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Mike McCue

Hello fediverse!

This morning we’re opening a beta for Surf, a new kind of browser for a new kind of web — the open social web.

Built from the ground up on ActivityPub, AT Proto and RSS, you can create and surf amazing custom feeds that organize people, videos, articles, images and podcasts around the things you care about.

Surf is a liberating new approach to how we use social media and I can’t wait to hear what you think of it. Learn more and sign up for the beta at surf.social

@mike Looking forward to trying this out! Is this strictly an app, or will it also be available on the web?

@mntyfrsh @mike +1 one to this question - please, let's also end the app tyranny.

@jwcph @mntyfrsh Yes there will be web and desktop versions with layouts optimized for larger displays.

@mike @jwcph @mntyfrsh Thank you, glad you're building surf.social for larger displays on the web. My close vision doesn't let me view complex or tiled content on a phone for any length of time.

@Patrickoldhiker @mike @mntyfrsh My ageing eyes don't like it either - but I just generally don't like to do anything on my phone except calling & texting, thank you very much.

@mike

What have they done in the way of privacy, ie, data gathering and web tracking?

Sounds Amazing! Can #Pixelfed be added to the platform list?

@mike This is absolutely awesome!

I would absolutely love to do some beta testing of this, as that is what I did for 9+ years while working for Nova Launcher.

@mike

we need reader, video and podcast apps that integrate our decentralized social graph. show us what's most popular and let us quickly boost the item once we've read, watched or listened to it. this sounds great.

then someday, pay creators directly (open protocol/API for fiat transfer?) for time spent.

Woo, congratulations! So psyched to see this come out, and for your continued support and leading the way for the fediverse and the bridge open social web. Can't wait to install the official app!

@mike

there's already a web browser named surf 🙃 it's much more minimal than this one tho

@mike nice work, exciting stuff! Looking forward to taking this for a run!

@Mike McCue What are the chances that the ActivityPub side will get full (or any) support for Pleroma and its forks, Misskey and its forks, Friendica and other things that use the Mastodon client API?

Or even server applications that can speak ActivityPub, but that don't have the Mastodon client API implemented?

I sincerely hope that Surf isn't built against only Mastodon so hard that it's impossible to add more than just incidental and unsupported compatibility with anything that isn't Mastodon.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Fediverse #ActivityPub #NotOnlyMastodon #FediverseIsNotMastodon #MastodonIsNotTheFediverse
hub.netzgemeinde.euNetzgemeinde/Hubzilla

@jupiter_rowland Our goal is to seamlessly support any ActivityPub feed. For example Pixelfed and Friendica work great and Lemmy is pretty good too. We’ll gradually work through the variations and collaborate with folks to get thins working as seamlessly as possible.

@jupiter_rowland @mike I see lemmy in there. And pixelfed too. Should work with anything on AP.

@mike My only question is will it remember where I am in the timeline or will it always infuriatingly scroll to the top? All the apps I’ve seen so far (except Ivory) do this and it’s maddening!

@selgart @mike First off, this looks like a good concept. AFAIK, @MonaApp doesn’t have that issue. I agree it is undesirable.

@selgart The beta currently does not do this but it is definitely in the plan. Do you like the Ivory handles this? What’s your ideal approach?

@mike Ivory’s method is ideal. Open the app, you’re still at the same post you saw the last time. If you happen to want to go to the top it’s only one tap at the top of the screen to get there. But even better, if going to the top was an accidental touch you can just tap the top again and it takes you back to where you were. It’s totally on the side of the user. Bluesky’s behavior, not to pick on them in particular as almost all apps do this to be fair, always taking you to “now” is really pretty user-hostile in an otherwise pretty good app.

@selgart thanks for sharing this. I like this approach and will make sure we factor in.

@mike signed up for the beta! Can’t wait to try it

@mike There is already a browser with the name surf ^^

@mike love seeing people do interesting things with the open web

@mike
The website doesn't really tell us what this is, specifically.
Also there is no privacy policy.

@mike Lots of good tidings regarding fediverse projects lately.

Congratulations and look forward to checking it out!

@mike Is this strictly for phones, or does it work on computers as well? Does it have accessibility features for screen reader users? It sounds very exciting!

@dandylover1 tablet and desktop support will be coming. Most importantly we'll have specialized layouts for larger screens. The photos and videos will look amazing.

@mike I'm totally blind, so I can't see any of that. But I do almost everything on my computer, which is why I asked.

@dandylover1 I understand. Yes we’ll have a desktop computer version. And I’ll be sure we support Alt text and other accessibility features as much as possible.

Are there any specific thoughts for me on this? I’d love to know what would be most useful for you.

@mike I'm not a programmer, so this is just from a user's perspective. I also have no vision, so I can't comment on what would be good for those with low vision, though I would imagine something like good contrast and font size and colour would help. For me, I would say make sure that everything is accessible with a keyboard.. I personally find the most accessible things use standard menus, accessible via the alt key, wherein each menu is accessed with the left and right arrows, and once entered, they are navigated with the up and down arrows and things are selected with enter. I would need to see your particular program to explain in more detail what would need to be done. But while it's not a browser, TweeseCake offers a good idea of a client that works with various services in the Fediverse. However, it is not a browser and doesn't do what you are intending with your own program.

@mike I like the idea but isn't that name already in use by one of the minimal Linux browsers?

@mike As a Flipboard user since 2010 I have two things:
1) Congratulations, can't wait to see it!
2) Can't wait to see it! LET ME IN 😂

@noah Hi Noah! Hopefully tomorrow!

@mike congrats! We look forward to beta testing it!

@mike Is it not designed to cope with personal instances/domains? I can't get past 'Enter Your Fediverse Server', it decides 'no matches found' halfway through the input. I'm sure I'm not alone in that one of the biggest draws of the fediverse is the ability to host my own instance.
There are likely good reasons, especially in beta. Hopefully I can check it out further down the line.

@jd @mike

Hi, you contacted us about the login process for surf. You mentioned your “personal domain”.

We generally use the mastodon api. Can you share the domain that is not working?

What I can tell you is that we need to create an “app” on that domain for the surf login to work.

docs.joinmastodon.org/methods/

You should be able to login to surf with any fediverse domain that supports the mastodon client api.

docs.joinmastodon.orgapps API methods - Mastodon documentationRegister client applications that can be used to obtain OAuth tokens.
@JsonCulverhouse @mike Hi Jason, thanks for the swift response. It's social.mrdonaldson.net I'm currently running Pleroma so I wonder if that's an issue? I'll have a look over that documentation tomorrow - it's late here now.
social.mrdonaldson.netPleroma
@JsonCulverhouse here's how it looks, if that helps.

@jd I see that we are able to add an application to the host social.mrdonaldson.net I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work. You should be able to paste in that host (it actually looks like it has already happened) and connect.

@JsonCulverhouse Thanks for looking into it, still no luck I'm afraid. This is on Android 15 if that's helpful. Don't worry, I was just curious, although I'm happy to troubleshoot as best I can.