There has recently been a huge rush of people trying out Mastodon. This is also noticeable in the number of people reading my earlier Mastodon Guide. I wanted to take this opportunity to provide a brief list of usage tips that I wish I had at hand when first setting up my Mastodon home.
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This is for people who now have Mastodon accounts and have poked around a bit, but are still a bit confused about the whole experience.
1) Good apps
Metatext or Toot! on iOS and Tusky on Android are oft-recommended apps. One progressive web app (PWA) I’ve also enjoyed is Pinafore.
Remember it’s possible to just use the web interface. You can save the web address of your home instance as a shortcut on your phone. I myself prefer this because it maintains all the features that some apps forget to implement (like setting the language of your toot). It also helps me avoid notifications on my phone.
No account yet? For creating an account, start in a web browser first, before downloading an app. Also, beware of some apps renaming features to something that is unique for that app.
Yes there are “official” apps by the lead Mastodon developers but I rarely see them recommended.
2) Understand the concept of “instance”
You can think of instance as the web address at the end of someone’s user name. This is where they signed up and this is where their version of Mastodon is hosted. Examples of instances: mastodon.lol, floss.social, qoto.org,…
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