(っ•﹏•)っ Ever since I've been hearing about people getting hit by the age-verification implementation on Bluesky, I have been trying out social forks that users have suggested like witchsky.app, and tokimeki.blue.
It seems to be a good work around to avoid the age-verification on Bluesky. They carry the standard features as well as some extras you could play around with. More social forks exist but I will just be talking about these two for now! Conveniently, you don't really need to create a new account to use these apps, you can simply just login with your Bluesky account or use app passwords to login. That way all your posts, following/followers, etc, will still stay with you!
🔮 Witchsky
>> Click here to view the dev's logs for updates <<
For the witchsky.app, I like the little extra features it adds such as a section to add pronouns and website, simple UI colour scheme, ability to hide numerical stats, and more.
Though it doesn't have a dedicated mobile app [as of the current time, I am writing this post], you can pretty much make something similar by just logging into witchsky.app on your mobile browser, and then going to the settings and installing it as a shortcut. Then, you add it to your phone's homepage. That way it works almost like a mobile app!
Now, for desktop, if you would like to have Bluesky links redirect to Witchsky, I personally recommend using a browser extension that redirects website links like Redirector. This is how I have it setup.
That way, any Bsky links that you click on, will automatically convert it to a Witchsky link! :D
With that done... now you're all set! Yoohoo!
🌈 TOKIMEKI
>> Click here to view the Official Account for updates <<
I have actually been using tokimeki.blue before I even found out what a social app fork was lol. It's a super cute Bluesky client that operates like Tweetdeck packed with a lot of features. You can either multi-view feeds in columns or view in a single timeline. Panels are also customizable as seen on the first image below. You can also setup "Workspaces" if you are operating multiple accounts or want to group your columns/feeds. There are also nice appearance customization and downloadable themes for the UI that you can access in your settings.
Just like Witchsky, in TOKIMEKI you could also edit your profile with an extra block for pronouns and website as well as hide numerical stats. When viewing someone's profile, you are able to see what other apps they are accessing through the Atmosphere as well!
The dev has also listed out more projects they have been working on that likely or already been integrated/linked with TOKIMEKI as well. This includes blogging, a drawing board, a social app, and even more! Most of these are already accessible so I'll be sure to check them out myself :D
Also would like to mention that TOKIMEKI also has a mobile app! I am currently using it on Android and it's great! Also makes my timeline look super cute.
Final Note
Do keep note, that I did not mention every extra feature they have and it's more just what I see on the surface so far. So I really recommend doing a lot of exploring when using them!
Honestly, I don't really know much about ATProto and Atmosphere stuff but it seems very exciting to explore =w=b I just wanted to share these because there's still many people who don't know that Bluesky could be used like this.
Super appreciate the devs who created these and making it easy to understand. It has made my experience on Bluesky a lot more interesting. Please kindly support them whenever you are able to ^^ There are links under each title to view their official pages :>
There are some more apps that are part of this sphere I would like to talk about as well but I will leave that for another post. Thanks for reading!