When the Open Social Web Hybridizes: Raccoon for Friendica is a new app... Mastodon. And it even has a little Lemmy in it! That's why the Free Software + Fediverse duo is such a valuable resource.
Raccoon 1.0 was finally released for Android in recent days, a rather innovative client originally created for #Friendica, but which has now become one of the most innovative apps for the user experience on #Mastodon. The app is available for Android (already on the Play Store and Izzidroid, and will soon be available on F-Droid), but a #Debian package has also been released. An iOS version remains to be seen for its success.
The app introduces some very important innovations to the federated app landscape.
1. Navigate the Fediverse from an app, even without creating an account
Raccoon is the only app that lets you browse the Fediverse even without an account. When you install it, you can select any Friendica or Mastodon instance and "leverage" its local public and federated timelines. This way, users can explore multiple instances before choosing which one to open an account on. Of course, even after adding an account (the app manages multiple accounts), you can browse the timelines of servers other than the one you signed up to.
2. "Browse through" messages: "swipe" navigation
Unlike all other social apps (both those for the Fediverse and those for commercial social networks), #RaccoonForFriendica lets you open a post in your timeline and continue browsing through previous and next posts by simply swiping left and right.
This is a truly interesting ergonomic innovation.
3. Finally a formatting bar in social apps
Since the app was created for Friendica, it features a built-in formatting toolbar reminiscent of Lemmy clients (in fact, the developer @janTeko first experimented with app development with a Lemmy app). The formatting toolbar can also be used for Mastodon instances running the Glitch-soc fork, such as infosec.exchange, tech.lgbt, and my poliversity.it instance, which was the one the developer experimented with.
In addition to being more immediate, writing formatted posts is also made easier by a "preview" function that helps avoid errors in Markdown or BBCode coding.
4. Finally, Mastodon users will be able to enjoy Fediverse groups too.
As you may know, Mastodon doesn't support the display of group posts. Even if you select a group, you'll still see a single timeline where top posts alternate with replies. Searching for a thread on Mastodon is therefore very complicated, but the #Raccoon developer has found a way to enable "topic" viewing across all accounts that are "activitypub groups," be they #Lemmy, #NodeBB, Piefed, Mbin, Peertube, Wordpress, Mobilizon, Flipboard, etc.
This idea also came about thanks to the fact that the developer had previously tried his hand at developing an app for Lemmy and was able to experiment with the formatting bars and display of Lemmy "communities," which are nothing other than "#activitypub groups."
5. Other interesting features
Among other features, you can
- view the HTML code of messages;
- send scheduled posts;
- fully configure the interface;
- support for writing in HTML, useful both for Mastodon Glitch-soc and for writing WordPress posts by integrating the plugin "Activitypub for Wordpress" from @pfefferle and the "Enable Mastodon App" plugin from @alex
- integrate translation libraries
6. What's still missing?
The app features all the features found in most other Mastodon apps, except one: the correct handling of Mastodon posts that quote other posts. These are still displayed in a fairly primitive way. The developer is trying to decide whether to adapt to Mastodon specifications or reinterpret the feature in a more personalized way.
It must be said that, unfortunately, the implementation of quoted messages (already present in Friendica for ages) was implemented by Mastodon very late, only in recent months, and in a very "personal" way that many other software developers did not appreciate.
7. Raccoon is an app that will benefit users who already use Mastodon but also those who have never "tried" the Fediverse
This app has been under development for almost two years, and the beta version is just over a year old. However, version 1.0 has resolved all previously encountered issues.
Based on user feedback, the developer will evaluate whether to create an iOS version and even a Windows version.
Anyone who wishes to allow reporting of application errors can enable anonymous crash reports.
8. Links and Resources
This is the developer's profile:
androiddev.social/users/janTek…
This is the app repository: github.com/LiveFastEatTrashRac…
This is the Play Store link:
play.google.com/store/apps/det…
This is the link on IzzyDroid (the app will be released on F-Droid soon, but is currently under review):
apt.izzysoft.de/fdroid/index/a…
Here is the developer's blog:
livefasteattrashraccoon.github…
Finally, from here you can download the .apk or .deb package without using the online stores. line:
github.com/LiveFastEatTrashRac…
One last recommendation
The public's response will be important to enable the further development of this app.
If you want to test it on Mastodon, I recommend using instances running the glitch-soc fork. Among these, I'd recommend the infosec.exchange instance, which is well managed by @jerry. And of course, but only if you communicate in Italian or Esperanto, I'd be happy to host you on my poliversity.it instance.
Regarding Friendica, I recommend two instances: friendica.world, managed by @ruud and featuring a rather lively timeline, and, of course, social.trom.tf, excellently managed by @tio.
If you communicate in Italian, I'd be happy to host you on my poliverso.org instance.
Greetings to all and let me know if you need further information, if you have tried the app and how you found it.
Francesco
You can also interact with me through the Mastodon account @informapirata and the Friendica account @notizie
ActivityPub
Connect your site to the Open Social Web and let millions of users follow, share, and interact with your content from Mastodon, Pixelfed, and more.Automattic (WordPress.org)
like this
Lorena Alsazia, Emanuel De Rossi, Andrea Rizzi, Auster, Lorena Alsazia, Tio, Poliverso - notizie dal Fediverso ⁂, db0 and Lorenzo like this.
reshared this
informapirata ⁂, Pirati.io, Franc Mac, Poliversity - Università ricerca e giornalismo, Lorena Alsazia, Emanuel De Rossi, Andrea Rizzi, Informa Pirata, Lorena Alsazia, Tio, Cybersecurity & cyberwarfare, The Pirate Post, The Privacy Post, Privacy Pride, Poliverso - notizie dal Fediverso ⁂, Elezioni e Politica 2026, TROM and Lorenzo reshared this.
Lorena Alsazia
in reply to macfranc • •macfranc likes this.
macfranc reshared this.
Andrea Rizzi
in reply to macfranc • • •macfranc
in reply to Andrea Rizzi • • •@anriz I understand your concerns, because you're a Friendica user, and the Friendica web interface already provides an excellent way to view activitypub groups and group them by topic.
But the Mastodon user doesn't have the same user experience as you: for him, groups are just normal users who share both initial posts and replies in the same timeline. It's a real mess! 🤣
Raccoon on the other hand keeps things tidy and presents a neat display
@fediverse
𝔻𝕚𝕖𝕘𝕠 🦝🧑🏻💻🍕 likes this.
Andrea Rizzi
in reply to macfranc • • •𝔻𝕚𝕖𝕘𝕠 🦝🧑🏻💻🍕 likes this.
Tio
in reply to macfranc • • •𝔻𝕚𝕖𝕘𝕠 🦝🧑🏻💻🍕 likes this.
macfranc
in reply to Tio • • •Your instance is one of those shortlisted by Raccoon both because it's very well moderated and because it has a local timeline accessible even without logging in.
I'm glad you'll recommend this app to your contacts. In that regard, although none of us are in love with Google (🤬), we must admit that the presence of the 1.0 release on the Play Store is essential to overcome the psychological barrier of all those users who do not want to go to alternative stores or download the .apk package.
@pfefferle @jerry @informapirata @notizie @alex @fediverse @janTeko @ruud
Tio likes this.
givesomefucks
in reply to macfranc • • •Why are people upvoting this?
If OP used AI to "make" this post, obviously the app is gonna be slop too
𝔻𝕚𝕖𝕘𝕠 🦝🧑🏻💻🍕
in reply to givesomefucks • • •macfranc
in reply to givesomefucks • • •@givesomefucks I'm sorry, but you're making serious and false claims that do not honor either your reputation or your ability to recognize the synthetic origin of a text or code.
I wrote the post in Italian and first translated it into English (a language I don't know) using a machine translation system. I then did a back translation to make sure everything was at least comprehensible.
Regarding the app, if you had the necessary knowledge, you could take a look at the code to understand that the development wasn't done with vibe coding, but was done over the course of almost two years, integrating observations and addressing issues.
givesomefucks
in reply to macfranc • • •So...
AI "wrote" this post, like I said...
And AI coded it to?
You're just saying you put more effort in instead of just vibes?
Even your comment sounds like AI, it disagrees but then immediately acknowledged everything I said was correct.
Even your fucking chat or knows I'm right, you just told it to say I'm wrong.
Why would anyone download this fucking slop?
Lorenzo
in reply to givesomefucks • • •@givesomefucks wrote
AHAHAH! You're a freak of nature! You're a curious mythological character, half paranoid obsessive, half troll. 🤣
But maybe you're just a jealous little person... In that case, you're just salty because you've probably never even been able to program a washing machine.
@macfranc
cannedtuna
in reply to givesomefucks • • •Lorena Alsazia doesn't like this.
Franc Mac
in reply to cannedtuna • • •@cannedtuna I understand what you mean: you're referring to the post published by @Lorena Alsazia (here's Lemmy's post and here's the original on Friendica).
As you can see from the image, the user has been around for years (since August 8, 2021).
friendica.world/profile/lorena…
The date you find on Lemmy is because the user has likely never participated in a discussion on Lemmy.world.
lemmy.world/u/lorenaal@friendi…
I therefore ask you to amend your comment in light of the arguments I've presented.
Lorena Alsazia
in reply to Franc Mac • •Franc Mac
in reply to Lorena Alsazia • • •@Lorena Alsazia no, tranquilla 😅 non ti sei mai iscritta su lemmy.world. Quella è solo la pagina del tuo account Friendica che viene riportata su un'altra istanza. Si tratta di una cosa normale, perché oggi sei "entrata" in un Thread ospitato in una community di lemmy.world e quindi è stato creato un "profilo fantasma" che serve all'istanza lemmy.world per gestire i tuoi post e le tue interazioni
@cannedtuna
Lorena Alsazia likes this.
Lorena Alsazia
in reply to Franc Mac • •Lorenzo
in reply to cannedtuna • • •Lorena Alsazia likes this.
FrederikNJS
in reply to macfranc • • •ggtdbz
in reply to FrederikNJS • • •Posts about Fediverse interoperability are always a mess of different flavors of internet nerds who post in radically different formats clashing. It’s a glorious mess.
Personally I think micro blogging is an atrocious anti-discourse format but I also think anyone who writes the word “discourse” is automatically not worth listening to. So what do I know.
Insert 23 redundant hashtags about open source software here and tag eight accounts run by three people across six instances
(Mastodon friends I appreciate you but your posts are painful to look at through the Lemmy interface good god)
Franc Mac
in reply to ggtdbz • • •@ggtdbz There's something I don't understand: from the desktop and smartphone web interface (see image), it appears the display isn't that abnormal. Do you see it differently?
I also don't understand the reference to Mastodon: most Mastodon users write in plain text, while only users of certain forks can use formatted text. What's the problem that bothers you reading Mastodon users' comments?
@FrederikNJS
PS: I wrote from my Friendica account because the images sent by Mastodon are not always readable on Lemmy