Finding people you know
Contact matching that compares your address book without ever sending it to us.
Most platforms find your friends by uploading your contacts. Surf does the matching in your browser instead, so the address book itself never arrives here.
How it works
- Export your contacts from your phone or mail client as a vCard or CSV file.
- Open Find friends and choose that file.
- Your browser hashes the email addresses locally and sends only the hashes.
- Surf answers with the accounts that match, and you decide who to follow.
Raw email addresses never leave your device. The file is read in the browser, each address is hashed with SHA-256, and only those hashes are sent. A hash cannot be turned back into an address, so the list of who you know is not something Surf receives.
Limits
| Limit | |
|---|---|
| Contacts in one request | 2,000 |
| Matches returned | 200, most followed first |
Who can be matched
Only accounts that allow themselves to be discovered. Turning off Suggest account to others in Privacy settings takes you out of contact matching as well as out of suggestions and search.
Three groups are left out of the results regardless: yourself, anyone you already follow, and anyone either of you has blocked.