Just signed up to Nostr? Want to post a blog on #blogstack? That was a head scratcher for this nostr novice who uses Firefox on mobile. Here is what I learnt.

I am sure I am not the only non-dev Twitter refugee type who is proud and relieved just to be set up on Nostr with a barebones public/private key and see my account in Iris or Amethyst.

What if, like me, you wonder if you can blog on this amazing network and you pitch up at blogstack.io (or habla.news) on a mobile phone (or desktop)? Well, you just see a list of latest posts. No way to login or post, no apparent instructions, not that I could see. What they don't make obvious on their websites, but what does appear in the meta description in search results is:

you need an extension / add-on to get started

1 - If you are on mobile and use Firefox, you are out of luck.

2 - If you are on desktop and use Firefox

search for nos2x-fox

install

manage, and in preferences add your Nostr private key.

3 - If you are on desktop and Chrome want to use a Chromium add-on, knock yourself out.

4 - If you are on desktop and want a one-stop integrated way to set up a Nostr account, lightning wallet and signing extension look at the popular #Alby app.

With a signing extension in play on your browser, you are auto recognised when you browse the rest of the Nostr universe, without having to submit your private key. When you go to blogstack.io now, you have the option to login, write a draft in markup, which is actually a pretty cool option, and publish.

From blogstack you can copy the URL of your post and promote it in your Nostr chat client, or anywhere in centralised social media land. Hope that helped and maybe the apps in the Nostr eco system could make a concerted effort to make these extension private key signers obvious to utter newbies who haven't been herded straight to Alby.

😀