Mastodon has just released version 4.3 of its web app, and CEO Eugene Rochko says new updates, like grouped notifications, should make the open social network easier to use.
For example, the “Who You’re Following” bar that appears on the main tab now shows a bunch of “general results” like popular profiles in your language and personalized recommendations based on who you follow, making it easier for you to find new people you might want to follow too, and as a bonus there are explanations for why you see these profiles when you tap “See All.”
Mastodon is working to improve these personalized recommendations because it found that its previous version didn't really help users discover: "We found that people skip following recommendations during guidance and end up with a boring feed that doesn't offer anything new for hours or days," the platform said in a blog post.
Mastodon will now also notify you when you lose followers due to server admin action and give you the option to export a list of those followers.
Instead of sending them one by one, notifications are now grouped, showing how many people have promoted or favorited a viral post.
Mastodon has updated its notification controls so you can choose whether you want to delete certain types of notifications immediately or put them in a separate inbox.
For example, you can filter notifications from new accounts or accounts you don't follow:
Additional design tweaks include new dialog boxes and icons, the ability to reorder images in the post creator, and you can now preview accounts and follow or unfollow them by hovering over their name.
The changes have been rolling out over the past 11 months in nightly updates to people with accounts on the Mastodon.Social server , but on the decentralized fediverse service, people using other servers or hosting their own will have to wait until that server is updated to see the new features.