Mastodawn

Brian Dear Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture oooh, good to know, will check it out

mvario Dec 18, 2022

Thanks, I'll give it a try. I had one called Mastodon – Simplified Federation! that was good... for a while then it stopped working a few weeks back. I'll try this one.

Mike Masnick ✅Dec 18, 2022

@mvario @permagriculture yeah, I used that one too... this is so much better.

mvario Dec 18, 2022

I just tried, it, and yes it is better. Thanks again!

Sad that it won't work on any version of Firefox that will run on Ubuntu.

Agroecology Lab Dec 18, 2022

@isucceed It's working OK on 107.0.1 on Debian?

Ubuntu 16.04 and 20.04 - the most current possible Firefox browser on both, trying to install the extension says "not compatible with this version of Firefox"

So, I dunno...

Agroecology Lab Dec 18, 2022

@isucceed Annoying. Would probably work with https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa

Firefox ESR and Thunderbird stable builds : “Mozilla Team” team

Mozilla Team's Firefox stable + 102 ESR and Thunderbird 102 stable builds Support for Ubuntu 16.04 ESM is included.

Launchpad

In the scheme of things, it's minor, really. Just would be nice to have the efficiency it offers.

Agroecology Lab Dec 18, 2022

@isucceed I'd be curious to know if it works with the 1.08xx version from the PPA?

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install firefox

Thank you for the suggestion.

That's an interesting idea. If it comes to enough friction that I find it worth the time to chase, I'll give that a go - working from PPA rather than standard repository.

That worked to get 108.0.1 (64-bit) installed. And, then the extension installed easily.

This was on 16.04. I'm sure 20.04 laptop will be just as happy.

Thank you for your help!

John Bailey Dec 19, 2022

Some(unknown)how, it's begun working.

Thank you again for your help!

#GrowingPains
#Yay

Agroecology Lab Dec 19, 2022

@isucceed great!

I do experience occasional weirdness like that. I suspect if your home server is under heavy load API calls may be slow.

DistrictDave01 Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture commenting so I can find this toot once I’m back on my laptop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E81ICJywqwg

Jan Dembowski

Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture Oh, that doesn't-

*See different serve page, sees Follow button, clicks it and it just works*

THAT JUST WORKS!!! OMG!

Young Frankenstein - Sweet Mystery of Life

YouTube

[REDACTED]™, Instance Migrator Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture weird. keeps saying my Firefox Nightly isn't up-to-date enough for it on the Mozilla page and that the add-on is corrupt when attempting to install manually....

time to check some comments to see how isolated i am

tom4okstate Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture Damn. On Chrome anyway, that's seamless in use. Pretty much exactly what you'd want.

Graham Williams Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture that sounds worth investigating!

Lyons Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture supports Firefox and Firefox mobile? 🤩

Greg Greene Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture There’s a Shortcut from @macstories that does something similar for Mastodon users logged in via Apple’s platforms: https://www.macstories.net/ios/masto-redirect-a-mastodon-shortcut-to-redirect-profiles-and-posts-to-your-own-instance/

Masto-Redirect, a Mastodon Shortcut to Redirect Profiles and Posts to Your Own Instance

Like many others over the past month, I’ve been thinking deeply about my experience with Twitter and whether I want to align my social media usage with the kind of platform Twitter is rapidly becoming. It’s a complex discussion (if my readers are still on Twitter, am I doing them a disservice by not using

Silversalty Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture
Screen grab?

Cypher Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture bookmarked

Andrew Kurjata Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture The mobile app that figures out how to let you view other instances fully is the one I will use/pay for

Rod Christiansen Dec 18, 2022

Do you know of one for Safari?

Big Worker Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture huh it says it works for Firefox for Android but then I looked into and it turns out Firefox blocks all but a small list of pre-approved add-ons. WTF Firefox?

Joefrey Kibuule, MD Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick Is there a Safari version?

John (he/him)

Jan 6, 2023

@jeffkibuule @mmasnick AIUI not yet, but it’s in the works

Slade Watkins Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture This is great!

Leonard Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture why is this not the default behavior of mastodon servers?

Mike Masnick ✅Dec 19, 2022

@rls @permagriculture because the information needs to reside in your browser...

Peter Sterne Dec 19, 2022

@rls @mmasnick @permagriculture It used to be that when you wanted to interact with a post/account on another instance, Mastodon would pop up an oauth window to let you log on with your home instance and then interact. But that was removed for security reasons.

Ted Pavlic (he/him)Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture /cc: @shriramk, after a previous discussion on Twitter (noting that you don't like browser extensions)

Jon Winston Dec 18, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture This great! Thanks!

@mmasnick Very nice but sadly I use Edge now. Because it's resource management is just better.

@clipperchip @mmasnick

You can install most Google Chrome extensions from the Google Chrome store directly in Edge.

Essentially the same Chromium browser tweaked.

@paul @mmasnick Oh? I did not even know that :o Will give it a shot.

@clipperchip @mmasnick

Yeah, it's pretty awesome now that Microsoft replaced the old Edge with the new, open source Chromium Edge.

@paul @mmasnick Ah, yes, I remember reading about that but kinda forgot. I just recently switched because both FF and Chrome just completely sucked in terms of performance.

@clipperchip @mmasnick

I find Edge responds better, too. People will fight me over it, but I agree with you.

@paul @mmasnick I haven't seen a single Edge crash since I switched... that alone says enough imo.

Some weeks/months ago someone on Twitter told me "Edge is better". I thought it was some kind of meme. Turns out he was serious :)

@clipperchip

I installed Edge on Android, too, and it responds better on my Android than Google Chrome did. Still need Google Chrome for some background processes on Edge but I like the easy transition from Desktop Windows and Android Edge.

Edge works better, for some reason, with my Parkinson's tools and hardware on Windows. Maybe because it is built in as part of Windows.

FYI, I really like Mastodon link. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mastodon-link/nlfdgcdfjnobjocicnddjghdbmgglame

Mastodon Link

Extension to make it easy to visit mastodon profiles from your instance

@paul It works better on Android!? That surprises me, honestly.

@clipperchip

Seems lighter.

Chrome is using 9mb memory in the last 3 hours and not even being used as browser and as default app for anything where Edge is the browser and app defaults and used less than 3mb the last 3 hours.

ursamajor Dec 19, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture oooh, this sounds useful for desktop! I hope like hell this gets incorporated into mobile apps, web or otherwise, ASAP.

Gary R. Martin ✅Dec 19, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture @permagriculture This fixes one of the minor (major to some) annoyances of the federated nature of servers/instances, and works well!

Vincent St. Pierre 🇨🇦Dec 19, 2022

@GaryRMartin @mmasnick insta-installed!

Gary R. Martin ✅Dec 19, 2022

@vsp @mmasnick Just noticed I have to refresh the browser while "creeping" (some) profiles on other instances, but not a deal-breaker...

Thomas A. Fine

Dec 20, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture That seems like a fundamentally incorrect approach, but I don't see a better way to do it, without setting up a central Mastodon service to coordinate such things. Which would have privacy implications.

The web fundamentally doesn't provide for an application distributed across multiple arbitrary cooperating sites.

Mike Masnick ✅Dec 20, 2022

@thomasafine @permagriculture what's wrong with putting the power in the browser? Gives more control and power to the end user.

Thomas A. Fine

Dec 20, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture
If the web is a viable platform for developing any application then the idea is you should be able to go to a web browser and fully and completely use that browser for that application.

A browser extension breaks that.

More generally it seems like a band-aid approach. And it reminds me of an expression: "any application that requires a pencil is broken". Somehow to me this is the same. The application requires (well, just benefits form in this case) external aid.

Mike Masnick ✅Dec 20, 2022

@thomasafine @permagriculture but it's just a limitation of a federated system unless you want to harm privacy/security interests. So building a special purpose widget for your browser seems like a perfectly good solution given the constraints.

Thomas A. Fine

Dec 20, 2022

"Given the constraints". But the constraints are artificial. Building every new application on top of the web creates these artificial constraints. If Mastodon had it's own real protocol (and a URI scheme e.g. mstn://) then any connections would naturally go to that application, which would know it is logged in to a server, and it would just go.

rrix Jan 6, 2023

@thomasafine @mmasnick early on in mastodon's life, your instance would offer to register as a handler for mastodon+web:// urls after logging in which profile pages would try to redirect to, and some mobile apps supported opening as well.

the browser-level UX for managing those permissions was really weak, other instances couldn't check if your agent supported those urls before trying to open them, etc, and they were eventually removed. there was a "remote follow" interface for a while where a user was expected to plug their handle in to which woud then direct back to your instance with the remote profile open but now even that was removed because of these sorts of "if it's not perfect it shouldn't exist" types of opinions.

giving the user agent the power to handle these normal urls is the right answer imo, like how apps can register to open certain http/s URLs on mobile. i can open any mastodon profile in my app when i browse to them on the mobile web. the permission model enabling this on desktop web is, well, rough, but probably a worthwhile tradeoff for many folks.

PK Dec 20, 2022

@mmasnick @permagriculture this is great and I'll try it, thanks for sharing.

Something I don't get about mastodon yet - is something like this seen as a flaw? Do they want the site to be more user friendly, or is that just not the mindset?

Mike Masnick ✅Dec 20, 2022

@P_K @permagriculture it's a tradeoff with the federated nature of it. Mastodon could build something like this in, though it would be a lot less secure and put privacy at risk. Forcing it into a browser extension gives the end user more protection.

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)Jan 5, 2023

@mmasnick @permagriculture I surprised you're comfortable recommending everybody on Mastodon give Lartsch access to all their data on all websites, including any passwords they type. How long have you known Lartsch?

[Yes I know that's how browser permissions work, and I've got no particular reason to distrust Lartsch. I ask the same question about any browser extension!]