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Pixelfed (the ethical alternative to Instagram)!

DgN'R

I'm No Superman!
Hey!

I am creating this thread to tell you about Pixelfed, an alternative to Instagram that respects your rights and privacy:


I have created a page for my company/brand, which you can find here (for example):


As you can see, it's very similar to IG, but Pixelfed is part of the Fediverse and is therefore more ethical (about your rights and freedoms), sustainable, and more environmentally friendly. It's free, open source and decentralized. You can share photos, videos and direct messages (not end-to-end encrypted) to others. You can, of course, add a whole bunch of filters to your photos. There's also a mobile app (iOS & Android). There are no limitations, profiling, no blocking or anything else if you don't have an account (as long as it's public, of course).

There's nothing complicated about it, you just need to select an instance and create an account. You can also create your own instance, but it is much more complicated. The most popular instance currently, and this one:


That's the one I chose to create my account. Once you have created your account, you will receive an activation link within 24 hours.

When you share a photo, you also select the license you want and it will appear on your share as a label like this:

Screenshot-from-2025-07-23-12-30-28.png


I find the Fediverse really interesting and I hope it will become more popular in the future. It's clearly an ethical alternative to Big Tech/GAFAM. The fediverse is much larger and there's also Mastodon (alternative to X) and Peertube (alternative to YouTube) which use the same protocol (ActivityPub). As I'm allergic to Big Tech, I'm very pleased and grateful to have this solution. Ethics, damn it! 😍

My account was created today so there's not much there at the moment (and I only have one product at present) and if you want to see more, I invite you to see the main Developer page here:


Big tech is currently very worried about the rise of Fediverse, and it's easy to see why :lol:

Of course, it's up to us, the users, to make things happen! Let's make a better world for ourselves and the future occupants of planet earth :nod:

Please do not hesitate!

PS: for those waiting for the SUS430 IH Cap, as you can imagine, things are about to get underway. I chose Prestashop (french opensource ecommerce solution) as well as Payplug (CB/VISA/Mastercard payment solution (approved French payment gateway with a strong presence here), no PayPal) and I'm currently fine-tuning all that. All on a sovereign, environmentally-friendly Swiss hosting provider (Infomaniak). I've carefully selected what suits me best. Everything should be up and running when the stock arrives (around August 10)! Stay tuned, there's a lot more to come!

 

Fearless Disaster

Well-Known Member
i'm a fan and switched to it a couple years ago, thought the instagram import was broken. i just made my peace with that stuff being scrambled but for new photos its the bomb! plus browsing the feed is such a nice experience
 

DgN'R

I'm No Superman!
Yeah it's cool, and all this without advertising or reselling your personal data to third parties :cool:

I haven't tried the IG import because I've never used it, so I can't tell you.

Cheers!
 
DgN'R,

Pangolin 6

Well-Known Member
This is great @DgN'R ! I wholeheartedly support your decisions to use open tech choices.

I love seeing a business use a non-commercial open social media platform like PixelFed. I really hate how so many businesses, not just in the vape space, do so much of their communicating on Meta's horrible platforms. I get it, it's an audience and an accessible market, the network effect— but I can't condone working with (actually for!) an organisation that has been complicit in crimes against humanity, works for corrupt dictatorships and morally bankrupt governments, spreads hate and generally makes the world worse. /RANT

One great feature of the fediverse (that of it using the Activity Pub protocol anyway) is that you can follow many accounts across different platforms from a single account and in other ways. For example, I use Mastodon (like twitter but not broadcast from hell) and I have followed DgN'Rs pixelfed account with my mastodon account! (Big tech hates interoperability!)

But wait there's more!

If I had a PeerTube (youtube-like video sharing) account or a Friendica (facebook-like) account I could do it too. Actually if I follow a Peertube account from Mastodon their videos appear in my feed and if I reply to a video post it appears on peertube as a comment on the video. Pretty cool.

And you can also follow the pixelfed account with Atom, which is basically RSS. So without an account I have the pixelfed feed in my RSS feed.

And even better than that you don't even need an account you can just view the Pixelfed account page in your browser, no inaccessible content or stupid pop ups telling you better log in. The likes of IG intentionally degrade that open experience to try force a signup. PixelFed won't be doing that.

TL;DR:
  • PixelFed & Fediverse are cool.
  • Meta & Co suck.
  • @DgN'R is cool.
  • If you want to view their pixelfed content you can do it in a browser without an account, with a pixelfed account, with an account on something else like mastodon, or using ATOM/RSS, which is cool.
 
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DgN'R

I'm No Superman!
Wow! Thank you very much for your message 😃 I'm really very pleased to read this! 🙏

I see that we share the same moral concerns! I feel much less alone now! Thanks a lot :tup:

And yes, you're right, I would probably make more sales on traditional social media (centralized and controlled by a single entity), but I refuse to support these platforms. Ethics are paramount to me. Another world is possible! Let's go!
 

Fearless Disaster

Well-Known Member
oh this is timely, i've been looking for a platform for rip vids, i'll check out peertube. or any other recommendations y'all have. i wasn't looking forward to using youtube and having people think i was trying to be an influencer
 

Pangolin 6

Well-Known Member
oh this is timely, i've been looking for a platform for rip vids, i'll check out peertube. or any other recommendations y'all have. i wasn't looking forward to using youtube and having people think i was trying to be an influencer

PeerTube is the top video sharing contender right now afaik.
PixelFed are about to lauch their tiktok alternative - loops (loops.video)

Here is a list of ActivityPub based services.
 
Pangolin 6,
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Pangolin 6

Well-Known Member
I was curious about their app and found myself impressed that no tracker signatures were detected in it: https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.pixelfed/latest/ (4 in the Instagram app + it wants twice as many permissions (https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.instagram.android/latest/))

Also you are not confined to their app, if you care about trackers you can download an alternative from the fdroid store or even something like fedilab which supports multiple accounts across several fediverse services.

Edit: FYI Google adds their trackers to all apps uploaded to their app store, Fdroid is an alternative app store that only allows open source apps, warns you about non-open connected services and doesn't add trackers.
 
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