Very simple, from the source:
Lemmy Universal Link Switcher, or LULs for short, scans all links on all websites, and if any link points to a Lemmy instance that is not your main/home instance, it rewrites the link so that it instead points to your main instance.
In essence, any Lemmy link you come across is automatically redirected to your home instance. It’s also easy to customise, you can add/remove instances and prevent it from working on particular sites (or force it to only work on sites you wish).
Can be installed with Tampermonkey or ViolentMonkey (or similar tools).
note: this may also work just fine on mobile browsers that support extensions (and would likely help direct your browser to opening your lemmy app - if you have one - more often), but I haven’t tested this.
Out of curiosity, how many browse on desktop?
I’ve been using Lemmy since the API exodus and only ever substantially used wefwef/Voyager the whole time. Even on desktop I use the PWA for Voyager.
It would be cool if something like this could also be incorporated into the apps because it sucks when someone puts a link that doesn’t correctly use your instance to see the post they’re sharing, instead opening a browser to display the post.
I am on desktop pretty much exclusively.
I assume just via the normal desktop site? I tried that back when I very first started with Lemmy but I quickly switched to using the Voyager web app just because I like the app features and especially the post layout. I might have to give the default web interface another shot as I only tried way back when I first switched over.
Default lemmy ui is atrocious (in my oh-so-humble opinion), though some people do like it.
I’d recommend Photon or Alexandrite
This is a dumb question; but what’s the benefit to redirecting links to the home instance?
But for example I’m on Lemmy.zip; and this post is lemmy.world; yet I seem to be able to interact with it fine. Mariner I’m missing something; but I don’t see the issue
https://sh.itjust.works/post/36117903/18008043
Click this and then try to post a comment. There’s the issue.
The script redirects all links to your home instance. You posted that comment from https://lemmy.zip/ which is where you have your account, hence no issue. If I link you this post from another instance (see above), you won’t be able to interact.
I want the opposite. If I’m viewing a post on my instance, how the hell do I get the URL for the post on the instance where that community lives?!? Its really annoying having to do this manually for a dozen posts.
Love this feature in Thunder. Just hit share and you get a lot of options you can open in the browser.