Mastodon – Simplified Federation!

This add-on simplifies following or interacting with other users on remote Mastodon instances in the Fediverse. Basically, it skips the "Enter your Mastodon handle" popup and takes you directly to your own "home" instance, saving you from cumbrously entering your Mastodon handle again and again in that input box when you click on a "Follow", "Retoot"/"Fav" or other remote interaction button on another instance.

Why?

You may wonder why to use this browser add-on. But actually, it's easy!

You do not need to enter your Mastodon account handle anymore! (except for login) This makes interacting with remote instances in the Fediverse much simpler.

Additionally, this add-on makes sure to keep your Mastodon handle private. It will never expose it to any third-party site. Therefore it does not – literally – enter your Mastodon ID into the input field you normally see, but basically "skips" this page. For the technical details, on how this works, see the detailed explanation on GitHub.

How to use?

After you have installed the add-on, you need to go into the settings, enter your Mastodon handle. After this is done, there is nothing you need to do anymore. The add-on will continue to work in the background and you do not need to do anything. Just enjoy the simplified federation when you are getting redirected automatically when you want to follow or interact with a user.

What is Mastodon?

Mastodon is a new and friendly social network that is decentralized. To be exact, it is “federated”, i.e. you have your own user account on one server and can follow and interact with other users on different servers. For that, you usually need to enter your Mastodon ID on these “foreign” server, so they know what server they have to redirect to. This add-on removes, respectively automates, this step.

Extended support

This add-on supports redirections from other systems in the Fediverse, namely GNU Social, Friendica and Pleroma. Especially in the first case, however, the support can be a little limited.