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The fediverse now has a mobile-first personal server called Holos by @HolosSocial (via @apps). It's a full ActivityPub server that runs on your Android device (iOS coming soon). You own your identity with a custom domain and your followers live on your device.

Project URL: https://holos.social

Key features:
✅ Your server on your phone – Your identity, keys, and followers live on your device, not a giant shared server.
✅ Custom domain identity – Permanently own your handle (@you@yourname.com) and take it anywhere.
✅ True E2EE for DMs – Real end-to-end encryption for private conversations, a major privacy upgrade.
✅ Relay-based connectivity – Connects to the wider fediverse via relays, so a personal server is practical on mobile.

Open source, privacy-focused, and built to give you real ownership in the fediverse. The Android version is available now.

Donations:
https://fedilab.app/page/donations/

Open Collective:
https://opencollective.com/fedilab

#HolosSocial #Fediverse #ActivityPub #E2EE #Privacy #Android #Fedilab #OpenSource

Fedilab - Open Collective

Android client for Mastodon / Pleroma / Friendica / PixelFed

Donations

lj·rk

@ljrk@todon.eu · 2 weeks ago

@i47i @apps This is awesome! Just a few weeks ago I thought about harvesting the immense compute power our phones have to self-host more critical services, even mail

Luca Sironi

@luca@sironi.xyz · 2 weeks ago

@ljrk @i47i @apps

I keep not understanding the need for the relay in this awesome project.
There is absolutely no need to have a proxy for the supposed issues
(ip changes, offline periods)

I have my mastodon instance at home, with no fixed ip.
If my provider change my ip, it will take some 5 minutes to update dns.

As for longer offline periods, like maybe during the night, well, you can keep a mastodon server down for almost a week before others barely notice...

Fedilab Apps

@apps@toot.fedilab.app · 2 weeks ago

@luca
The key difference is that your Mastodon instance runs on a home server with a fixed location. A phone constantly switches between WiFi, 4G, and goes offline unpredictably. You can't point a domain to a phone the way you do with a home server and dynamic DNS.
The relay acts as a permanent mailbox: always reachable, always accepting deliveries. Your phone picks them up when it's online.
@ljrk @i47i

Luca Sironi

@luca@sironi.xyz · 2 weeks ago

@apps @ljrk @i47i

I don't see this so black and white.

I get offline every saturday, to pass the vacuum cleaner.
Occasionally the ISP change my ip, or i got a micro blackout.

You have a dynamic dns name, say whatever.dyn.com, pointing to an ip.
Other servers try to speak with luca@whatever.dyn.com

If the server associated with whatever.dyn.com is off, other servers will queue days of traffic for you, it happens all the time.
If you just changed IP, other servers will fail delivering to your old IP for up to 300 seconds.
They won't send post to another possible server because exchanged keys and bla blah

People who follow you don't notice anything strange, even your profile is cached, it's not like they receive 404 or something

Fedilab Apps

@apps@toot.fedilab.app · 2 weeks ago

@luca
On a mobile phone it's simply not possible. Even though your phone has a public IP, it's behind CGNAT with no way to configure port forwarding. With a home server you can set up dynamic DNS and open ports on your router, but there's no equivalent on a mobile network. That's why the relay is needed.
@ljrk @i47i

🫧 socialcoding..

@smallcircles@social.coop · 2 weeks ago

@i47i

There is some terminology used by @HolosSocial that may lead to confusion and needs clarification.

The term "full #ActivityPub server" seems to refer to a full server-to-server (S2S) implementation and then hosted client-side, which communicates with the Holos relay server through websockets in order to be able to federate. You might call it a "full server on the client" implementation.

But that is different than what the spec calls a "ActivityPub conformant Federated Server" which also implements the client-to-server (C2S) Social API. I don't see C2S mentioned, and perhaps @apps can improve the docs here to avoid confusions.

https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#specification-profiles

ActivityPub

The ActivityPub protocol is a decentralized social networking protocol based upon the [ActivityStreams] 2.0 data format. It provides a client to server API for creating, updating and deleting content, as well as a federated server to server API for delivering notifications and content.

🫧 socialcoding..

@smallcircles@social.coop · 2 weeks ago

@i47i @HolosSocial @apps

PS. I track a list of #ActivityPub #C2S implementations and didn't add #Holos till now. If I should add it, pleas let me know, or comment directly to the issue.

https://codeberg.org/fediverse/delightful-fediverse-apps/issues/130

Codeberg.org

Which ActivityPub applications support Client-to-Server (C2S)?

In preparation of updating and reorganising of this list I would like to collect current FOSS projects that offer an implementation of ActivityPub C2S. In this [current fedi discussion](https://ausglam.space/@hugh/1144176911799110820) a bunch of projects were already named: - [ActivityPods](http...

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