[![girl.jpg](https://s17.postimg.org/72f7n6fr3/girl.jpg)](https://postimg.org/image/vixdhnghn/)

If you’re a Steemit newbie who has been hearing a lot about curation bots, you may not be sure which service is safe and easy to use. You may not want to be part of a trail or you may want to control your bot but you might not have programming knowledge. There are many different programs and individual programmers who provide bot curation services to those who don't know how to code.

# How do you decide which one to use?

# Which one is easy and safe?

# How do they work?

[![people.jpg](https://s14.postimg.org/owqvncd1d/people.jpg)](https://postimg.org/image/yhaia82d9/)

Some of you may be interested in experimenting with a curation bot in order to streamline your voting behavior. Personally, I’m a very inconsistent curator and some days when I’m making videos which generally take around 12 hours to complete, I’m not voting. I need a curation bot to increase my curation rewards and also to support authors I like. Today, I set up a curation bot using the service [AutoSteem](https://autosteem.learnthis.ca). @unipsycho created this site.

# AUTOSTEEM USER REVIEW

<center>[![stars.jpg](https://s3.postimg.org/b3zyxzxpv/stars.jpg)](https://postimg.org/image/4qavuqstr/)</center>

I gave the AutoSteem Curation Bot service a 9 out of 10 stars. I would have given it 10 stars if the instructions on how to set up a voting filter were more clear. I’ll get into that shortly.

### SAFETY

Safety is a big issue since your posting key should be safeguarded and never shared with anyone. AutoSteem doesn’t store your username and posting key in a central server. Instead, it’s stored in your browser only. This means that when you close your browser, or your computer is off, AutoSteem won’t be auto-voting for you. (Please correct me if I’m wrong on this). Because posting keys are not stored on a server, this is a good safety feature.

### USER-FRIENDLINESS

I set up my curation bot pretty quickly, but there was one thing that cause me issues. When you set up your voting bot, you can choose between 3 different ways to do it: Advanced AutoVote, By Author Name or By Copying Another Curator:

[![votefilters4.jpg](https://s18.postimg.org/o7whhshqh/votefilters4.jpg)](https://postimg.org/image/kbj5lswqt/)

You can decide to use all 3 voting filters or each one individually. This gives you flexibility. So, for example, let’s say that you want your curation bot to just upvote a list of your favorite authors. You can do that. Or let’s say you just want to follow the votes that are cast by @blocktrades. You can do that too. The flexibility of the voting filters is very good. The one thing that confused me happened when I began to type in the authors’ names that I wanted to upvote. The instructions said to type in each author name, followed by a comma. Well, naturally, I put a space after each author name. WRONG. 

It took me a bunch of trial and error to discover that no blank spaces should exist after the comma. Here’s the correct way to add the author names in Authors to Match field. 

## DON'T USE SPACES AFTER COMMAS:

[![votefilters1.jpg](https://s16.postimg.org/4gv8ztac5/votefilters1.jpg)](https://postimg.org/image/80h6pmd1t/)

This was the reason I gave AutoSteem 9 stars. The instructions were not clear on this and this minor detail caused me a bit of frustration. It's a programming thing that newbies don't know about.


### BROWSING POSTS

[![blogview2.jpg](https://s31.postimg.org/62b6fn5mz/blogview2.jpg)](https://postimg.org/image/k8qxavghz/)

_post by @herpetologyguy_

One of the best features of AutoSteem is that it’s a great tool to discover new content because it allows you to browse in a more personalized way. Also, I’m a very visual person, so I prefer seeing thumbnails of all photos contained within a post without having to click on it. Luckily, AutoSteem has that capability. A blog post looks like the one shown above when you use the _Browse Blogs_ button. Cool, eh?

### BOT VOTING AND MANUAL VOTING TOGETHER AT LAST

[![clouds.jpg](https://s7.postimg.org/uh2kneayz/clouds.jpg)](https://postimg.org/image/dtb2kwg7b/)

While you’re setting up your voting filters, you can see what new posts are being added to Steemit in real-time and also manually vote for them if you choose. This is a really cool feature because you will find new authors and posts on AutoSteem that you would probably normally miss on Steemit. This feature makes AutoSteem much more than just a curation bot. It makes it a full-featured way to use automation and manual curation, side by side. It also allows you to fully control your voting because you can add or remove authors at any time. If you wanted to be really anal about setting up a highly personalized curation bot, you could with AutoSteem. 

It took me a long time to feel comfortable learning about AutoSteem because I’m very cautious and concerned about my posting key. I think if I had known it doesn’t store my posting key in a server, I might have learned how to use it a long time ago.


# ONE QUESTION: How the heck do I log out of AutoSteem? Or do I just need to clear the browser data? HELP!



By the way, I used this tool to find a good curator to follow: http://www.steemb.com/steem-rewards-rank/@blocktrades

I chose to experiment by following the votes of @blocktrades since I often like the posts that this account votes for. 


_AutoSteem was created by @unipsycho and this user review is 100% independent and in no way supported or endorsed by @unipsycho._

<center>[![4khq.jpg](https://s10.postimg.org/t24nmvkdl/4khq.jpg)](https://postimg.org/image/5nwoay2g5/)</center>

_Source images from Unsplash. Photocollages by @stellabelle_