Tl;Dr FB sucks, looking for Android client to view friends/pages/groups posts only.

I don’t like Facebook, but my main hobby community exists almost exclusively there.

I try to limit my usage to just within the bounds of my hobby, but it is difficult with all of the garbage FB tries to push in my face every time I look at it.

I would love to have a different client for FB that just gives me content on people I’m friends with. No reels, no suggestions, no ads, just friends/pages/groups.

I’ve seen that there are alternative FB clients for Android, but it’s never clear if they offer something like what I want.

Before I spend time evaluating various clients, does anyone already know of one that does what I want?

  • pagenotfound@lemmy.world
    103·
    2 months ago

    I know it’s not what you’re asking for but have you tried to encourage your circle to leave Facebook?

    I feel these alternative clients are only temporary until Meta decides to do something that ends up breaking these apps.

    • watty@lemm.eeOP
      2·
      2 months ago

      I’ve thought about trying to host my own Friendica instance, but haven’t gotten there yet.

      Have you had much success in migrating a hobby community to the fediverse? Any tips on what approaches worked well?

      • simplymath@lemmy.world
        1·
        2 months ago

        I use signal (messenger app) groups, but my hobbies are often tech related, so that community is already there.

        • watty@lemm.eeOP
          1·
          2 months ago

          Yea, part of the challenge is that the average age in my hobby (kite flying) is somewhere around 50. So I’d need something with a low barrier to entry.

          I like the concept of Friendica because its the most parallel to FB, but it doesn’t seem to be a very popular platform and it has little/no mobile apps :/

          • simplymath@lemmy.world
            32·
            2 months ago

            Signal is super user friendly. I got my family to switch over years ago and even my mom can manage it. Though, it’s probably a tough sell for a kite flying group more generally. I do think it’s probably a lower barrier than making a new social media account on some fediverse alternative, but hard to explain the advantages to people who don’t care about privacy from Zuck.

            • watty@lemm.eeOP
              1·
              2 months ago

              I was just playing with setting up an account on friendica.world, and so far that shit is pretty rough.

              I’ll go play with Signal and see how I feel about it. Thanks for the suggestion!

    • jonw@links.mayhem.academyEnglish
      1·
      2 months ago

      Some (all?) of the apps just wrap the FB website so they can’t really tell what’s happening to block it or could do so without hitting a bunch of innocents.

    • watty@lemm.eeOP
      4·
      2 months ago

      Just tried it, good suggestion! It seems like it’s trying its best to do what I want. Filtering seems to fail sometimes when the page loads more content, but it still helps I think. It’s amazing just how much junk can be filtered out when it works:

      • cheese_greater@lemmy.world
        21·
        2 months ago

        Its great for everything. Instead of downloading every company’s “app”, just add the login page URL and you’ve got them all in virtual desktop with all your web “apps” thats filters most of the shite

        Highly recommend using a VPN for fb tho, they track all ur shit