Shariff

Overview

Shariff is a privacy-friendly social media sharing tool designed to enhance user privacy while enabling content sharing on websites. Developed by Heise Medien, Shariff addresses the privacy concerns associated with traditional social media share buttons, which often track users even when they don't click the buttons. Shariff's innovative approach ensures that data is only sent to social networks when a user explicitly clicks a share button, thereby protecting user anonymity and respecting their online privacy. It's available as a backend script and can be integrated into various web projects, including CMSs and static websites.

Key Features

• Privacy-Focused Design: The core feature of Shariff is its commitment to user privacy. Unlike many other social sharing tools, Shariff's buttons do not transmit any personal data to social networks until the user clicks on them. This means no tracking cookies or user profiling occurs when a page is simply loaded.
• Customizable Appearance: Shariff offers a high degree of customization, allowing developers to tailor the look and feel of the share buttons to match the design of their website. This includes options for colors, icons, and button text.
• Extensive Social Network Support: It supports a wide range of popular social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, WhatsApp, and many more. This ensures users have ample options for sharing content.
• AJAX-Based Loading: The share counts are loaded asynchronously using AJAX, which means they do not slow down the initial page load time. This contributes to a better user experience and improved website performance.
• Backend Scripting: Shariff is primarily a backend script, meaning it can be integrated server-side into various platforms. This offers flexibility and control over its implementation.
• No External Dependencies: Shariff is designed to be lightweight and does not rely on external JavaScript libraries like jQuery, further contributing to its efficiency.
• Open Source: Being an open-source project, Shariff is freely available for use and modification, fostering community contributions and transparency.

Typical Use Cases

Shariff is an ideal solution for:

• Content Publishers and Bloggers: Websites that publish articles, news, or blog posts can use Shariff to allow readers to easily share content while assuring them of their privacy.
• E-commerce Sites: Online stores can implement Shariff to enable customers to share product links on social media, potentially driving traffic and sales without intrusive tracking.
• Corporate Websites: Businesses looking to maintain a professional and privacy-conscious image can use Shariff to provide social sharing functionality.
• Web Developers and Agencies: Developers can integrate Shariff into custom web projects or client websites to offer social sharing features that align with modern privacy standards.
• Static Websites and CMSs: Its flexibility makes it suitable for both dynamic Content Management Systems (CMS) and static HTML websites.

Pricing & Hosting Model

Shariff is free and open-source software. It does not have a pricing model as it can be downloaded and used without any cost. The hosting model is entirely dependent on the website where it is implemented. Website owners are responsible for hosting the Shariff script on their own servers or integrating it via a CDN if available. There are no subscription fees or licensing costs associated with using Shariff.

Alternatives

While Shariff offers a strong privacy-centric approach, several other social sharing tools and services exist, each with its own set of features and philosophies:

• AddThis: A popular service offering a wide range of sharing and analytics tools, though often criticized for its tracking practices.
• ShareThis: Similar to AddThis, providing share buttons and other engagement tools, with varying levels of privacy considerations.
• Mon Social Share Bar: A WordPress plugin focused on social sharing, with options for customization.
• Social Warfare: A premium WordPress plugin known for its attractive design and advanced features, including share counts and analytics.
• Native Social Media Buttons: Many social networks offer their own official share buttons, but these typically come with significant tracking implications.
• Manual Sharing Links: Creating custom links that trigger a share action on a social network without using a third-party script entirely. This offers maximum privacy but can be less user-friendly.

Shariff stands out by prioritizing user privacy as its primary objective, making it a compelling choice for websites that value user anonymity.