in.
• Solid Linux support, including Wayland compatibility and screen sharing with audio, which is still oddly painful in some official apps.

If you live in Discord for work, gaming, or communities, and the official client feels sluggish or intrusive, GoofCord feels lighter and more responsive out of the box. The odd things here, sit actually loads a little more memory heavy than Discord itself, but feels faster. Likely because of the optimizer settings preloading the functions. (Geek guess).

Once set up, the app sits in your system tray; just click the icon to get it going. It doesn't overengineer the interface either. Goofcord operates like Discord. In fact, we recommend using the custom icon options in Goofcord so you can tell which app you are in while testing.

Geek Verdict

What it is: A fast, open-source, privacy-focused Discord client with serious customization options.
What we like: Less tracking, better performance, plugin and theme support, and excellent Linux handling.
What we do not: It is unofficial, and that always comes with a small Terms-of-Service gamble.

GoofCord is an easy recommendation for those who like open source, portable software, and love to tweak everything. It's Discord without the extra baggage. Just know what you are signing up for before hand, and enjoy having control again.

If you get stuck or want opinions from people who actually use this stuff daily, drop by theMajorGeeks forums.