Ripcord is a third party discord client that's been around for quite a while, as far as I'm aware they haven't run into any trouble. And they actually might get used as opposed to someone seriously trying to run discord on windows 95
I think the root of the problem in this one is that it's named "Discord Messenger", Ripcord is reminiscent but not confusing.
That's fair
Speaking as a ripcord user, it helps your unofficial client avoid being blocked when you don't update for years and fall behind on feature parity (though I personally don't miss most any of said features)
Why do you think Ripcord stopped getting updated? :)
Same for Vencord/Vesktop
I don't think Discord cares as long as their backend still gets to harvest all the data.
I thought they used to aggressively ban users on custom clients. They even got rid (years ago) of their API for non-bot clients. AFAIK they are currently against their terms of service.
I never really felt the need to try third party so no direct experience. I'm mostly going of how they have monetized the product. I would assume it is against EULA but I haven't seen them enforce it recently.
Why would Discord need a trademark claim - they control the backend so they can shut down third-party clients and/or ban users using them whenever they want.