Home

Are there any apps/instances that default to local only and you have to opt-in to federated instances?

$$18212
https://piefed.social/u/LordMayor posted on Mar 26, 2026 14:20

I find the inclusion of every federated instance in ‘All’ fairly annoying. New tiny/niche/vanity instances get added by default when federated. There ends up being too much duplication and stuff I’m not interested in.

I’d much rather a system that only includes the local instance by default with a way to discover and add other instances.

My instance block list is long but there’s always new instances to block. For me, this a design flaw of the fediverse.

https://piefed.social/c/fediverse/p/1920059/are-there-any-apps-instances-that-default-to-local-only-and-you-have-to-opt-in-to-feder
Reply
$$18215
https://swg-empire.de/u/bjoern_tantau posted on Mar 26, 2026 14:23
In reply to: https://piefed.social/c/fediverse/p/1920059/are-there-any-apps-instances-that-default-to-local-only-and-you-have-to-opt-in-to-feder

Can’t you just make the Local feed your default?

Personally I just subscribe to everything I want to see and browse that.

https://swg-empire.de/comment/9372967
Reply
$$18217
https://sh.itjust.works/u/Cheradenine posted on Mar 26, 2026 14:24
In reply to: https://piefed.social/c/fediverse/p/1920059/are-there-any-apps-instances-that-default-to-local-only-and-you-have-to-opt-in-to-feder

Voyager lets you set your default as All, Local, or Home.

https://sh.itjust.works/comment/24504461
Reply
$$18220
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/u/db0 posted on Mar 26, 2026 14:27
In reply to: https://swg-empire.de/comment/9372967

That’s the answer right there. The lemmy personal customization is quite flexible. You can even make it behave like an old-school forum if you want.

https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/25179668
Reply
$$18235
https://suppo.fi/u/markz posted on Mar 26, 2026 15:16
In reply to: https://sh.itjust.works/comment/24504461

This is a feature in lemmy and piefed themselves, every app should support it.

https://suppo.fi/comment/14195063
Reply
$$18237
https://suppo.fi/u/markz posted on Mar 26, 2026 15:21
In reply to: https://piefed.social/c/fediverse/p/1920059/are-there-any-apps-instances-that-default-to-local-only-and-you-have-to-opt-in-to-feder

Does instance block block everything from the instance?

https://suppo.fi/comment/14195133
Reply
$$18238
https://piefed.social/u/LordMayor posted on Mar 26, 2026 15:31
In reply to: https://suppo.fi/comment/14195133

Essentially, yes. I think you still see comments from users on that instance if they comment on a post on an instance that isn’t blocked.

https://piefed.social/comment/10697772
Reply
$$18243
https://suppo.fi/u/markz posted on Mar 26, 2026 15:41
In reply to: https://piefed.social/comment/10697772

Blocking all foreign posts, even on local communities sounds like it might be an unwanted side effect.

https://suppo.fi/comment/14195395
Reply
$$18244
https://piefed.social/u/LordMayor posted on Mar 26, 2026 15:42
In reply to: https://swg-empire.de/comment/9372967

The only problem with that is not seeing posts from other instances I don’t want to block.

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d prefer Subscribed to be personally curated communities, Local to be instance curated, and All to be a place to get a broader picture of, well, everything.

I’d just find it easier/more natural to opt-in to other instance content rather than opt-out.

https://piefed.social/comment/10697945
Reply
$$18249
https://retrolemmy.com/u/Die4Ever posted on Mar 26, 2026 15:51
In reply to: https://piefed.social/comment/10697945

sorry I don’t understand the difference that you’re looking for, Local already is “instance curated” by your local instance

https://retrolemmy.com/comment/18631591
Reply
$$18251
https://piefed.social/u/LordMayor posted on Mar 26, 2026 15:53
In reply to: https://retrolemmy.com/comment/18631591

Yes. I want All to be just other instances that I’m interested in. Not every available (federated) instance.

https://piefed.social/comment/10698110
Reply
$$18255
https://retrolemmy.com/u/Die4Ever posted on Mar 26, 2026 15:59
In reply to: https://piefed.social/comment/10698110

so you want to be able to subscribe to instances and have a new feed for the “Subscribed Instances” (as opposed to the existing Subscribed for communities)

not directly related, but have you looked at Feeds and Topics? https://piefed.social/feeds and https://piefed.social/topics

You can also follow remote feeds https://piefed.social/feed/add_remote

https://retrolemmy.com/comment/18631755
Reply
$$18259
https://piefed.social/u/LordMayor posted on Mar 26, 2026 16:13
In reply to: https://retrolemmy.com/comment/18631755

No, I didn’t know about those. Thanks, I’ll check that out.

https://piefed.social/comment/10698388
Reply
$$18265
https://retrolemmy.com/u/Die4Ever posted on Mar 26, 2026 16:26
In reply to: https://piefed.social/comment/10698388

You can also create your own feeds

https://retrolemmy.com/comment/18632258
Reply
$$18266
https://slrpnk.net/u/poVoq posted on Mar 26, 2026 16:28
In reply to: https://piefed.social/comment/10698110

The mislabled all feed isn’t actually an all feed, but just posts from communities that you, or someone else on your instance has subscribed to.

https://slrpnk.net/comment/21462615
Reply
$$18324
https://retrolemmy.com/u/Die4Ever posted on Mar 26, 2026 19:01
In reply to: https://suppo.fi/comment/14195395

I think for maximum control it would be cool to have separate

  • Block communities from instance
  • Block posts from instance
  • Block comments from instance

That might be too many buttons though. Maybe hide them in your settings as separate block lists, and when you click the existing block instance it just adds it to all 3 of the lists

https://retrolemmy.com/comment/18634948
Reply
$$18390
https://piefed.social/u/rimu posted on Mar 26, 2026 21:43
In reply to: https://piefed.social/comment/10698388

All those things are on the ‘Explore’ menu.

https://piefed.social/comment/10702618
Reply
$$19509
https://lemmy.world/u/albert_inkman posted on Mar 28, 2026 20:37
In reply to: https://piefed.social/c/fediverse/p/1920059/are-there-any-apps-instances-that-default-to-local-only-and-you-have-to-opt-in-to-feder

Great point about feeds. I think the ability to curate what shows up is actually critical for healthy discourse. When everything defaults to all or local only, you lose the middle ground where diverse perspectives can actually intersect without overwhelming noise. This is why I am working on Zeitgeist not as another feed, but as a way to actually see where people agree and disagree without the algorithm gaming that. The best conversations happen when you control the context, not when everything is flattened into one stream.

https://lemmy.world/comment/22921272
Reply