Are You Using eSteem? + New Office Preview
With all the concerns about Steemit, Inc laying off employees, a less-than engaged CEO, and other general aspects of centralization with regards to most people using Steemit.com and thinking that's the only way to interact with the Steem blockchain, I thought it would be a good time to remind you about eSteem!
eSteem (the mobile app) and eSteem Surfer (the desktop app) allow you to browse the Steem blockchain from your own devices. This is part of the solution to further decentralize our usage of Steem. Before I get into that, here's a quick personal update from my new in-home office in Puerto Rico:
You can see more updates about our move in my latest post.
If you have eSteem installed, that link above should automatically open the eSteem application using the "esteem://" protocol link instead of "https://" or "http://".
EDIT: It seems Steemit.com is injecting "https://" into my links (and busy.org seems to just drop the link all together). Hmm. I guess my local test wasn't enough. I guess we can't use esteem protocol links just yet.
Here's a quick demonstration of what I mean and how you can build your own esteem links along with a short demo of the eSteem Surfer application:
Here's what the create post screen looks like using the dark theme:
I hope you enjoyed that little preview and that you're doing well. If you haven't tried eSteem yet, take a moment and install it: https://github.com/esteemapp/esteem-surfer/releases If Steemit.com ever goes down or goes away, you can still interact with the blockchain without concern.
Luke Stokes is a father, husband, programmer, STEEM witness, DAC launcher, and voluntaryist who wants to help create a world we all want to live in. Learn about cryptocurrency at UnderstandingBlockchainFreedom.com
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Interesting review of the @esteem app!
However, we are still apprehensive of having to trust a 3rd party software with our private keys. Otherwise, everything looks good!
eSteem apps are opensource and anyone can hold us accountable if source code of app is not treating private keys securely. We have PIN code feature that will encrypt your private keys on your device and only uses private key when signing transaction from your device on your device. As Luke mentioned we have added Steemconnect if you feel that is more secure. Please reach out to us if you have any suggestions or feedback on improving Surfer or Mobile. Thank you!
PS. Stay tuned for eSteem Mobile v2 release in few days!
Best esteem is the best steemit alternative outthere. you guys have been working very hard to help the community own the steem blockchain and not always relying on steemit.
Definitely good to be cautious. I’ve followed the eSteem dev team for a while, and I think they are doing good work. You can also log in to the eSteem surfer app using Steem Connect. Only ever log in with your posting key to keep your funds secure.
Thank you Luke for shout out! Looking really great, December - sunny and warm, who wouldn't want to be in Puerto Rico :)
You can use internal linking
[Are You Using eSteem? + New Office Preview](/esteem/@lukestokes/are-you-using-esteem-new-office-preview)
most of UIs should detect/support this format and we do supportsteem://
as well along withesteem://
.So you can format your links with
steem://
which I think steemit.com keeps as is.Example:
[link with steem protocol](steem://esteem/@lukestokes/are-you-using-esteem-new-office-preview)
link with steem protocol
[link with esteem protocol](esteem://esteem/@lukestokes/are-you-using-esteem-new-office-preview)
link with esteem protocol
Edit:
PR: https://github.com/steemit/condenser/pull/3132
Ah, nice edit. I hope that gets fixed up. I'd like to see Vessel links supported there also (I had thought they already were).
Good idea with just doing internal linking starting with "/". That should work for all Steem platforms, I'd imagine.
Condenser being in maintenance mode, let's hope they will 🤞
Vessel already uses
steem://
but only for transfer transaction signing part!eSteem, Steemit and Busy already supports internal linking, not sure about other frontends though.
I have the eSteem app running on my Mac along with SteamPeak. I'm still working out which one (or both) to use.
However when I click that link to your latest post it doesn't do anything.
What do you think about Esteem on a Mac? I also have been using SteemPeak and Busy. I like the SteemPeak platform, photos upload slower than Steemit, but I want to be prepared if @ned turns the lights out on Steemit.
I'm still getting the hang of it. The search function is not obvious. Realised I have to log in with active key to claim rewards. Otherwise gives a strange SDK error.
I need to look into it, are you saying posting active or owner active? When Steempeak first came out you needed the owner key. Now you can use Steemconnect, I am glad they fixed this.
Yeah, unfortunately it doesn't work as expected (see my edit at the bottom of the post). I guess I'll just have to stick with using "http" links for now until we can figure out what's up with the other interfaces injecting https:// in.
Thanks for using eSteem!
Your post has been voted as a part of eSteem encouragement program. Keep up the good work! Install Android, iOS Mobile app or Windows, Mac, Linux Surfer app, if you haven't already!
Learn more: https://esteem.app
Join our discord: https://discord.gg/8eHupPq
I’m still hesitant to continue entering my private keys to many front-ends still. I am using a couple at this point and am looking on how they progress with establishing their own infrastructure to remain sustainable before switching. I think the grrat fact is that there are alternatives and I haven’t really missed using Steemit much as of late!
Posted using Partiko iOS
I'm actually logged in to eSteem using Steem Connect right now. You can keep your keys private that way, if you trust Steem Connect
I do the Surfer 2.0.2 / me likes
peace
🏆 Hi @lukestokes! You have received 0.1 STEEM reward for this post from the following subscribers: @cardboard
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I have been using esteem and partiko pretty exclusively for some time now. I think it is important that you made this post though because a lot of people don't realize or understand that there are other ways to access the block chain even though they probably use them on occasion. Thanks for the tip about the url's. I didn't realize that!
Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to work (though it did in my local testing). I think we have to fix something with Steemit.com to prevent it from injecting in "https"
Ah, okay. It seemed to me like it would be something that you needed to do on the local machine, but I am definitely not as versed on this stuff as you. I know with the torrent software on my Ubuntu box I had to edit some files to make it associate those files with the client I am using as opposed to Deluge. Like I said, I am a bit of a noob though :) I have no doubt you folks will get it sorted out. Thanks for the followup!
" If Steemit.com ever goes down or goes away, you can still interact with the blockchain without concern." Just curious - is this just a throwaway line or is it actually true in this case? Meaning, doesn't the eSteem app rely on the steemit.api nodes? EDIT oh I see you said if steemit.com went down, not if Stinc went down. nevermind.
I personally use Partiko, seems much slicker in terms of functionality and intuitive ease of use
I think eSteem runs their own API nodes, so things would be fine. I think most apps should run their own nodes and they should have business models to create revenue and profit (like Steemmonsters)
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