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.

Stoat and Fluxer so far

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.

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

Ventrilo. Hobbles away on my cane.

TeamSpeak or an old fashioned LAN Party

We use matrix

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

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.

Back in the day we used Ventrilo for voice chat.

Stoat seems like a nice, newer alternative to Discord.

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.

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.

for only voicechats, mumble seemed good

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.

We are using Fluxer, looks a lot like Discord, but is open source. It's hosted, but you can also self-host.

https://fluxer.app/

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.

Mumble + phpBB

web.fluxer.app is your best choice.

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

Element works fine for me

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.

Telepathy