If I use the search option, what happens? Do the results of the search differ depending on which instance I am, which communities I join, and which app I run to view Lemmy? Are only community names searched, or also posts, comments or usernames?
I’m using Jerboa for Android and my instance is feddit.nl btw.
You can search whatever you want. The app doesn’t matter, what matters is the instance, which brings me to this:
Yes, basically (for posts), each instance cache subLems that at least one user from said instance subscribed too. Then, when you search it searches all the subs that it cached. So, if one instance unnfederate another instance, you won’t see their subLems at the search.
IDK how it works with subLems searching, I think you can find subLems that no one from your instance sub to, so my guess is that it asks each instance it federate with to get a subLems list and show all those to you.