Yep, you can browse instances just by visiting their sites! It's how I signed up to the couple I use, not sure how Boost handles it, I just use my mobile web browser (Hexbear has emojis you can use if you use the web version, so I just use that). I am sorry about not knowing Boost specifically, my fiancé uses Voyager.

As for what instances literally are, they are their own websites and servers, but they can talk to each other, think email. Gmail can talk to protonmail, etc

[–] Codeviper828@lemmus.org 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

So, Lemmy is a bunch of separate social media networks that seamlessly* connect to each other? That's.... really cool

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Yep! There's also a bunch of inter-instance drama too, but by and large it's a much better experience than Reddit, and if all else fails you can find an instance you really like and just browse locally, avoiding most of that drama. A big source of that drama is generally along political lines, Lemmy generally has 3 camps: Marxists, Anarchists, and Liberals, and each instance is more or less friendly with each of those, or hostile to them, so picking an instance that generally aligns with your views will dramatically smooth out your experience.

I recommend sorting this server browser by "most active" and checking each out locally.

[–] Codeviper828@lemmus.org 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thank you for the info!

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 days ago

No worries!