Fraidycat, not Facebook

❦ First Published on

A friend on Facebook asked:

Where do you go to find news/articles to read, beyond Facebook?

In the spirit of the independent web I use the open source Fraidycat as a “news” dashboard to follow websites I choose to read instead of leaving that choice to an algorithm or a wealthy boss of a social network or even a bunch of my friends and acquaintances. I love the latter very much, but wish more would browse and publish on the indy web.

I then post links to the things I find interesting and worth sharing with commentary here, and try to write an original article now and again (the last one, before this one, is a sort of review of a video game called Generation Zero).

This is probably all futile given the popularity of walled gardens, the dominance of our digital overlords, and the ease with which people flick their thumbs up their infinite screens. But being a bit of a nerd, I like the open web, have learned a lot from it, and choose to persist like some sort of pest in the greedy plans of the powerful.

And the real reasons I use Fraidycat are actually:

The Fraidycat logo

  1. The logo which is a boxy feline that seems to have jumped straight out of a Dire Straits video or the video game Unturned.
  2. The name of the author of the software: Kicks Condor, which reminds me of Moxie Marlinspike.

I posted a link to this post on Facebook and, like a foolish, hopeful human, hope that people click the Like icon under it.


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