#facebookalternative — Public Fediverse posts

@GunChleoc @GunChleoc @ltning @Hannah Grace @beemoh @Lucien Maybe it's also worth taking a look at (streams) and Forte, both created and still maintained by the same guy who invented Friendica and Hubzilla.

In terms of privacy, security and self-moderation, they're at least on par with Hubzilla, and they're both nomadic like Hubzilla. UX-wise, they're more streamlined, especially permissions settings, and more geared towards today's Fediverse. Their learning curve is somewhere between Friendica and Hubzilla, but mostly because they default towards privacy rather than everything being public.

However, (streams) has only got a very very few public, open-registration servers and not a single working one in Europe at all anymore. It can't be crawled either, so FediDB, Fediverse Observer and FediIndex don't list its servers. And Forte doesn't have any public, open-registration servers whatsoever currently.

Maybe it's also important to know that their code is hosted by Codeberg in Berlin, but the developer is in Australia.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #FacebookAlternatives #FacebookReplacement #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte

@klu9 @Leigh Silvester First of all, Friendica is a Facebook alternative. It was designed as such.

However, it was designed as a better-than-Facebook-itself Facebook alternative with a lot of useful extra features and without a lot of Facebook-typical cruft. And not as an all-out, 1:1 Facebook clone. It was made almost 16 years ago, in a time when a decentralised alternative to something didn't absolutely have to be a nearly identical clone.

Friendica does have groups; there's the official group directory. So does Hubzilla which was made by Friendica's own creator from a fork of a fork of Friendica, so they're similar.

However, groups on Friendica and forums on Hubzilla are a lot different from groups on Facebook, especially if you want to have your own group. On Facebook, groups are a wholly separate feature of their own.

On Friendica, a group is just another account, but configured differently. Likewise, on Hubzilla, a forum is just another channel (on Hubzilla, your identity is not your account and not tied to your login), but, again, configured differently. (streams) and Forte, the two still existing more recent Hubzilla descendants from still the same creator, have groups in much the same fashion as Hubzilla's forums.

Friendica groups are not limited to users on the same Friendica node. In fact, anyone anywhere on Friendica, on Hubzilla, on (streams), on Forte, on Mastodon, Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, any of the Forkeys etc. can join Friendica groups and Hubzilla forums and interact with them. Yes, you can join Friendica groups with your existing Mastodon account.

Basically, how they work (within the Friendica/Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte family and with a Mastodon translation) is:

• In order to join a group/forum, you request a connection.
  (Mastodon: You follow the group account/forum channel.)
• Your request is accepted.
  (Mastodon: Your follow request is confirmed, and you're followed back.
• Now you're a member.
• In order to start a new thread, you send a post to the group/forum, but you must mention it in such a way that your post becomes a DM.
  (Mastodon: Most of the Fediverse, Mastodon included, doesn't know these special mentions, so Friendica groups and Hubzilla forums accept normal mentions from those server applications that can't direct-mention.)
• The Friendica group account/Hubzilla forum channel will automatically be quoted-shared (Friendica)/shared (Hubzilla)/quoted (Mastodon lingo) to all other group/forum members.

If you want to start a new thread in a Friendica group or a Hubzilla forum from Mastodon, which you can, you have to know the order of things, keep it in mind and adhere to it:

Title

@Group mention

Post text

So while Mastodon doesn't officially support titles, at least not when posting, you can give the thread a title by writing it above the mention and the post text below the mention.

A common Mastodon mistake is to first write the post text and then add the mention afterwards. However, if there is exactly one paragraph above the mention, and that paragraph is short enough, Friendica and Hubzilla will treat it as the title. Your start post might end up with a title, but not with a post text.

How exactly groups are handled on Friendica if you're the owner, I can't tell you. The last time I've used Friendica must have been either when Mastodon was still fairly new or even before Mastodon was even made. I've switched to Hubzilla as my preferred daily driver back then and never looked back.

I've read that Friendica has something like secondary accounts which you can attach to your existing account. This way, you can have your personal Friendica account and a group account on the same login, and you can switch between them without having to log out. But that must have been introduced long after I've quit Friendica.

On Hubzilla, something like this has always been possible: If you want to start a group, you simply create another channel on your account and configure it as a forum channel, either by choosing "Community forum" as the channel role or, if you know what you're doing, by choosing "Custom" as the channel role and then activating "Group actor" in the Custom channel role settings. The latter is also the only way to have a private forum.

Friendica lets you appoint additional admins/moderators, but only from the same Friendica node that your group is on.

As Hubzilla has a full implementation of OpenWebAuth magic sign-on, include server-side, you can promote any forum member on Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams), Forte and Mitra as extra forum admins.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #FacebookAlternatives #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Groups #FediGroups #FediverseGroups

@💚

ich werbe ins Fediverse zu kommen und sage klar das erstmal als Alternative zu FB,Insta, X etc zu nutzen und das Andere nach und nach auszufaden.

Das Fediverse: ja.

Aber komm nicht auf die Idee, Mastodon und nur Mastodon als alleinige Alternative zu 𝕏 und Facebook und Instagram zu verkaufen.

Mastodon ist eine Alternative zu 𝕏. Nicht die einzige. Eine von vielen. Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, Sharkey usw., sie sind auch alle Alternativen zu 𝕏 und besser als Mastodon. In mancher Hinsicht sind übrigens Misskey und seine Forks sogar dichter an 𝕏 dran als Mastodon.

Mastodon ist keine Alternative zu Instagram. Die hauptsächliche Alternative zu Instagram ist Pixelfed. Man kann sogar sein komplettes Instagram-Konto mitsamt allen Bildern direkt nach Pixelfed importieren.

Mastodon ist auch keine Alternative zu Facebook. Nein, wirklich nicht. Die populärste Alternative zu Facebook ist Friendica, das 2010 vorn vornherein als Alternative zu Facebook entwickelt wurde. Es ist also sehr viel dichter an Facebook dran als Mastodon. Wer mehr Features will und/oder mehr Sicherheit und/oder mehr Resilienz gegen Serverausfall, kann sich auch Hubzilla angucken.

Was die Themen Synthesizer und Musikproduktion angeht: einfach mal aufhören, mit Hashtags in den Äther zu rufen und zu hoffen, daß die richtigen Leute anbeißen. Statt dessen sich einfach mal da umzugucken, wo es ein Killerfeature gibt, auf das Mastodon nicht mal vorbereitet ist: Gruppen.

Beispiel: Lemmy. Die primäre Alternative zu Reddit im Fediverse.

• https://lemm.ee/c/synthesizers
• https://midwest.social/c/synths
• https://sh.itjust.works/c/musicproduction

Beispiel: Friendica.

• https://horche.demkontinuum.de/profile/moosiq
• https://friendica.me/profile/sdiy

Und falls dir das nicht bekannt sein sollte: Alles, was ich hier jetzt erwähnt habe, ist nicht nur im Fediverse, sondern das heißt, es ist auch mit Mastodon verbunden. Und miteinander.

Gruß von Hubzilla übrigens.

CC: @Katharina Nocun

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NichtNurMastodon #Twitter #𝕏 #TwitterAlternative #TwitterErsatz #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Sharkey #Instagram #InstagramAlternative #InstagramErsatz #Pixelfed #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #FacebookErsatz #Friendica #Hubzilla #Reddit #RedditAlternative #RedditErsatz #Lemmy

@💚

ich werbe ins Fediverse zu kommen und sage klar das erstmal als Alternative zu FB,Insta, X etc zu nutzen und das Andere nach und nach auszufaden.

Das Fediverse: ja.

Aber komm nicht auf die Idee, Mastodon und nur Mastodon als alleinige Alternative zu 𝕏 und Facebook und Instagram zu verkaufen.

Mastodon ist eine Alternative zu 𝕏. Nicht die einzige. Eine von vielen. Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, Sharkey usw., sie sind auch alle Alternativen zu 𝕏 und besser als Mastodon. In mancher Hinsicht sind übrigens Misskey und seine Forks sogar dichter an 𝕏 dran als Mastodon.

Mastodon ist keine Alternative zu Instagram. Die hauptsächliche Alternative zu Instagram ist Pixelfed. Man kann sogar sein komplettes Instagram-Konto mitsamt allen Bildern direkt nach Pixelfed importieren.

Mastodon ist auch keine Alternative zu Facebook. Nein, wirklich nicht. Die populärste Alternative zu Facebook ist Friendica, das 2010 vorn vornherein als Alternative zu Facebook entwickelt wurde. Es ist also sehr viel dichter an Facebook dran als Mastodon. Wer mehr Features will und/oder mehr Sicherheit und/oder mehr Resilienz gegen Serverausfall, kann sich auch Hubzilla angucken.

Was die Themen Synthesizer und Musikproduktion angeht: einfach mal aufhören, mit Hashtags in den Äther zu rufen und zu hoffen, daß die richtigen Leute anbeißen. Statt dessen sich einfach mal da umzugucken, wo es ein Killerfeature gibt, auf das Mastodon nicht mal vorbereitet ist: Gruppen.

Beispiel: Lemmy. Die primäre Alternative zu Reddit im Fediverse.

• https://lemm.ee/c/synthesizers
• https://midwest.social/c/synths
• https://sh.itjust.works/c/musicproduction

Beispiel: Friendica.

• https://horche.demkontinuum.de/profile/moosiq
• https://friendica.me/profile/sdiy

Und falls dir das nicht bekannt sein sollte: Alles, was ich hier jetzt erwähnt habe, ist nicht nur im Fediverse, sondern das heißt, es ist auch mit Mastodon verbunden. Und miteinander.

Gruß von Hubzilla übrigens.

CC: @Katharina Nocun

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NichtNurMastodon #Twitter #𝕏 #TwitterAlternative #TwitterErsatz #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Sharkey #Instagram #InstagramAlternative #InstagramErsatz #Pixelfed #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #FacebookErsatz #Friendica #Hubzilla #Reddit #RedditAlternative #RedditErsatz #Lemmy

@💚

ich werbe ins Fediverse zu kommen und sage klar das erstmal als Alternative zu FB,Insta, X etc zu nutzen und das Andere nach und nach auszufaden.

Das Fediverse: ja.

Aber komm nicht auf die Idee, Mastodon und nur Mastodon als alleinige Alternative zu 𝕏 und Facebook und Instagram zu verkaufen.

Mastodon ist eine Alternative zu 𝕏. Nicht die einzige. Eine von vielen. Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, Sharkey usw., sie sind auch alle Alternativen zu 𝕏 und besser als Mastodon. In mancher Hinsicht sind übrigens Misskey und seine Forks sogar dichter an 𝕏 dran als Mastodon.

Mastodon ist keine Alternative zu Instagram. Die hauptsächliche Alternative zu Instagram ist Pixelfed. Man kann sogar sein komplettes Instagram-Konto mitsamt allen Bildern direkt nach Pixelfed importieren.

Mastodon ist auch keine Alternative zu Facebook. Nein, wirklich nicht. Die populärste Alternative zu Facebook ist Friendica, das 2010 vorn vornherein als Alternative zu Facebook entwickelt wurde. Es ist also sehr viel dichter an Facebook dran als Mastodon. Wer mehr Features will und/oder mehr Sicherheit und/oder mehr Resilienz gegen Serverausfall, kann sich auch Hubzilla angucken.

Was die Themen Synthesizer und Musikproduktion angeht: einfach mal aufhören, mit Hashtags in den Äther zu rufen und zu hoffen, daß die richtigen Leute anbeißen. Statt dessen sich einfach mal da umzugucken, wo es ein Killerfeature gibt, auf das Mastodon nicht mal vorbereitet ist: Gruppen.

Beispiel: Lemmy. Die primäre Alternative zu Reddit im Fediverse.

• https://lemm.ee/c/synthesizers
• https://midwest.social/c/synths
• https://sh.itjust.works/c/musicproduction

Beispiel: Friendica.

• https://horche.demkontinuum.de/profile/moosiq
• https://friendica.me/profile/sdiy

Und falls dir das nicht bekannt sein sollte: Alles, was ich hier jetzt erwähnt habe, ist nicht nur im Fediverse, sondern das heißt, es ist auch mit Mastodon verbunden. Und miteinander.

Gruß von Hubzilla übrigens.

CC: @Katharina Nocun

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NichtNurMastodon #Twitter #𝕏 #TwitterAlternative #TwitterErsatz #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Sharkey #Instagram #InstagramAlternative #InstagramErsatz #Pixelfed #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #FacebookErsatz #Friendica #Hubzilla #Reddit #RedditAlternative #RedditErsatz #Lemmy

@💚

ich werbe ins Fediverse zu kommen und sage klar das erstmal als Alternative zu FB,Insta, X etc zu nutzen und das Andere nach und nach auszufaden.

Das Fediverse: ja.

Aber komm nicht auf die Idee, Mastodon und nur Mastodon als alleinige Alternative zu 𝕏 und Facebook und Instagram zu verkaufen.

Mastodon ist eine Alternative zu 𝕏. Nicht die einzige. Eine von vielen. Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, Sharkey usw., sie sind auch alle Alternativen zu 𝕏 und besser als Mastodon. In mancher Hinsicht sind übrigens Misskey und seine Forks sogar dichter an 𝕏 dran als Mastodon.

Mastodon ist keine Alternative zu Instagram. Die hauptsächliche Alternative zu Instagram ist Pixelfed. Man kann sogar sein komplettes Instagram-Konto mitsamt allen Bildern direkt nach Pixelfed importieren.

Mastodon ist auch keine Alternative zu Facebook. Nein, wirklich nicht. Die populärste Alternative zu Facebook ist Friendica, das 2010 vorn vornherein als Alternative zu Facebook entwickelt wurde. Es ist also sehr viel dichter an Facebook dran als Mastodon. Wer mehr Features will und/oder mehr Sicherheit und/oder mehr Resilienz gegen Serverausfall, kann sich auch Hubzilla angucken.

Was die Themen Synthesizer und Musikproduktion angeht: einfach mal aufhören, mit Hashtags in den Äther zu rufen und zu hoffen, daß die richtigen Leute anbeißen. Statt dessen sich einfach mal da umzugucken, wo es ein Killerfeature gibt, auf das Mastodon nicht mal vorbereitet ist: Gruppen.

Beispiel: Lemmy. Die primäre Alternative zu Reddit im Fediverse.

• https://lemm.ee/c/synthesizers
• https://midwest.social/c/synths
• https://sh.itjust.works/c/musicproduction

Beispiel: Friendica.

• https://horche.demkontinuum.de/profile/moosiq
• https://friendica.me/profile/sdiy

Und falls dir das nicht bekannt sein sollte: Alles, was ich hier jetzt erwähnt habe, ist nicht nur im Fediverse, sondern das heißt, es ist auch mit Mastodon verbunden. Und miteinander.

Gruß von Hubzilla übrigens.

CC: @Katharina Nocun

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NichtNurMastodon #Twitter #𝕏 #TwitterAlternative #TwitterErsatz #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Sharkey #Instagram #InstagramAlternative #InstagramErsatz #Pixelfed #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #FacebookErsatz #Friendica #Hubzilla #Reddit #RedditAlternative #RedditErsatz #Lemmy

@💚

ich werbe ins Fediverse zu kommen und sage klar das erstmal als Alternative zu FB,Insta, X etc zu nutzen und das Andere nach und nach auszufaden.

Das Fediverse: ja.

Aber komm nicht auf die Idee, Mastodon und nur Mastodon als alleinige Alternative zu 𝕏 und Facebook und Instagram zu verkaufen.

Mastodon ist eine Alternative zu 𝕏. Nicht die einzige. Eine von vielen. Pleroma, Akkoma, Misskey, Sharkey usw., sie sind auch alle Alternativen zu 𝕏 und besser als Mastodon. In mancher Hinsicht sind übrigens Misskey und seine Forks sogar dichter an 𝕏 dran als Mastodon.

Mastodon ist keine Alternative zu Instagram. Die hauptsächliche Alternative zu Instagram ist Pixelfed. Man kann sogar sein komplettes Instagram-Konto mitsamt allen Bildern direkt nach Pixelfed importieren.

Mastodon ist auch keine Alternative zu Facebook. Nein, wirklich nicht. Die populärste Alternative zu Facebook ist Friendica, das 2010 vorn vornherein als Alternative zu Facebook entwickelt wurde. Es ist also sehr viel dichter an Facebook dran als Mastodon. Wer mehr Features will und/oder mehr Sicherheit und/oder mehr Resilienz gegen Serverausfall, kann sich auch Hubzilla angucken.

Was die Themen Synthesizer und Musikproduktion angeht: einfach mal aufhören, mit Hashtags in den Äther zu rufen und zu hoffen, daß die richtigen Leute anbeißen. Statt dessen sich einfach mal da umzugucken, wo es ein Killerfeature gibt, auf das Mastodon nicht mal vorbereitet ist: Gruppen.

Beispiel: Lemmy. Die primäre Alternative zu Reddit im Fediverse.

• https://lemm.ee/c/synthesizers
• https://midwest.social/c/synths
• https://sh.itjust.works/c/musicproduction

Beispiel: Friendica.

• https://horche.demkontinuum.de/profile/moosiq
• https://friendica.me/profile/sdiy

Und falls dir das nicht bekannt sein sollte: Alles, was ich hier jetzt erwähnt habe, ist nicht nur im Fediverse, sondern das heißt, es ist auch mit Mastodon verbunden. Und miteinander.

Gruß von Hubzilla übrigens.

CC: @Katharina Nocun

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #LangerPost #CWLangerPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #NichtNurMastodon #Twitter #𝕏 #TwitterAlternative #TwitterErsatz #Pleroma #Akkoma #Misskey #Sharkey #Instagram #InstagramAlternative #InstagramErsatz #Pixelfed #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #FacebookErsatz #Friendica #Hubzilla #Reddit #RedditAlternative #RedditErsatz #Lemmy

@Sylkeweb Testing The Fediverse To be fair, "European Facebook" already exists. And it has been around for longer than Mastodon.

Friendica was created by an American living in Australia, but it's maintained by two Germans. Hubzilla was created (actually forked) by the same guy, and now it's maintained by a German and a Norwegian.

Both are part of the Fediverse. Friendica connects to Mastodon and everything else in the Fediverse, and Hubzilla can optionally do that, too.

None of them is an all-out, 1:1 clone of Facebook, though. Instead, both are better than Facebook.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Friendica #Hubzilla #FacebookAlternative #FacebookAlternatives

@Cătă @Shauna GM There are also the "descendants" of Friendica, created as forks by Friendica's own creator over more than a dozen years now, which have even more advanced permissions systems.

One is Hubzilla, a fork of Friendica from 2012. The other one is called (streams) by the community, and it's a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla from 2021.

I've made a series of tables that compare Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) in a number of categories.

Hubzilla and (streams) give you the following possible target audiences for new posts:

• everyone on the Internet (Hubzilla, (streams))
• all your connections ((streams) only; on Hubzilla, you can emulate this with a privacy group containing all your connections)
• only the members of one particular privacy group (Hubzilla)/access list ((streams)) (think "Mastodon's lists on coke and 'roids")
• only those to whom you've assigned a specific custom profile of your channel (Hubzilla; like Friendica, it actually allows you to have multiple profiles and show them to specific connections so that they see different sides of you)
• only one specific group/forum (Hubzilla, (streams))
• only an impromptu selection of connections of yours (Hubzilla, (streams))
• only you yourself (Hubzilla, (streams))

The permissions systems of Hubzilla and (streams) are compatible to one another, i.e. one understands the permissions defined by the other. I'm not sure how well they and Friendica play with each other, though.

As for Mastodon: Any post that isn't public is understood by Mastodon as a DM and treated as such. Your contacts can't boost it, for example. The downside is that this kills any chances of meaningful discussions for Mastodon users.

So Hubzilla and (streams) have this advanced permissions system, and they understand threaded conversations and treat each one of these as an enclosed object with exactly one post and any number of comments. A thread always has and enforces consistent permissions all over, including all comments.

If you're on Hubzilla, and you send a post to Alice on Hubzilla and Bob on (streams), not only do both see your post, but both also automatically receive each other's comments, and they can comment on each other's comments.

Mastodon understands your post with restricted permissions as a DM. But Mastodon DMs only ever happen between two actors. This means: If Alice and Bob are on Mastodon, then both receive your post as a DM, but neither receives any comment from the other, and they can't comment on each other's comments either.

Also, fair warning ahead:

Neither of them is "Mastodon with some extra features". They're all very different from Mastodon. They all have steeper learning curves than Mastodon. Friendica's learning curve is significantly steeper than Mastodon's. (streams)' learning curve is quite another bit steeper than Friendica's because the permissions system is not optional, and not everything is public by default. Hubzilla has an even steeper learning curve.

Also, none of the three has a full set of dedicated native mobile apps. For Friendica, there are basically only Android apps. In the Apple App Store, there's nothing. Friendica can also be used with some Mastodon apps, but they only cover maybe 20% of Friendica's features, namely those that Mastodon has, too, so you'll be very, very limited. In fact, they do not cover any permission settings.

For Hubzilla and (streams), there are no phone apps at all. They don't support Mastodon apps either, and they never will. It simply wouldn't make sense because a Mastodon app would not cover important key features.

So if you're on an iPhone or iPad, or if you want to try Hubzilla or (streams), your only option is the Web interface, either in a browser or as a Progressive Web App. At least, all three have Web interfaces that adapt to mobile devices.

Lastly, you won't find (streams) on FediDB or Fediverse Observer. It's intentionally kept away from there, and it intentionally does not submit any stats. There are currently only two public, open-registration instances anyway, one in the USA, one in Hungary with a German admin who also speaks English.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Facebook #FacebookAlternative

@Christian Take a look at Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) in comparison with Mastodon.

Friendica is the oldest one, the biggest one, the most well-known one, the one that's the easiest to get into and the only one with dedicated (Android) mobile apps.

Hubzilla is the second-oldest one and easily the most powerful one, but also the one that's the hardest to get into.

(streams) is the newest and most advanced one, but also next to impossible to find for those who are Googling it or looking for public instances to test it (it only has two).

All three are very different from Mastodon (see the tables behind the link at the top of this comment).

Self-hosting seems fairly easy. All three are built in PHP and don't require much more than a LAMP stack. Also, all three can be installed via YunoHost.

As for diaspora*, forget it. All recommendations for diaspora* come from Mastodon users who only know it from hearsay from other Mastodon users who only know it from hearsay. In reality, it's slowly dying, and even big and important pods with lots of user accounts are shutting down. Also, it doesn't support ActivityPub, it can't connect to Mastodon, and it never will. That's a fully intentional design decision with very good reasoning behind it.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #diaspora* #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams)

@Graham Ward This has a variety of reasons.

One, Friendica hasn't been big or well-known to begin with. Honestly, did you even know it exists prior to mid-January?

Two, if you go by registered accounts rather than active accounts, Friendica is small because it is an old Friendica tradition to purge accounts that haven't been in use for a while. So while you may have millions of Mastodon accounts from late 2022 that are now unused, there are barely any unused Friendica accounts.

Three, not as many people leave Facebook as Instagram. Instagram is social media, it's all about having followers and posting media. It doesn't matter much who follows you. Facebook is a social network. It's all about being in contact with those whom you already know anyway. If they aren't in the Fediverse/on Friendica, their real-life friends don't move to Friendica either.

Four, a significant number of Facebook refugees is railroaded over to Mastodon, often without even being told that the Fediverse is more than Mastodon. The railroading is done either by those who still think the Fediverse is only Mastodon themselves or by fundamentalist Mastodon fans who want everyone to be on Mastodon.

Five, of those who are both on Mastodon and Facebook, many who try Friendica expect either an all-out Facebook clone, just like they expected Mastodon to be an all-out Twitter clone, or they expect Mastodon with more characters and groups. But they find Friendica to be neither and instead something new and "quirky" to get used to yet again. Once they learn that you can follow Friendica accounts from Mastodon, they stop their Friendica experiment again.

Six and finally, there's no app for Friendica in the Apple App Store. Simple as that. Friendica on the iPhone means either a Mastodon app and a very very limited subset of Friendica's features or the Web interface. But many iPhone users won't touch a Web browser with a 10-foot barge pole.

The alternatives don't matter much. They are mainly Friendica's own descendants, Hubzilla (a hyper-massive feature monster with the Eiger North Face of learning curves and not even a functional Android app, not to mention that only few people have even heard of it) and (streams) (easier to get into than Hubzilla, but still even harder than Friendica, extremely obscure to the point of being practically unknown outside of itself and Hubzilla, with only two open-registration instances that are impossible to find and with no support for native mobile apps whatsoever). Neither of them really cuts into the numbers of people who move from Facebook to Friendica.

And Matrix is not an alternative to Facebook. It's an alternative to WhatsApp, Telegram and Discord. It's instant messaging.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Matrix

Hubzilla Monster is now open for new registrations!

Powered by Hubzilla, the powerful open source privacy-respecting all-in-one home base for collaboration and social interactions.

Come check it out at: #^https://hubzilla.monster

#GlobalSwitchDay #Fediverse #Hubzilla #FacebookAlternative

@Tiempo :anarchoheart3: ♾️ :heart_bi:   🇵🇸 @Greenpepper It's significantly closer to Facebook than Mastodon, and it's much more powerful than Mastodon.

I've made a number of tables that compare Mastodon, Friendica, Hubzilla (a fork of Friendica from 2012/2015 by Friendica's own creator) and (streams) (a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla from 2021 by the same creator again) with each other. You can find them here.

The diaspora* protocol only matters if either you already know people who have already been on diaspora* for a while, or you know people who have just recently moved from Facebook to diaspora* while not knowing a thing about it, or you know people who want to move from Facebook to diaspora* rather than Friendica.

diaspora* is another Facebook alternative that is a few months younger than Friendica, also from 2010. While Friendica had next to zero publicity before this month, diaspora* was hyped up by tech media and even mainstream mass media back in 2010 before it was even made. The creators asked for $12,000 of crowdfunding to develop diaspora* in summer 2010. They ended up receiving over $200,000 because so many people wanted them to make a free, open-source, non-corporate, non-spying-on-you-and-selling-your-data "Facebook killer".

However, while diaspora* may have a beautiful UI, it's lack-lustre in features. When Friendica was launched in July, 2010, under the name of Mistpark, it was already more powerful by magnitudes than diaspora* is today.

Also, diaspora* only supports its own protocol. The developers staunchly refuse to include ActivityPub. One of them justified this decision because those who implement ActivityPub don't "implement ActivityPub", they "implement Mastodon". The only Fediverse projects that can communicate both via ActivityPub and with diaspora* are Friendica, Hubzilla and Socialhome, all profiting from Friendica's work of 2010-2011.

Lastly, diaspora* is withering away. Shortly before New Year's Eve 2024, three major pods shut down. According to one statistics site, more than half of all diaspora* accounts disappeared within three days. For April 1st, the shutdown of diasp.org, one of the biggest and most important pods, has been announced.

The only people who join diaspora* now want to escape Facebook, but they don't know a thing about the alternatives except for the names. And they only know the names from Mastodon users who, in turn, only know the names, too, and nothing else about them. It's all hearsay in which not even a single actual current or former diaspora* or Friendica user has ever been involved.

In practice, the diaspora* protocol only means that you can connect to diaspora* users (and Hubzilla users who have decided to keep ActivityPub switched off to keep Mastodon out and switch the diaspora* protocol on to be able to connect to certain Friendica users and maybe a few on actual diaspora*). Nothing else.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #diaspora* #Friendica

#Facebook #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #fediVerse
♲ hub.netzgemeinde.eu/item/32a77…

@Eleanore Duncan That's kind of difficult, actually.

Technically speaking, there is Friendica which was created in 2010 as a Facebook alternative (better than Facebook rather than an outright Facebook clone), and there are Hubzilla and (streams), both descendants of Friendica created by Friendica's creator. They're quite powerful, (streams) more than Friendica and Hubzilla even more than (streams), and they've got everything you need for social networking.

I've made a series of tables that compare these three with one another and with Mastodon. You can find them here.

But if you say, "app," I suppose you mean, "dedicated native mobile phone app." This is the first hindrance. Native specialised phone apps are only available for Friendica and then only for Android and Sailfish OS. The only iOS Friendica app is a closed beta; it exists, but you have to join its beta test program instead of being able to load it from the App Store easy-peasy.

Technically, you can use Friendica with some apps made for Mastodon. But you'll only have those features that Mastodon has, too. You won't see threaded conversations. You won't have text formatting. You won't have groups. You won't be able to post pictures. You won't have any access to any configuration. And so forth. You'll only have the absolute, bare-bone basics.

Otherwise, and for Hubzilla and (streams) generally, there's no way around the Web interface (browser, PWA).

As for community building, Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) not only support groups, but they have groups/forums, optionally even private ones. Organisational presentation is possible, too. All three have blogging-level support of text formatting in their posts all the way to embedding an unlimited number of images right in the middle of a post. So a group could make an introduction post with headlines and bullet-point lists and tables and pictures and all the shebang and pin it at the top for all (permitted) visitors to see. Hubzilla even supports simple webpages which could be used for presentation. Hubzilla's own website is a webpage on a Hubzilla channel.

"Easy and clear," that's the issue here. Friendica has quite a bit of a learning curve. (streams) has an even steeper learning curve. Hubzilla has the steepest learning curve of all three. None of them has the UI/UX of something created by a Silicon Valley start-up from $50,000,000 of venture capital.

Ironically, Hubzilla is the one with the best user documentation. But what I mean is not the user documentation built into the hubs, but its complete re-write by a user that's intended to be built into Hubzilla itself one day and replace the old documentation. If you want to peruse it, you'll have to be told by an experience Hubzilla user that it exists, and where you can find it. Still, Hubzilla is highly complex with quite a bit of pitfalls and the worst UX of the three.

Friendica has a wiki, but it mostly covers how-tos for certain things instead of being a full-blown user manual.

(streams)' built-in help system is gradually being rebuilt from zero, but in the style of a technical specification again. And it's very incomplete.

Still, you will need some kind of documentation to get started with all three, ideally plus how-tos for Facebook refugees on how to get started and then do Facebook things. You can't use on either of the three what you've learned from Facebook. They do have everything you need as a Facebook refugee, but it looks different, it feels different, it works differently.

For example, if you're on either of the three, and you're looking for the place where you can create a new group/forum, you can look forever in vain. Unlike on Facebook, groups/forums are not an additional feature of their own. They're accounts (Friendica)/channels (Hubzilla, (streams)) like your user account/channel, but with special settings. This alone makes many Facebook users scream out that this feature is completely unuseable, simply because it isn't what they expect it to be.

In addition, if you run a Friendica group on the same node as your personal account, you have to log out and back in again to administer or moderate the group and to get gack to your account. But nobody tells you to have your group on another node than your personal account.

On Hubzilla and (streams), it's the opposite: It's better to not only have a group or forum on the same instance as your personal channel, but on the same account. You can have multiple channels, multiple fully separate identities on the same account because your identity is fully detached from your account. If you have your personal channel and your forum channel on the same account, you can jump back and forth between the two. But this is something that practically doesn't exist outside of Hubzilla and (streams), and so, nobody will tell you about this feature.

Even if you can wrap your mind around all this, you still aren't over the hump. Especially not on Hubzilla and (streams). On Hubzilla, you can have a restricted or private group/forum. But you have to dive into the permission settings of your forum channel, a place where you're being warned that you have to act carefully, and set the corresponding permissions accordingly by hand. On (streams), there's less to configure and no warning; instead, there are not one, but four types of forums. But neither the Web interface nor the documentation tells you what's what, and what does what.

Another idea, but much less like Facebook, would be Mbin. Technically, Mbin is an alternative to Reddit and Hacker News and kind of feels like Reddit, UI-wise. But it also offers personal microblogging instead of being limited to only group discussions, and it's much more compatible with the rest of the Fediverse.

There are two caveats again. One, most Mbin users are former Redditors. This means that Mbin's culture = Reddit's culture, including, but not limited to dank maymays, shitposts all over the place and potentially also power-tripping mods (if you want to join existing Mbin magazines (= subreddits) rather than starting new ones). However, I guess that Mbin, on average, is not as hostile and xenophobic towards the rest of the Fediverse as large parts of Lemmy are.

Two, again, there's no iPhone app that works with Mbin. For Android, there's Interstellar. For iOS, there's only the Web interface.

CC: @PaulaToThePeople

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #FacebookGroups #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Threadiverse #Mbin

@Sheila DeBonis Good news: The Mastodon/Friendica/Hubzilla/(streams) comparison tables are mostly done. I'll just tweak them every now and then.

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Facebook #FacebookAlternative

@Patches Tomberlin @chris actually There is no official Friendica app.

For Friendica on an iPhone, you've got four options:

• Relatica, the only dedicated Friendica app for the iPhone, but it's a closed beta (as in unfinished and potentially buggy), and you have to join the Relatica Beta Testing Program
• Try to make do with a Mastodon app and live with not having at least 80% of Friendica's features
• Friendica's Web interface as a Progressive Web App
• Friendica's Web interface in a standard Web browser

If you think you can live with the Web interface in either way, (streams) and Hubzilla, both made by Friendica's creator, may be interesting for you, too. Here's an extensive comparison of these three and Mastodon.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #iOS

@utopiArte Friendica or, better yet, (streams) or Hubzilla.

Friendica has been around since 2010. It's the oldest surviving Fediverse project. It even predates diaspora* by several months. It was created with the very intent of having an alternative to Facebook that's better than Facebook.

Hubzilla was created in 2015 from a 2012 Friendica fork, all by Friendica's own creator. So it's older than Mastodon, too.

(streams) is from 2021, the most technologically advanced of the bunch. It was created by the same guy who also made Friendica, Hubzilla and everything in-between, and who still maintains it.

Just yesterday, I've published a comparison of all three with Mastodon.

There's also the (streams) fork Forte which is basically (streams) with a name, a brand identity and a license and without any support for the Nomad protocol, only using ActivityPub for everything. But I don't recommend it as long as it isn't officially declared stable.

"Unshittified, decentralized, and free" applies to all four. Friendica was relicensed by its new maintainers from the MIT license to the GNU Affero GPL in 2012. Hubzilla and Forte are still under the MIT license. And at least the core streams repository was intentionally released into the public domain.

CC: @Cory Doctorow @Rusty Shackleford

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte

@Sheila DeBonis I'm working on an extensive comparison table for

• Mastodon
• Friendica
• Hubzilla (emerged from a fork of Friendica)
• (streams) (fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla)

right now.

By the way, I'm on Hubzilla myself.

#FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams)

@Lamaskier.wtf You can forget diaspora* for three reasons.

• One, it doesn't support ActivityPub and never will. That's a design decision.
• Two, it can't hold a candle to any Facebook alternative with ActivityPub.
• Three, it's withering away, if not outright dying. A couple days before New Year's Eve, several big pods shut down. According to one source, diaspora* lost more than half its users within some three days. And in a few days, another big pod, diasp.org, will disappear.

Notice that I've written, "any Facebook alternative with ActivityPub." There's more than one. There's more than Friendica. It's just that most Fediverse users only know Friendica by name from hearsay and everything else not at all.

So without further ado:

Would you like security and privacy by means of an advanced, fine-grained permissions system?
Does resiliance against instance shutdown in the shape of nomadic identity sound good to you?
Don't you mind a bit more of a learning curve?
Don't your family members mind using something via its Web interface, and can they (or can you) install a progressive Web app on their phones?

If so, look past Friendica and straight at the thing colloquially called (streams) (code repository instead of a website).

It's actually a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork) of a fork of Friendica, and all forks in this line are by the same creator as Friendica itself who still maintains (streams).

(streams) offers just about everything that Friendica offers and then some on top (like polls). The only thing that's missing is Friendica's vast connection and federation capability beyond the Fediverse. Still, (streams) can connect to everything in the Fediverse like Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Friendica, Hubzilla, Misskey, Sharkey, Iceshrimp, Lemmy, Mbin, PieFed etc. etc.

If you're interested, don't go looking for (streams) instances. It's absent from the Fediverse Observer, it's absent from the FediDB, and that's fully intentional. But there are currently two open-registration (streams) instances.

The one in North America is Rumbly in the USA, run by @Waitman Gobble. The one in Europe is Nomád in Hungary, run by the German admin @Der Pepe (nomád) ⁂ ⚝ (more active as @Der Pepe (Hubzilla) ⁂ ⚝) who also speaks English.

If you need a support forum, follow @Streams with your Mastodon account, wait until it follows you back, and then ask away. Don't forget to mention it.

Only if at least some of your family members absolutely cannot live without a native mobile phone app, I'd suggest Friendica. Even then, there are only Android apps geared towards Friendica. The only iOS app for Friendica, Relatica, is in closed beta, and you have to apply for it.

In general, if you're on an iPhone, and you want to leave Facebook for the Fediverse, you've got three options:

• Friendica, Hubzilla or (streams) + the Web interface (either in a browser or as a PWA)
• Friendica + apply for the Relatica beta
• Friendica + a Mastodon app straight from the App Store that doesn't even cover 20% of Friendica's features

If you need help with Friendica, there's a discussion group for that, too: @Friendica Support.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Streams #(streams)

@Audun

Doesn't seem like there's any active developers either.

Um, Friendica has only just released a new version less than two weeks ago. It is very much still under development, and it has multiple active main developers, especially @Tobias.

Oh, and @Mike Macgirvin 🖥️ isn't the Hubzilla main dev anymore either. In 2018, he has passed Hubzilla on to the community in the shape of @Mario Vavti and @Harald Eilertsen to concentrate on the advancement of Zot. He launched Osada (2018), Zap (2018), another Osada (2019), yet another Osada (2020), a new Mistpark (2020; that's Friendica's old name), a new Redmatrix (2020; that's Hubzilla's old name) and Roadhouse (early 2021).

His current works are an intentionally nameless and brandless social networking application from October, 2021, which the community has decided to refer to as (streams) after the name of the repository and still experimental Forte from August, 2024, which is the first Fediverse server application to ever rely on only ActivityPub for nomadic identity.

Mike is working on both almost all alone and entirely in his spare time. He has officially "retired" from software development effective September 1st, 2024, so he has more important things to do in his spare time like tend to his land in Australia. You can't expect something from him that looks like several million dollars have been spent by a Silicon Valley corporation on the UI design. Or from anyone in the Fediverse.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte

@Carl Myrland No need to create them. The Fediverse has multiple all-out, full-blown Facebook alternatives readily available already now. Not Facebook clones, but better than Facebook with features that you won't find on Facebook.

And yes, including groups on various levels of public vs private where public groups are open to the whole Fediverse including Mastodon.

• Friendica (official website)
  Established in 2010, five and a half years before Mastodon
  Federated with Mastodon since Mastodon's creation
• Hubzilla (official website)
  Established in 2015, ten months before Mastodon
  Optionally federated with Mastodon since Mastodon's creation
• (streams) (code repository)
  Established in 2021
  Federated with Mastodon since its own creation

And if you're daring enough to try something experimental:

• Forte (code repository)
  Established in 2024
  Federated with Mastodon since its own creation

All four were created by the same guy, @Mike Macgirvin 🖥️, professional software developer of about half a century, creator of multiple Fediverse protocols and almost a dozen Facebook alternatives in the Fediverse and inventor of nomadic identity.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Facebook #FacebookGroups #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Fediverse

@Definitely Doc D @Kevin Lyda Yes, Friendica supports groups, both public and private. A group is basically only another user account, but with a different settings preset.

Public groups can be joined by just about anyone in the Fediverse, including Mastodon users. (In case you didn't know yet, Friendica is federated with Mastodon.) Private groups can only be joined by Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) users.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #FacebookAlternative #FacebookGroups #Friendica

@James M. It has been a while since I've last used Friendica; I'm mostly on Hubzilla now plus a bit on (streams).

But AFAIK, all three let you post to certain connections, including to a specific circle (Friendica)/privacy group (Hubzilla)/access list ((streams)), basically something similar to Mastodon's lists. In either case, these posts and the whole threads are flagged not public, and especially Hubzilla and (streams) don't allow changing access permissions within a thread. Mastodon understands these limited-access posts as PMs.

In theory, it's possible to post "followers only" like on Mastodon: Create a circle/privacy group/access list, add all your contacts to it and send a post to this circle/privacy group/access list.

In addition, all three support something similar to Facebook groups which is a) moderated and b) optionally private, as in nobody can look inside from outside. On Friendica, a group is a user account which you have to register separately. Likewise, on Hubzilla and (streams), a forum or group is a channel with special settings, but instead of having to register a new account, you can create a new channel on your existing account next to your existing channel.

As for E2EE, neither supports any standard E2EE technology. Hubzilla and (streams) allow for conversations to be optionally encrypted. But: Only the transmission is encrypted. Encryption uses a passphrase rather than a private/public key pair. Both sides must have the encryption add-on activated, and it isn't even necessarily available on all server instances. Encryption may only work within Hubzilla and within (streams), but not between them. And, obviously, encryption does not work to the outside, e.g. Friendica or Mastodon.

Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams) can replace Facebook, but not WhatsApp. That's what Matrix and XMPP are for.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Groups #PrivateGroups

@James M. Possible solutions within the Fediverse:

• Friendica was designed explicitly as a Facebook alternative long before Mastodon. It has always had discussion groups, including private groups. But private groups can only be used by users on Friendica, Hubzilla and (streams), not by Mastodon users.
• Hubzilla and (streams) are both technologically advanced descendants of Friendica from Friendica's own creator. Their learning curves are different grades of steeper than Friendica's. They offer private groups, too, but based on their own advanced permissions systems. These private groups probably only work for users on Hubzilla and (streams); not sure about Friendica users. Mastodon users are out again.

Still, as a user on Friendica, Hubzilla or (streams), you can connect with the rest of the Fediverse, including Mastodon, so no need to have a Mastodon account for Mastodon connections and a Friendica account for Facebook escapees on Friendica.

(streams) is intentionally kept away from places like FediDB and Fediverse Observer, so don't bother looking for its few public instances. If you're still interested, ask me again.

Also, Friendica is the only one of the three with mobile apps. Hubzilla and (streams) can only be installed as PWAs.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Groups #PrivateGroups

@neutron_chick If people depend hard on phone apps, if they aren't willing to use any Web interface in any browser, and if nobody knows what a progressive Web is, then Friendica is without any competition. There's better Facebook replacement than Friendica, but it's more complex and harder to get into, and there are no phone apps for it.

Recommended phone app for Friendica would be RaccoonForFriendica.

Also, those who have made it over may want to join the Friendica group Facebook Refugees.

Lastly, remember: All this is the Fediverse. Friendica and Mastodon aren't two separate networks, they are bidirectionally connected and federated.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #Friendica #RaccoonForFriendica

@Ian DeBay Instagram: Pixelfed (wiki). Literally designed as a drop-in replacement for Instagram that should even let you import your Instagram stuff. Official and third-party apps available.

Facebook:

• Friendica (wiki)
  The classic from 2010, designed as a "Facebook alternative, but better than Facebook" rather than an all-out clone. Very powerful. Third-party phone apps available.
• Hubzilla (wiki)
  "Decentralised social CMS" forked from Friendica by Friendica's own creator. Older than Mastodon, too. Tremendously powerful, even more secure than Friendica and nomadic, but highly complex, and the UI may be confusing. No phone app available worth mentioning (can be installed as a PWA). No Mastodon app support.
• (streams) (wiki)
  The newest stable Friendica/Hubzilla descendant. Officially actually nameless and brandless. Still very powerful, nomadic, more modern and less confusing UI, but may still be overwhelming. Currently only two recommendable open-registration instances, both with admin approval, one in the USA, one in Hungary. No phone app available (can be installed as a PWA). No Mastodon app support.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #Pixelfed #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Facebook #FacebookAlternative #DeleteFacebook #Instagram #InstagramAlternative #DeleteInstagram