- cross-posted to:
- python@programming.dev
- cross-posted to:
- python@programming.dev
Welcome to a new era of interconnected content discussion with PieFed – a link aggregator, a forum, a hub of social interaction and information, built for the fediverse. Our focus is on individual control, safety, and decentralised power.
Like other platforms in the fediverse, we are a self-governed space for social link aggregation and conversation. We operate without the influence of corporate entities – ensuring that your experience is free of advertisements, invasive tracking, or secret algorithms. On our platform, content is grouped into communities, allowing you to engage with topics of interest and disregard the irrelevant ones. We utilise a voting system to highlight the best content.
Video introduction the codebase
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Hello from Piefed! I was a regular on Lemmy and Mastodon for years, but I migrated to Piefed because it is much more lightweight.
The features page shows some differences between Piefed and Lemmy - https://join.piefed.social/features/ Mostly, I appreciate that it is written in Python, so more developers in the community may easily understand and contribute to the code base, and that it is so lightweight. When I connect to the internet I always have to consider data caps, so it’s a relief when websites make a genuine effort to be efficient. I can reliably browse the fediverse through Piefed even when my access is throttled to 50Kbps download.
Does it require JavaScript? Does it load in Tor Browser on strict mode?
Some features of the site (like responding to your comment) require JS, but I just tried blocking JS with uBlock and I was able to use most of the site perfectly fine.
I am not sure about strict mode on Tor, but you should totally report back if it works. Give it a shot!
The lightweight claim is a bit of a stretch. You’re counting content that gets cached in the browser.
Well, regardless what tech stack makes it possible, when my phone data is throttled to ~55kbps Piefed is perfectly usable and most sites are not.
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Not really as far as I understand. You can talk to Mastodon users though, if they post in community threads.
I assume since it’s using the same protocol, it can.
I believe one of the killer features is the ability to aggregate different communities.
I actually don’t like that feature cause it’s not something the user chooses, it’s up to the dev or admin (not sure which).
Can I aggregate all threads that link to the same URL so I can view all comments on that URL in one page?
Ideally across all instances of mastodon and Lemmy and others?
Multi-communities? Really? 😍
Yes really. Here’s an example - see the communities at the top, and hashtags at the bottom.
On second thought, that’s not a fantastic example of categories, so here and here are better ones.
There’s a lot that is not yet implemented in PieFed, like no preview feature for writing messages or user tagging (e.g. @openstars@piefed.social does not send me a notification), yet it already has several features that Lemmy does not - it’s so exciting to watch it develop!:-)
Codebase is clean too.
I haven’t looked but that’s great to know as well:-).
Still no multi communities at the user level (hopefully soon)
The reason my first example wasn’t a good one was that this meme community (!tech_memes@lemmy.world) wasn’t part of the organized hierarchy of Home -> Topics -> Chilling -> Memes, but rather the generic Home -> Communities (as in, all of them in aggregate) -> Technology Memes@lemmy.world. So yeah, it’s a very new community, although !newtolemmy@lemmy.ca is older but the same happens with it too. Therefore I assume that it requires an admin approval to bundle these “Topics” together, and it definitely doesn’t strike me as something that an individual user could put together.
Then again, someone (perhaps you? or me?) could send requests to the admin to add communities to topic areas, or perhaps modify the codebase directly if it were placed into a file and people granted access (whereupon once again, the admin would have to approve - although in this case a mechanism would also be needed to assess the differences and apply them).
Anyway, there’s a LOT of polish that PieFed lacks, and this doesn’t even crack the top half imho, next to things like user mentions (@openstars@piefed.social) and Notifications properly taking you to the actual thing that you are being notified about (a goodly fraction of the time it does not, right now.
On the other hand, Lemmy has no such thing as “Categories” or “Topics” of any kind so… anything that PieFed has along these lines is surely better than the nothing that exists in that regard there, right?
Therefore I assume that it requires an admin approval to bundle these “Topics” together, and it definitely doesn’t strike me as something that an individual user could put together.
That’s why I’m saying it’s not personal multi communities, which is something people are definitely looking forward (most upvoted Lemmy GitHub issue)
I remember discussing personal multicommunities with @rimu@piefed.social a while ago, at the time it was not a priority for Piefed, maybe they’ll revisit in the future.
Yeah I agree with their reasoning, since what is there now is pretty good, so it would be merely a refinement of an existing goodness, compared to so much else needing to done elsewhere e.g. making an API to allow existing apps to use PieFed in addition to Lemmy.
Thank you very much for taking the time to explain where things are at for folks!
I’ll have to wait and see if an Android client that supports it shows up, it looks really neat!
You are most welcome:-).
An app? Apparently an API is in development for it, but it’s still in alpha stage. Even so, there’s a bunch of new features in PieFed that Lemmy does not have, such as Categories of Communities, so in some ways it would be a downgrade to use an app.
I just use Firefox to access https://piefed.social/, and it works fine. Well, mostly, bc even though PieFed has things that Lemmy lacks, it lacks some polish compared to the Lemmy web UI that has had more development work put into it. This is where an app would come in handy - if you didn’t need all the new features that PieFed offers and just want Lemmy without the “Lemmy” part:-). (And didn’t want to use Mbin, which iirc also lacks an API and thus ability to access via an app.)
Edit: One cool thing is that PieFed is written in Python rather than Rust, so the development process should move forward more quickly since more people know the former language while the latter is reportedly quite difficult. And another cool thing is that the developers are SUPER responsive:-).
Still not at the personal level
Finally! That is a great feature!
Yeah, that’s really awesome
Faster?
Speed is literally not even a concern, the only thing I want more of is people. Make it easier to sign up or something
I mean it connects to lemmy, kinda like mbin.
Federation speed is a serious backbone concern. It aligns with perceived reliability. If it seems like comments votes or posts aren’t “going where they’re supposed to” then people can lose faith in the platform
In my experience it’s very snappy, and with minimal JavaScript (if at all). Hell, it’s even somewhat usable in Lynx, though I couldn’t sign in.
Lynx - Now that’s a name I have not heard in a long long time.
I can log in with lynx… It sets a few cookies and then I’m logged in… Though I haven’t tried signing up, if you mean sign up as in register a new account.
Might have been a user error then! Admittedly I did not try very hard.
There’s also a low bandwidth mode available. It’s an impressive platform in general.
And uses less data - helpful for using a mobile data plan. Those numbers shown in the article are all the more impressive even for sending 5x more posts on the home screen than Lemmy’s default, even while still sending >4/5 less data - i.e. it’s more like sending roughly only 1/25th the data per post, if I’m reading that right.
doesn’t seem to have a good dark mode, i also use wefwef/voyager ,thunder and phtn instead of lemmy-ui so… any apps? also seemingly no community creation yet.
On my account I use the (dark) theme Card Shadow. I had an issue with it where I needed to disable the Dark Reader extension in Firefox. Lemmy ignored that but it actively messed up PieFed, though after disabling it, PieFed works perfectly for me.
https://piefed.social/communities has a create local and add remote buttons that look like they would create communities, though I did not text them out.
Edit: and the Create Local option has a “local only” checkbox, i.e. the default being to share the newly created community with Lemmy and Mbin instances via the ActivityPub protocol.
yep, it show’s under 1 day on wefwef/voyager.
i think I’ll still stay on lemmy.
they have a theme of the colours of the trans flag, Steal?
If you can find a lemmy trans flag theme that we can easily import, I’m all ears :)
Curious to see if people haven’t heard about it, Piefed seems to be mentioned quite often
Tbf you’re on Lemmy 24/7 so you’ll hear about things much earlier than many others. I’ve also been on Piefed for a minute.
But I’ve come to understand how slowly knowledge propagates through large numbers of people, at least via this medium. First with the APIcaplyse, when I realized that virtually nobody on reddit had even heard of the API changes, let alone moving to Lemmy. And then on Lemmy itself with various major events/dramas that people were totally unaware of until much later.
Piefed is developing rapidly and seems like a worthy alternative to Lemmy and Mbin. The private voting feature is also really cool.
No need to be on Lemmy that much, just watching !fedimemes@feddit.uk you would see Piefed mentioned every week
Same here, on !fediverse@lemmy.world
I’m on Lemmy all the time and I didn’t know that community. But thanks for sharing, this is what I’m talking about.
I’m on Lemmy all the time
Seeding a new spot takes work
Yeah but usually it’s just “try piefed”, with a smug tone so it’s kind of hard to take people seriously.
Aside from that, adoption becomes a hassle for everything fediverse due to the whole pick your server thing, I went from fmhy to nsfw to dbzero to cafe… I’d be so happy if picking a server would not require so much trial and error.
What drove you from dbzer0 to cafe, blocking ml?
It takes trial and then error because it’s user depend, some people might have gone the opposite, from cafe to dbzer0
What drove you from dbzer0 to cafe, blocking ml?
Yeah, ml and hex.
Too much mexican goverment propaganda and getting swarmed by those users to defend it, is not a good time.It takes trial and then error because it’s user depend, some people might have gone the opposite, from cafe to dbzer0
I know, and it’s a pain… And it will always be a pain. That’s also what discourages me from trying piefed, having to server jump until I find a decent one again.
Private votes sounds pretty cool
I would curious to see if you could access piefed using Voyager for Lemmy as a front end. It’s about the only decent app for Lemmy that doesn’t squash things on my iPhone mini with text zoom enabled
You can’t, no. PieFed and Lemmy are operating in similar spaces, but are completely different architecturally. PieFed doesn’t yet have an API. Unlike Lemmy (and a lot of other modern web platforms), it doesn’t need one to operate, so copying Lemmy’s to the extent that you’d be able to plug in something like Voyager would be overkill. It would probably also be against the TOS for Voyager (Jerboa actively prevents it’s use with anything other than Lemmy, even if the API is the same).
To be completely honest, if you want a healthy 3rd party app ecosystem, the official UI and backend need to be completely separated with a publicly documented API.
Biggest win with Lemmy, and biggest fluff with kbin. And it shows when it comes to 3rd party app ecosystem. People wanted to build apps for kbin….
It would probably also be against the TOS for Voyager (Jerboa actively prevents it’s use with anything other than Lemmy, even if the API is the same).
nothing like that in voyager terms
Oh okay. Might be though, in the future, if platforms (like Sublinks) get released - it’s not really a relevant issue at the mo.
mahn kbin is dead. long live mbin. at least use more recent stats
Interesting… I’m very happy with the instance I’m on and with Lemmy but if I decide to self host I might set up piefed instead.
Does it support importing Lemmy subscriptions?
Yes. I added that myself a couple months ago 😎
edit: you have to export your lemmy user settings. that comes down as a .json file. Then you make a piefed user, and there is an import settings in the piefed user profile.
it will also attempt to import any blocks/bans of users/communities you had in the lemmy settings. But if the instance of piefed you are on does not ‘l\know’ about those users/communities it wont add them to bans list. But of course that means the community in question is not federated to the instance you are on, so half-dozen-of-one-six-of-the-other really.
Nice!
Faster and less tankies?
I think it’s an alternative way to access the same content, so probably exactly the same number of people you do and do not like
It connects to the same Fediverse. But it has a few filters and features added. And the Piefed instances block some known unpleasant instances by default. And it doesn’t pull in all the content unless someone subscribes… So it should be a bit better. But underneath, it’s the same network and content.
it doesn’t pull in all the content unless someone subscribes
I think that’s how Lemmy works too
Ah, I didn’t know. I’ve never ran my own Lemmy instance. I just found out after installing Piefed, that content doesn’t appear on it’s own. I had to go ahead and add some communities manually. Idk if that changed since.
I think that’s a deliberate decision, one of the benefits being that a new server doesn’t destroy itself by immediately trying to download the entire history of the fediverse!
The second is probably the main argument.
Can I access it via Eternity app? Is it basically another instance?
no apps yet. work on an alpha API is in progress though, so soon™ hehe
This? B/c see the comment elsewhere in this thread by db0 who said he did not have time to work on it right now… :-( But I do hope it comes soon:-). And yet the web UI I would hope would be polished regardless.
This code: https://codeberg.org/rimu/pyfedi/src/branch/main/app/api/alpha
Its mostly freamon and rimu working on that part. Iirc its meant to be lemmy api compatible, but i think there are some adaptations needed to accomadate the piefed way differences.
Freamon got a fork of a lemmy app to sort-of work back in september (https://matrix.to/#%2F!NVUzKiFppMtECaxHQm%3Amatrix.org%2F%24KJqJfus8DVy-B64AC8uWEQ9oiGsRA04AReRF-05nQYA%3Fvia=matrix.org&via=tchncs.de&via=jeena.net) so the alpha api stuff has been coming in since then.
Yay! I will have hope in an upcoming API then:-). Thanks for sharing.
It’s not compatible with apps yet, unfortunately.
Though there’s a feature request for that where db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com said that he would be excited to work on!:-)
Sadly, I don’t have enough time for that atm.
Ah, so sorry to hear that! I got excited to hear that you were excited to work on it too… :-P
Thank you for telling me so I won’t spread misinformation about it. I hope you get to where you have more time irl soon - whether you choose to spend it on that topic, on Lemmy at all, or touch grass or sth else instead (our health is important!!!). Take good care of yourself (and then get back to work! only if/when you want to ofc:-P).
I’m always hacking at something. It’s just different priorities
Hehe, always never not be hacking, yes absolutely:-).
So is it a fork of Lemmy?
not a fork, its its own code base built from scratch.
it’s inspired by lemmy but seeks to addres; community concerns stemming from that programming is a form of communication and the things the lemmy project owners value as messaging are vile
I’m not sure what that even means. Does that mean it’s right wing? If software can even be right wing or left wing.
Two of the developers are scary communist tankies. And no, I don’t think software can be right wing or left wing. Maybe if it’s centralized, like X, but the developers of Lemmy can’t interfere with Lemmy servers they don’t admin, and it’s open source (lots of other people contribute to the Lemmy source code at this point and so would be able to spot things added in).
Personally, I think the right way to advertise other competitors on the fediverse isnt to fear monger about the developers, but to say what features the alternatives have that might be good. Also, it is nice to have competitors, so also just to advertise based on the availability of alternative options, since it is nice to have those just in case.
The Lemmy devs? I’m aware of this. I’m a right winger and that doesn’t affect me nearly as much as the far left communities of Lemmy users.
The features are all I care about. Eventually I’ll find the right people here and be able to build the communities I want.
I’m a right winger and that doesn’t affect me nearly as much as the far left communities of Lemmy users.
I am surprised that you have survived this long. I am rather moderate left, and even after blocking the main extreme left instances, I still question my presence when I see the amount of far left populism that gets acclaimed here.
A lot of it is disengaging from political communities and making my own. So far the people who leave comments now haven’t been that but, but we’ll see how long that lasts 😂
I am rather moderate left
blocking the main extreme left instances
Sounds like you’re plenty interested in hearing from conservatives. 🤔
Anyone who tries to express themselves politely and rationally is welcomed.
Exactly. I 100% agree with that sentiment.
They must have been talking about the Lemmy devs (the main PieFed dev is a lefty but no-one has ever accused him of being a tankie). To give you an idea: piefed.social blocks lemmygrad and hexbear, but it also block hilariouschaos (set up by the old exploding-heads guys).
Ooh I didn’t know that the exploding-heads guy did anything else.
Why block instances though? I’ve never been a fan of that, I just let people block me.
I couldn’t really do justice to his opinions about things like that. I just replied because I recognised your name, and wanted to let you know that the software / instance wouldn’t be a good fit for you.
hilariouschaos (set up by the old exploding-heads guys)
…really? I always got the impression that the admin is some teenage girl
