Most of us are Reddit refugees, and probably clicking more random links than we ever did before on websites we’ve never seen before. This whole experience feels like the old internet, but also throws up insane red flags with a modern internet perspective. What are the cybersecurity weaknesses we should all be looking for, and what are the best practices?
Here’s my reason for posting this. As I search for new communities across instances to follow, I sometimes end up clicking a link and I’m no longer logged in. In the corner, that could be a Sign In link or it could be phishing. It’s likely due to me not understanding how to properly navigate this system, but there’s nothing stopping someone from setting up a sight like this as far as I know.
Thoughts?
Do you mind giving a short explainer of proper link formatting? I was struggling with this just a little bit ago
If you link directly to the full URL (including the instance), you’ll take anyone who clicks it to that instance, and they won’t be logged in. This is usually not what you want. Example: https://pawb.social/c/tech - This link will take you to my instance.
If you remove the instance URL, and just leave /c/communityname@instance - for example, /c/tech@pawb.social - the link will still take you to the community, but you’ll still be on your instance. This is usually desirable.
Basically, instance -> community = link to that instance. Community -> instance = link to the community in whatever instance the user clicks it in.
You can also use ! instead of /c/ - I think this might work better for Kbin users (since they use /m/ instead of /c/ - can’t verify this). In that case, it’d be: !tech@pawb.social
I won’t get tired of posting this everywhere it applies :D
I made this userscript, which rewrites all links everywhere (not only on Lemmy) to always point to your home instance. So the link in your comment actually looks like this to me:
i.e. even though you tried to link to your instance, my script rewrote your link back to my instance so it’s working fine :D
But of course I can still hover over the icon to see how your link originally looked:
I Have to say that @Azzu@lemm.ee 's script is fantastic. I’ve been using for a few days now (I have another bug report for you@Azzu@lemm.ee )
Thanks for the explainer! Doing some testing cause your example didn’t hyperlink on Memmy
c/tech@pawb.social /c/tech@pawb.social !c/tech@pawb.social !tech@pawb.social test text /c/tech@pawb.social /c/Lemmy@lemmy.ml
Weird. Not sure when your example didn’t link, because it did in my comment ¯\(ツ)/¯
Edit: I’m back on browser. Everything that hyperlinked works properly. It’s a Memmy issue
Okay I learned a few things, though they may be specific to Memmy.
- The /c/community@instance works, and opens the links in the app, rather than browser
- If you have text in front of your link, it doesn’t work. Might be a Memmy issue.
- I need to test, but
I think #2 is responsible for the Null errors I’ve been getting when text is hyperlinked.
Text testing #3 - confirmed, this returns the Null error.
Now without prior text
test - this also didn’t work
test! - using a link beginning with ! Also didn’t work. Hmm.
Edit from browser: Hyperlinked text isn’t working properly in Memmy
So just out of curiosity, since you’re the first person I’ve seen actually point out optimal linking with the ! Symbol, I have to ask how you pronounce it. For me, ! will always be “bang”, so I’m just curious what the pronunciation is.
I use “Bang”, too, if I’m trying to verbally say it, though… that very rarely comes up. If I’m reading it, I don’t internally “pronounce” the symbol at all. If it was verbal, though, the above link would be bang tech at pawb dot social.
Is there a similar way to handle linking to specific posts? I think all post urls are unique to that specific instance and I haven’t seen any way to do a translation between instances.
As far as I know, there are a few different link formats, and how well they work depends on which frontend you’re using:
- amateur_radio
- !amateur_radio@lemmy.radio (The Web interface gave me autocomplete options for this)
- https://lemmy.radio/c/amateur_radio
EDIT: At least using the web app, the first link is relative, and the others are not. So I think the correct format would be /c/<community>@<instance> for communities outside your instance.
Those opened in the in app browser on Memmy. Testing here
The formatting !community@instance should let a user click through but still be logged in on their own instance, so that you can still read posts, vote and comment. If that doesn’t work, you can try entering that same thing into your instance search bar, or in your browser enter https://your instance/c/community@theirinstance
It should all get a lot smoother as this platform is developed!
I haven’t tried linking to a specific post on another instance, so I’m not sure of that formatting hmm
