That happened to me with Facebook… perhaps the fact that I fed it an AI generated image when it told me to upload an ID photo had something to do with though! 
I still don’t understand why FG wanted an ID photo - they told me it would be deleted after using it to confirm my identity. How? Unless they make a practice of hacking into the Australian government databases to find the only confirmed ID photos of me in existence. Don’t like FB anyway… or Instagram cos it’s Meta too 
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Not my thread, but I’m off to have a closer look at Flickr and Pixelfed. It’s been a while.
I’d welcome your thoughts on both.
Do a quick check at https://haveibeenpwned.com/ - in case the email and password matched a previously used + hacked pair, they may have been used in an automated attack.
I quickly found myself unhappy with Flickr’s tools for organizing albums, and their free tier was “meh”. SmugMug is very reasonably priced and IMO worth the money. (And yes, I am aware that Flickr is now owned by SmugMug.)
Interesting site. It states that my email has been used several times, but not since 2017. I have no idea how often their information is updated, nor how authentic the results are. They do push password protection software though.
If you check the news section, you’ll see they keep up to date.
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They are a very reputable service run by a trusted security researcher.
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I decided to sign up on Flickr and Pixelfed (the https://pxlmo.com instance) and wander around a bit in them. Both allow you to follow people. Pixelfed supports hashtags, but it seems you need to click on a hashtag in an existing post to search for them. The search function at the top of the page seems to not support hashtags. Flickr has groups, one of which is a photo critique group that seems to be constructive. Flickr appears to have a higher percentage of posts that are serious attempts at quality. I found several well-known pro photographers that I follow on Instagram and Vero, but none of them had posted there for several years.
@MetalMick99, you mentioned wanting to share your images with friends and family, but you didn’t mention anything about wanting to see theirs. If that’s an accurate representation of what you want to do, then a web site would be an option (although not free like Instagram). If you also want to see theirs, then you could probably get by with any of the options mentioned in this thread.
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You need to type them without the # in the search field
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Already tried that. The search box is doing nothing for me with or without the #. It doesn’t even issue a “no hits” message. Perhaps it’s a problem with the specific instance I joined.
are you running a script blocker or i.e.?
Maybe you are on the wrong server and nobody on that server is following users who use hashtags
No, and no.
I can do some further tests later, but I’m away from that system right now.
Well I tried to set up a pixelfed server but I wasn’t successful. Lots of errors and malfunctions…
I just set up an instance – it was not a smooth process. Initially I chose PostgreSQL as a DB backend, but I found certain features such as the Location search field wouldn’t work, and when I dug into the code it seemed that it was only properly implemented for MySQL/MariaDB backends. Anyway, the instance now seems to be running more or less stable, However, it seems you can’t follow the local timelines of other servers to find other users to follow unless you sign up with those servers, which seems a bit useless (especially if the server doesn’t accept new registrations anymore).
I think Mastodon is much better in this regard. Finding other users to follow is much easier, as you c an browse other instances without an account and use services such as Guppe groups. Ultimately I’m not sure how much I’ll use pixelfed with its very unfriendly environment for discovering users across separate instances.
Well I have been using pixelfed and mastodon for some time now, on my own servers and on other servers. I can tell you that mastodon is not good for sharing photos if you want to be seen. I don’t know why but pixelfed is much better in this respect. There should not be a difference in theory because both are part of the fediverse and use activitypub but there is. Apart from that, pixelfed is… well not as mature as mastodon from the technical point of view I guess.
If you find a good pixelfed server, go for it.
Well, if that’s case, I’ll persist with it for a bit. If anyone wants to follow me from their pixelfed account, I’ll follow back and it will help with the federation: matt on Pixelfed
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It’s probably more difficult to get new followers if you start on your own instance. In the beginning, if you look for hashtags, you find nothing and consequently you cannot follow other accounts with interesting content who might follow you back. Although, pixelfed does something differently than mastodon in this respect. On mastodon there are the relay servers which is a big mystery. Apparently pixelfed has something similar but it’s on from the beginning and after some weeks it scans some other servers automatically.
I mean it’s logical. If you are on a server with many other users those users probably follow accounts on other servers, so other servers are sending their content to your server and that content is on your server and can be searched.
If you have a lot of good content, eventually your content will land on other servers, even if you are on a small server, but it takes some time. The key is lot of good content. And some work.
Don’t expect to be seen if you are on a mini server, have little content of average quality and are totally passive.
It might also be handy to have an additional mastodon account that already has some followers and share yourself.
Hi Gord,
thanks for the update. I’m still a bit undecided as yet, though thinking that Flickr might be a more suitable alternative, though Pixelfed has a lot going for it and with a bit of luck will only get better.
I’m the only keen photographer in the family and amongst my friends. My family just do snaps - mainly of family - and share them via WhatsApp. They’re all keen to see what I do, though. So I’ll be on my own, which is okay.