I looked up a list of Lemmy World instances and signed up for a bunch, but how do I see everything at once in one app instead of downloading one for each instance? I am new to what the kids call “federation.” Thank you.
You only need to sign up for one instance. What app are you using or is it the browser?
You only need to sign up for one instance.
It would be so nice if this were true.
You need to sign up with every instance that isn’t federated with an instance you’ve already signed up for.
So, for example, if you have a Lemmy.world account, and you want to subscribe and post to a community hosted by beehaw.org, you also need to create and maintain a beehaw.org account.
As the fediverse gets more mature, news of de-federation between big/popular instances becomes more common.
If there’s content at beehaw that a user wants to subscribe to and comment on, then it’s more than just beehaw’s problem, it’s also makes it the user’s problem…and that means creating and maintaining logins on multiple servers.
I use Liftoff for at least Lemmy World. I used the browser to sign up for each individual instance and get approved because Liftoff only recognizes Lemmy World.
Lemmy.world is just the (only) pre-configured Lemmy instance. But you can add more yourself, e. g. your home instance where your main account lives.
You can add more instances, but don’t have need to sign up on each. Now the cool thing, that makes LiftOff special. You can switch to one of those instances and browse them to view only their local communities or all that are available on that instance. You don’t need an account for this, but you can’t vote or reply directly. However, Liftoff offers to switch to the copy of the same post/comment you’re viewing, that lives on your home instance, where you’re signed up, so you can vote or reply.
You could (but don’t have to) sign up on these other instances. Usually you pick an instance you like most to sign up, then browse the copies (= federation) of other instances that are on your home instances.
But LiftOff allows you to easily browse other instances directly (no copies), like some travel mode. Sign up on these other instances and you have a holiday home there. By this you can e. g. keep your personas separate from each other.
The switch feature is also very handy if you simply want to browse an instance that’s defederated (= no copies of posts/comments are shared) from your home instance.
You can just search for something like Android and it’ll show all the communities including the instance it’s on and join; you don’t need multiple logins.
The app I use, wefwef, also can view all communities in the feed along with your subscribed or just local instance communities. I’d assume liftoff is similar but I’ve never used it.
Liftoff works with multiple servers. Go to account, gear in the top right, accounts, menu in bottom right, add server.
I will try that later. I have to go back and see which ones I signed up to.
