Open source alternatives to Instagram, TikTok, and WhatsApp raise funds on Kickstarter | TechCrunch

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The challenge with messengers like Matrix and WhatsApp (and I assume sup, correct me if I'm wrong) is that they don't encrypt the metadata like Signal's sealed sender. Knowing exactly who you talk to and how frequently is a very juicy target for hackers/the government

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Heard they take a bigger cut tho, do you know how much was it when you donated?

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I'm not going to use a proprietary protocol to chat through Google's (Jibe) servers running proprietary software. Even if the messages are e2ee, Google can still collect metadata. Google never provides anything for free and collection of data is kinda their thing.

Ulrich

Basically a tool to add encrypted messaging to the fediverse, using the Signal protocol.

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No idea, but good to know. I’ll consider switching my next contribution to a different service. Thanks!

Ulrich

100% disagree. Facebook, at one point, had a close to ideal interface, in my opinion.

Mastodon adopted the very annoying features of automatically tagging users, and character limits which inherently create conflict, and make reading statements confusing as fuck. Then refuses to offer an option for admins to adjust it.

PixelFed adopted the very annoying features of Instagram that require photos, but no one cares and they just post photos of text, and with the federation of other platforms like Mastodon, that's just going to happen. It also lacks the ability to follow hashtags, so it's actually worse than IG in some ways.

Facebook supports all types of media and the groups feature actually works pretty well. I probably don't need to explain what makes it shitty now.

Don't get me wrong, I hope people join any of these, as they're inherently superior to their more popular alternatives, but I wish the devs would actually consider how the platform should work rather than just copying and pasting their mistakes.

shnizmuffin

Facebook's entire point at it's inception was to be Horny On Main. Creepy on purpose and straight up dangerous to use for about half of the user base. All posts public. Location sharing enabled by default. No scrubbing of EXIF data. It was a stalker's paradise.

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Is it really just one guy writing three different platforms?

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afaik not really, only cell phone companies can apply to join the rcs federation and all of them just outsourced it to google and apple so it under control of just 2 companies.

so no, rcs is not an open standard.

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Not on FDroid. Not open source

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Unable to decrypt message

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Friendica

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But what can replace Facebook that doesn't look like it was made in 1996?

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But it is open source. And there's a fork of Signal available on F-Droid called Molly.

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PixelFed adopted the very annoying features of Instagram that require photos, but no one cares and they just post photos of text, and with the federation of other platforms like Mastodon, that’s just going to happen. It also lacks the ability to follow hashtags, so it’s actually worse than IG in some ways.

The purpose of Pixelfed is photo-sharing. When I'm using Pixelfed I don't want to see everything, I just want photos. It is insanely rare for people on Pixelfed to post images of text. In fact, the global feed is mostly useless on Pixelfed because you're inundated with Mastodon users "quoting" by posting images of text. But they just announced that they're soon including a setting to allow text posts, allowing the Pixelfed app to be used as a Mastodon client.

You can follow hash tags on Pixelfed.

I don't see why everything has to be everything. Mastodon is for micro-blogging. If you're posting 20,000 word essays, you're not really micro-blogging. These all seem like reasonable choices for their intended purposes, not like mistakes at all. It might just be a mistake for you to choose those when what you want is Friendica.

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There's hundreds of other contributers, but he started them all and did the bulk of the work. The plan is to have more regular developers if they get enough donations.

The Red Wheelbarrow

I'm all for fediverse.

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Ah ok that makes sense. In my head this guy was maintaining four codebases which did seem impossible

Ulrich

It is insanely rare for people on Pixelfed to post images of text.

Which is meaningless because:

PF is federated
Not yet

the global feed is mostly useless on Pixelfed because you're inundated with Mastodon users "quoting" by posting images of text

My point, precisely. There is no Pixelfed-only feed.

I don't see why everything has to be everything

Because there's no value in limiting what the users can do on it. Because it's very easy to bypass, but in a very shitty way, which people are already doing all the time.

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Yes, there needs to be a Pixelfed-global feed. It was planned at one point. Right now, the Pixelfed servers are islands separated by an ocean of Mastodon posts. It's a problem.

Because there’s no value in limiting what the users can do on it. Because it’s very easy to bypass, but in a very shitty way, which people are already doing all the time.

I already told you the value. When I'm on Pixelfed, I only want to see photos. If it was like you're proposing, I'd stop using it and encourage someone to make the thing that currently exists. If I'm on loops, I don't want a bunch of long- or short-form text. At all. Including other things is removing value.

You should use Friendica! It's exactly what you want. We can all have what we want.