Don't know of such a filter. But did you know that that is the primary function of Lemmy? It is a link aggregator first and foremost. Everything else stems from that.
Fair enough. My main reason for joining was to scroll through memes and engage with fan communities I'm part of. I used to have a reddit account a long time ago, but I left, and recently tried to make an account again, only to discover what a clusterf*** things have become, which sent me running here after weird stuff started happening with my new account.
Definitely search for the communities you are interested in and click subscribe. There may be several similar communities on different Lemmy instances with different rules or vibes. Also, if the subscribe button says subscribe pending, you can ignore that.
Lemmy is amazing to be a "knight of new" as it were because the cross-talk, noise, bots, etc are just not there like they are in reddit. I've found communities I never would have known about.
Keep in mind Lemmy is very actively developed. If you do end up staying with Lemmy consider tossing a few dollars to the devs. I've always found the devs courteous and approachable when I've encountered a bug.
Definitely this. There is a whole community dedicated to the various great Lemmy apps on different platforms, including the web. Try a couple and see if there is one that meets your needs better.
At least on my instance, the top right hand corner on all thumbnails has a little symbol that shows if it is a "link picture" or an "expandable picture."
The link symbol looks like a box with an arrow, the picture symbol is the generic white outline hills and sun symbol it seems like many places use for images.
Doesn't really answer your question directly, but it might help?
If you are using a lemmy app on your phone, switch to the list view so that the thumbnail becomes smaller and the title important parts appear easily interactable.
don't click on the post title, but click on the little icon with number of comments... that will always take you to comment section, even when the main link leads outside of lemmy.
If you are browsing on Android, you can install URLCheck app, and set it as your default browser. That will intercept all links, and allow you to inspect before launching it.
In the web UI, external links have a box with an arrow, while images have a box with circles (top right of the thumbnail, grey). Clicking on the comment icon/count always takes you to the comments.