Everything you need to know about Flashes, the Bluesky-based Instagram alternative

This year’s gifts launched an alternative to Instagram designed over the Bluesky social network. The app is now available on the application store, and provides a different way to browse visual posts on Bluesky. Instead of watching it in a timeline -like extract, similar to X, the app requires inspiration from social networks based on images, such as Instagram.

What you can post

The application, which is created by the Berlin -based Sibastian Vogelsang, works on the same basic protocol that calms Bluesky, AT Protocol (or ATPROTO for a short period). This means that it will have the same requirements about posting pictures and videos that you find directly on Bluesky.

Originally, this meant support to publish up to four pictures and videos with a minute, but in the Bluesky update version 1.99 released on March 10, users enabled the videos up to 3 minutes.

How to look at Instagram – and how it differs

Instagram is somewhat similar to that, as it provides a scrolling nutritional and videos, user definition files, and even photo filters to improve your photos when posting.

Instead of having to start your network from zero point, Flasses users are immediately exploited in the broader Bluesky community, which now has more than 37 million users. Even if not all Bluesky users are flashing, their photos and videos will be displayed in the application, mainly liquidating the Bluesky summary of the visible content.

When publishing on gifts, it creates a post that appears on Bluesky as well. (For this reason, you may want to create a secondary Bluesky account if you want to keep the two networks separate.)

In addition, the application allows you to browse your Bluesky extracts and choose from more than 50,000 bliesky panels, including those that focus on specific topics – such as art, birds, gardening or cat images, for example – or those dedicated to specific formats, such as Bluesky video feeding.

While browsing posts in gifts, you can like and re -publish and respond, just as you can on Bluesky itself. These reactions will also appear in the Bluesky app, while Bluesky user reactions will appear in a flash.

Photographers looking for a place to display their work will be estimated for Hombes.

To switch this setting, you will go to the “Advanced” tab in your user profile, then click “Flashes Profile.” Here, there will be an option to enable Portfolio, which allows you to organize images that should appear on your user profile.

You can also customize your user profile more by choosing to show or hide likes, lists, or extracts, or use other media filtering options.

How to start

To use gifts, you will first need a Bluesky account. If you already have one, you can log in with these credentials.

If not, you can choose to subscribe to the Bluesky account from within the Flashes application. The application is backward to set up your account on the main Bluesky server, Bluesky.SOCIAL, but technical users can choose to set up a custom hosting provider instead.

To create your account, you will need to provide an email address, password and date of birth, and then accept the terms of use, which means that you agree on the guidelines and conditions of the Bluesky community.

Once you log in, you can immediately start browsing the shared photos and videos on the Bluesky schedule or any other Bluesky extract, or your media.

The subscription may be coming

Vogelsang hopes to help Homes withdraw more users to the Bluesky community, including those who do not care about Twitter/X. Instead, the application appeals more for people looking for open alternatives to Meta Instagram.

It is not the construction of the only application in this field. Another application that works on similar experiences is Pinksky. Meanwhile, the social network users in Mastodon, which uses the Activity Protocol protocol in Fediiverse under the cover instead of ATPROTO from Bluesky.

Over time, Vogelsang wants to add more features to flashes, such as payment notifications, support for multiple accounts, reference signals, and more editing options.

It plans to add distinct business features in business, which would help in financing Android and web sites. These paid levels can also provide a distinctive access to the Bluesky app by Vogelsang, weapons, and its video focus, BluesCreen.

Other planned features include iPad layout improvements, long videos, visual publications for a limited period (such as stories), albums, and moving crowded images from other platforms. In the end, the developer wants to develop a flash to be his own in the protocol statute, while still compatible with the Bluesky network.

The application is a free download from the application store and requires iOS 17 or higher to run.