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Show HN: Dull – Instagram Without Reels, YouTube Without Shorts (iOS)

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Re: Show HN: Dull – Instagram Without Reels, YouTube Without Shorts (iOS)

#81

Post by latexr »

qq66 wrote: post #48
danpalmer wrote: post #4

Doing this as a browser extension is one thing, but selling an interface to Instagram and YouTube sounds like it's very risky. What's your basis for thinking this will work long term? I see you're selling yearly or lifetime subscriptions, suggesting you think the product can exist. There have been many attempts at this in the past that have been taken down, why is Dull different?

Why does it have to work long term? Claude Code probably built it in 2 hours. Sell it for as long as it works. If it provides some value to some people during that time, good for them.

What a rotten state of affairs that we’re now openly suggesting producing garbage with the least effort possible and selling it until caught. We used to criticise those who did that, calling them spammers and scammers and worse. Now, “telling some LLM to take a dump and trying to sell it to some chumps without a sense of smell” is viewed as a smart business model. Anything for an extra buck.

Re: Show HN: Dull – Instagram Without Reels, YouTube Without Shorts (iOS)

#83

Post by squigz »

altmanaltman wrote: post #63
userbinator wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same vein as adblocking, the fundamental question here is, does a service have the right to control how you DON'T use their service? Are you legally obligated to be mentally influenced by adverts and cannot close your eyes or look away? I'd love to see the EFF or similar take on Big (Ad)tech and settle this in court. They've gone after youtube-dl and lost, Invidious is still there, etc. A somewhat related lega…

It might not be illegal (criminal) to use a tool like Dull or an ad-blocker, but it is almost certainly a violation of the platform tos. This means the platform (Instagram/YouTube) can legally ban your account or block your IP address for using such tools, even if they can't successfully sue the tool's creator in court.

I would much prefer that over them trying to dictate what I can or can't do on my own PC.

Re: Show HN: Dull – Instagram Without Reels, YouTube Without Shorts (iOS)

#84

Post by heisenbit »

altmanaltman wrote: post #63
userbinator wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same vein as adblocking, the fundamental question here is, does a service have the right to control how you DON'T use their service? Are you legally obligated to be mentally influenced by adverts and cannot close your eyes or look away? I'd love to see the EFF or similar take on Big (Ad)tech and settle this in court. They've gone after youtube-dl and lost, Invidious is still there, etc. A somewhat related lega…

It might not be illegal (criminal) to use a tool like Dull or an ad-blocker, but it is almost certainly a violation of the platform tos. This means the platform (Instagram/YouTube) can legally ban your account or block your IP address for using such tools, even if they can't successfully sue the tool's creator in court.

The problem (or not depending on POV) is that TOS are subject to legal constraints. As the dominant platform YT in a critical service area needs to maneuver carefully.

Re: Show HN: Dull – Instagram Without Reels, YouTube Without Shorts (iOS)

#85

Post by codethief »

I've been using News Feed Eradicator[0], a Firefox/Chrome extension, for the same purpose and it's been working really well. For most sites you can configure what should vs. should not be "eradicated".

[0]: https://github.com/jordwest/news-feed-eradicator

Re: Show HN: Dull – Instagram Without Reels, YouTube Without Shorts (iOS)

#88

Post by hmokiguess »

e12e wrote: post #72

Not sure what this app does for Facebook - but I'm a quite happy user of: https://www.beeper.com/ Allows me to use Instagram messages without the app - as well as (Facebook/meta) Messenger (and others). I do wish they had a "support us" subscription tier, as I think the base price is a little steep - and I don't really need any of the paid features. Maybe something around the third or quarter the price. I would hope…

how does beeper handles things like discord threads/channels etc? and rich previews of stuff like links, embeds, and whatnot? I'm curious about it!

Re: Show HN: Dull – Instagram Without Reels, YouTube Without Shorts (iOS)

#90

Post by adrianhacar »

I built some time ago ScrollGuard (https://scrollguard.app) that tackles this same problem from two different angles for Android and iOS.

On Android has been on the Play Store for over a year. Instead of injecting CSS/JS into a webview, it uses Android's AccessibilityService to detect reels/shorts directly in the native apps and block them. You keep using Instagram, YouTube, etc. normally as native apps, no WebView.

On iOS: It uses Content Blockers. The rules run at the WebKit level with zero data access, the extension literally cannot see what you browse, it just receives the filter rules and applies them. No JS injection, no network requests. It also has an app redirection feature: you set up an iOS Shortcut so that when you tap the native Instagram/YouTube app, it automatically opens the filtered web version with all the blocking rules applied. So you never accidentally land in the native app and you can keep the native app for notifications.

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