Due to the lack of Chinese articles related to the Nostr protocol after searching the entire web, I have come up with the idea of writing a series of articles. In the previous article, I talked about the origin of the decentralized protocol Nostr. In this article, I will directly show you how to use it.
Nostr, as a protocol, is a more fundamental existence than an application program. The advantage of using it is that you only need one account to use all applications related to this protocol, and the account data is synchronized across all applications. This account system largely protects personal freedom of speech and personal property rights.
In traditional social media systems like WeChat, users only have the right to use the account and do not have ownership of the account. The platform can ban or even confiscate the account that you have worked hard to manage, without protecting and respecting your personal rights. However, in the network formed by the Nostr protocol, no application or platform has the authority to confiscate personal accounts. They can ban you on Platform A, but you can still use your account normally on Platform B, and the data accumulated during the ban on Platform A will not be lost.
In addition, why do we need Nostr?#
Social media has developed into an important way for information to flow worldwide. Unfortunately, our current social media systems are broken:
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Selling advertisements using your attention.
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Using strange technologies to make you addicted (refer to point 1).
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Deciding which content to show you based on secret algorithms that you cannot check or change.
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Having complete control over who can participate and who can be censored.
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Being overwhelmed by spam and bots.
Things to know about Nostr applications#
After briefly explaining why we should use the Nostr network, let's start using it. Currently, the applications are mainly divided into three platforms:
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Daums for iOS.
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Amethyst for Android (I personally recommend this one, the others are not very good).
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Web browser platforms: NostrGram.co, iris.to, snort.social.
1. Daums for iOS#
It can be said that the Nostr protocol has achieved such a wide range of dissemination thanks to Daums. Currently, in terms of user activity and the number of posts on the entire Nostr protocol, Daums performs the best.
However, since I do not have an iOS device, I will not write about Daums in this introductory article. You can refer to the instructions for the Android platform, as the key functions and data operations are basically the same for both applications. Apple users can follow the Android guide below.
2. Amethyst for Android#
Download: You can directly search for "Amethyst" on Google Play to download the application.
After downloading, open the application. As a first-time user of the Nostr protocol app, choose to generate a new account, enter the account name you want, and confirm. After you click, the protocol will directly generate an account and display the public and private keys. Save them in a secure place.
Important: Save the private and public keys in a secure place!!!
Once the private key is lost, the corresponding account cannot be recovered.
Then you can start using the application.
On the homepage of the application, you can see the four major functional bars at the bottom, which are similar to other social software. You can explore and try posting on your own, I believe it is not difficult, so I won't go into details here. Let's focus on the profile section in the top left corner of the homepage, which is the avatar section you see. We will understand and set the personal data in this section, which will help us play better on the Nostr network.
After clicking on the avatar, a half-page will appear on the left. Click on the avatar again or click on "👤Profile" to enter the personal homepage. (Actually, the left half-page is a bit redundant. Personally, I think it is better to directly jump to the personal homepage after clicking on the avatar.)
On the personal homepage, you can see the content you have posted on the Nostr network, the people you follow, the people who follow you, the relays you are connected to, private messages, sharing accounts, personal information settings, and other functions. Among them, clicking on "Share" or "..." can copy your public key, and others can find you through the public key.
Clicking on the "Edit" function on the right side of the sharing function will bring up a popup window for editing personal information. Let's explain them one by one.
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Display name: The name displayed in the application.
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Username: The name of the account, the two names can be the same.
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About me: Self-introduction, feel free to praise yourself : )
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Avatar URL: The image of the avatar, enter the link corresponding to the avatar image.
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Banner URL: The background image of the personal homepage, enter the link corresponding to the background image.
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Website URL: The domain name of the personal website, if you have one (it doesn't matter if you don't have one).
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NIP-05: Similar to a domain name, the long string of the public key is not easy to remember or spread, so you can use the NIP05 name to find users on the Nostr network (the specific generation method will be explained in future articles).
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8 and 9 are Lightning Network account addresses, used for transactions or tipping. If needed, register a Lightning Network wallet and paste the personal wallet address.
After filling in the required information, we can click "Post" in the upper right corner of the popup window, and the relevant information will be uploaded to the Nostr protocol, updating the personal information.
At this point, we have basically understood how to use the Nostr protocol application. Just play and explore more.
3. Web browser platforms: NostrGram.co, iris.to, snort.social#
There are actually many web-based Nostr networks, but some of them may not be usable. Currently, these three are recommended.
Important note:
When logging into the web-based websites, you usually need to enter the private key of the account. However, we cannot guarantee the security of the network environment. To protect our accounts, please download the Flamingo browser extension when experiencing Nostr on the web.
After logging into Flamingo with the private key, you only need to authorize the login when using any website related to the Nostr protocol.
Alright, today I talked about the practical usage of the Nostr protocol application. In the next episode, I will talk about some things that will help us play better on the Nostr network. Goodbye :)