2w ago

Pixelfed #11 in Android app store

I almost never look at the app store but I popped in today in the wake of the TikTok ban and was shocked to see this.

144 comments

https://pixelfed.fediverse.observer/dailystats
Be interesting to see what it looks like a month from now -- the size of plateau and drop-off.
- Me working with small businesses to switch off of Instagram
  
  Thank you for your service
  
  My girlfriend runs a kid-friendly café for younger moms and sadly it would probably tank her business moving over to pixelfed... It's quite a big risk for those kind of small businesses..

Hot damn, it moved up 3 spots from just the other day!
GO PIXELFED GO!

37th pos in italy. 1st is Rednote :-O
- Wait what?!
  Why is Italians... When it's Americans... I'm so confused!
  
  Me too. I guess because a lot of Italians like to pretend to be americans.

Does it work better on iOS? Because for me the app is very slow and sometimes just never loads anything
- I don't know. That's probably not an issue with the app but with your particular instance/server.
  
  Dang, alright. I tried pixelfed.social and SDF. Guess I'll keep making accounts until I find one that works
- pixelfed.social's starting to slow down. I think the growth's hitting it hard.
  
  I appreciate that they offer more than their first party server on sign-up (unlike Mastodon) but the first party one is still at the top with nearly 4x the number of users than the next highest.
  It should be simple enough to allow instances to opt into being shown and then shuffle them periodically.
- Works fine for me. Just wish it had a dark mode.
  
  Pixelix
- Yes. The Android app has some serious problems right now. Pixelix is probably the best Android app for now - though it has it's own rough edges. It's $2.99 in the Play store but free on F-Droid.
  Using them together, however, does make for one complete (but inconvenient) app.
  Edit: one of the worst Pixelix pain points was that notifications didn't actually link to the things it was notifying you about. This was just fixed in an update. The only thing you really lose out on is push notifications in the official app now.
  
  Alright I'll check it out. Next I just need SDF's instance to work because I love SDF and want to use them but the validation email won't send
- It sometimes acts somewhat slow but nothing wild.
- My issue is any post marked nsfw is blocked on the app for some reason, regardless of whether or not it’s porn. Been digging around in settings but I can’t seem to figure out how to adjust it.
- I’m on iOS and the app is having similar behavior for me.
- Yeah I can't even log in on metapixl

Fuck it, I'm joining now.

If they had gotten loops into the stores they could have gained so many users this past week im sure
- Imagine being the one guy who runs both of those and having them both blow up at once though 🪦rip

BlueSky being ahead of X is a real testament to how Mastodon users are insufferable and hostile. I love and use Mastodon but Jesus Christ, make some jokes and relax. Al Gore didn’t take the lead in creating the Internet for people to be insufferable. If a game is on, people might talk about it. Don’t chime in about colonialism or whatever during the game. Relax. We’ll talk about that on a weekday.
- "Here's my angry, unpopular, barely coherent diatribe apropos of nothing about this large and diverse group of people definitely being angry and hostile."
  
  Sorry, I’ve been in a sour mood of late due to being an American and all my favorite sports teams being in last place. The only thing that can cheer me up is watching college kids do dumb shit on TikTok. Now let me take a big sip of water and open the app.
  (I know I can just use a VPN. I’m too crotchety and old to be using TikTok anyway, though.)
- You seem like a very relaxed person
  
  It’s not really a fun time to be an American leftist in a very blue city in a very red state. But I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic.
- That's like saying all Lemmy users are hostile.
  
  FUCK YOU!
  Pass the beans when you get a chance? Thanks!
- TIL Al Gore invented the internet?
  
  It’s a misinterpretation of what he said, which then became a joke
  
  In the same way that Elon Musk created Tesla's cars and SpaceX's rockets, yes.
- But the thing is that here in Europe, we are more relaxed than USians because we have government mandated vacation days. It's even better when I get sick at the same time because I can catch a free ambulance ride to the hospital near the beach since there is no "out of network" medical care (whatever that means) here. I can then take mass transit from the hospital to the beach and make university-educated friends with everyone because tuition here is free. Because I didn't die in a mass shooting when leaving the beach, I can order a reasonably-sized meal that doesn't cause instant cardiovascular disease and not leave a tip because our servers are paid a living wage. I can't imagine the horror of living in such an underdeveloped country as USA. I am so glad I am in the EU.
  Sent from my phone without concern of being doxxed or tracked thanks to EU privacy laws
- Hear hear. I subscribed to a couple news accounts and for last minute news its just perfect. But man, start browsing the popular section and you're in for a fuckton of activism.
- Al Gore didn’t take the lead in creating the Internet for people to be insufferable.
  I dunno man, it seems pretty in-character to me! 🤓

I only heard of Pixelfed because of a post somewhere that was saying Facebook was blocking links to the website. I made an account and started using it for fun to spite Facebook. Now this could have simply been a bait post to drive engagement to Pixelfed **or ** Facebook is dumb and did some kind of Streisand effect.
It doesn't matter either way
- And if you didn't already know, you now know about the Streisand effect.

9th in Finland

torille

Is there any progress towards marrying these different fediverse services together so I could use my Lemmy account on any of them? Is this a goal at all?
- Ahhh I'm sure I've read something about it but I'm not the best person to ask.
  I know it's possible because you can sign into Pixelfed with your Mastodon account right now.
  
  You can follow Lemmy threads and users on Mastodon right now, but it's super clunky just from the fact both platforms are so different from each other. Here's this thread, as seen from my Mastodon account on the Tusky app.
- You can sign in to Pixelfed with a Mastodon account…presumably this is how you can share your Pixelfed posts to your Mastodon account. Although the poster that posted about this said it wasn’t a good option and I can’t remember why. You can also see Mastodon posts on Lemmy….or maybe vice versa.
- Do we actually want that? I like that each service is its own.
  
  I actually agree. Some of these federated services are fundamentally different and when they interact, shit can get weird. Don't get me wrong, I don't think, for example, Sharkkey shouldn't interact with Mastodon, because they are both microblogging platforms, but I wouldn't want to see a picture of a tweet from Mastodon on Pixelfed.
- Lemmy currently don't have API for that.

EXPLAIN Pixelfed to me like I'm 5?
Can I use it to post photos into Lemmy groups?
I'm currently using a generic, slightly sketch website.
- It's a non-shitty instagram.
  
  It's Instagram with no content or algorithm. To me it's an empty page, because I have no idea how to subscribe to things that I would like.
  I tried keywords like fun, sketch, photography etc etc, but those are catch-all phrases that get too much shit, and narrow keywords are so specific, I see next to nothing.
  
  Ty
- Open source and decentralized Instagram alternative.
  Loops.video is an open source and decentralized TikTok alternative.
  
  just being pedantic here, not confrontational, but loops.video is implementing federation but hasn’t finished yet. i was a tad disappointed but have hopes for the future that they get it done and it doesn’t flounder
  
  Ty
- Well the very simple version is that it's an Instagram alternative (I assume 5 year olds know what Instagram is). Similar in almost every way, minus the ads.
  Theoretically you can use it to share photos to Lemmy, but I have no idea how. There was discussion of Pixelfed groups at one point, not sure if they ever came to fruition.
  
  (I assume 5 year olds know what Instagram is)
  ELInot5 what Instagram is?
  Seriously, I've never understood the point of it.
- Instagram
- Instagram minus Meta.
- It's like federated insta. But for your purposes you can upload images directly to your lemmy instance.
  
  I use a 3rd party app, "Boost" and I mostly get errors trying to upload photos.

For you maybe. I had to scroll to #79 to see it.
- Gotta go by category, social media category specifically
  With Play store Top Free across all categories, 79 is actually pretty good, even Amazon is "just" at 53
- Did filter on Social category? I'm pretty sure the screenshot is for Social.
- Really? That's weird...
  E: this is the top free apps under the social category.
  
  Much like Google search results, it's probably tailored to be more relevant to each person.
- #130 for me, but I’m in Canada and I don’t think we’ve banned tick tok yet
  Edit: in the social category it’s #15, not bad! Not bad at all!

Can we advertise instances? lol I started one for makers making things. (it's brand new so its empty) Edit: It's https://pixels.makearmy.io/ for anyone who's curious. We're on a small time server so no promises as to performance, still working out the bugs and such but if you're curious check it out.
- Fine with me 🤷

Hopefully they can get the app to run well. It's seemingly shit on android right now. Unsure if it's something on my end.
- Most likely nothing to do with the app itself, just the server. As with any product that experiences sudden growth.
  
  There's no way to follow a hash tag in the android app. That makes it pretty pointless imo.
- I'm using the android app and I've found it decent. I think the UI/UX could use some quality of life improvements but it's a simple and straightforward app to use.
  
  I ran into a bunch of issues trying to use it. Fields I should be able to type in just not allowing me to click on them to start typing. It failed to upload my image then double uploaded it. No dark mode. (What the fuck?) Profile picture wouldn't upload properly then after a refresh it was seemingly fine. Just a bunch of strangeness that made me feel like the app isn't ready for any type of day time usage.
- I still can't post anything and have pretty much given up at this point. Tried a second account on a different, more local, instance and still won't actually publish the photo i'm trying to add. Even turned my private dns off my phone just in case but didn't make any difference.

Can somebody help an old out here. I want to look at pictures of art people make and stuff like that. I really don't care about some randos selfies. Right now, there are image heavy lemmy groups that fit that bill. Should I go check out Pixelfed for more content? Or is it a fediverse Instagram thing only?
Lemmy really works for me in the sense of following topics instead of people.
- Pixelfed.art is all artists posting their work!
  
  Wow, I just followed the link and browsed a little bit. There's some really amazing stuff there!
- Pixelfed doesn't have any sort of "communities" or other way to curate content (not even hashtags) so you're just going to see whatever people are posting.
  As another commentor mentioned, you can join a specific instance intended for a specific type of post, but there's nothing stopping someone from joining there and posting selfies other than good will.

Looks cool! But I'm confused about the hashtags. I followed a bunch but my home feed hasn't changed at all. What's the point of following hashtags?
- They should populate your home feed. Mine do. Could be because the site's been a bit wobbly today...?
  Edit: actually, it might only work for new posts with those tags!
  
  You're right! Only new posts come up! I followed some more general tags and started getting posts. Thanks!
- I don't think you can

I've been loving it. One thing that has to be fixed immediately. You can't click on links inside the post descriptions. I want to follow the link that goes to a news article or website for the sale of a product but I can't click the link or even copy text on mobile.
Devastating
- Another shitty "feature" brought over from Instagram, I suppose.
- I don't want the content to be outside the app, I want the content to be the photos people post.
  
  Then don't follow any links to outside the app... Why shouldn't they be usable for people who want to though?

meabouttoleaveatremendousreviewthere

Weird, I don't see it. Instead, I see a bunch of proprietary apps.
- You have a very long phone
  
  Samsung phones have this cool feature where you take screenshot and then you can extend this screenshot by tapping a button.
- It's under the social feed.
  
  Or maybe it can be because I have a Slovak account.
  EDIT: It's 43rd in Slovakia.

How does privacy work with it? In my mind I’d think it’d be terrible because everything is federated. Not something I care about with lemmy, but pictures are a different story.
- Depends on what you mean.
  If you set your profile to private, it's most likely private. It is open source so you can audit the code, if you're knowledgeable enough. Then you have to trust whoever hosts your instance that they haven't modified the code.
  The difference between other mainstream social sites is that it's not secretly mining all your personal data. It only shares exactly what you give it. At least it's probably not, because there's not a significant amount of it.
  But everything you make public is not just available publicly but also archived on thousands of servers. And you can electronically request it be deleted but there's no guarantee they'll honor that request.
  
  Good point. My worry is just a federated instance scooping up all of the feed regardless of privacy, but I bet this is a question I can answer by ceasing my laziness and reading their site.

I still can't log into the darn android app. Takes me to the pixelfed.social login, then does nothing.
But one day I'll love it, I'm sure.
- Check pixelix app
- It seems to be dependent on the browser for login for some reason, which caused problems for me as well.
  
  which Browser works? i tried several.
  edit: i think i read it wrong, anyways, if you figured out how to solve it, please tell.

Better icon here... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e7/Pixelfed_logo_multicolor_%28September_2018%29.svg/1280px-Pixelfed_logo_multicolor_%28September_2018%29.svg.png

I've never used the official app for PixelFed, I'm just on Fedilab for both it and Mastodon... is the PixelFed app worth a look?
- It's pretty terrible tbh, I keep having to go back to the browser.
  
  Give Fedilab a try. I've been using it for about a year now; it's been pretty smooth and straight forward.
- I dunno. I don't really even care much for PixelFed myself.

As someone who doesn't use these platforms (except Twitter), why does Pixelfed's UI look just like Instagram, and why does Bluesky's UI look just like Twitter? Are they just cut/paste copies?
- They're not cut/paste copies, they're rebuilt from the ground up. The UI is similar because they want to retain familiarity and decrease barriers to entry. Much like Lemmy.

Does anyone know if you can only have one pixelfeed account per email address? I want to make one for personal use and one just my garden pictures?
- Why won't you be able to create two accounts?
  
  Some systems tie one email address to one account only. Just wondering. I'll try it out to see i guess

144 comments