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Nitter: Alternative Twitter Front-End

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Re: Nitter: Alternative Twitter Front-End

#21

Post by jchw »

leephillips wrote: post #5
jchw wrote: post #3

When Nitter first came around, it was incredible. It really goes to show just how easy it would be for Twitter to provide a fast and accessible version of their site if that was their goal. Too bad it isn’t and Nitter instances will forever run into rate limiting.

Page says “Uses Twitter's unofficial API (no rate limits or developer account required)”. What is this unofficial API?

Never have I been more happy to be wrong. It used to be impacted by rate limiting quite a bit, but it looks like the situation has improved, probably due to this unofficial API.

Re: Nitter: Alternative Twitter Front-End

#22

Post by hobo_mark »

RenoCommenter wrote: post #13

This might be a shot in the dark, but: is there a Twitter "frontend"* that is as clean/compact as HN or even old.reddit? I get it was made with phones in mind, and that its primary use case is real-time news and short messages from influencers, but, as someone who primarily consumes social media on a desktop and whose interactions with the platform consist of reading tweets from niche accounts, i've found the way Twi…

There certainly are. I quickly wrote one 'mvp' for myself and it is the primary way I interact with twitter since several years, but it does the bare minimum I need and I never had time to clean it up and publish it (also I do not know whether anyone would pay for a cleaned up, purely chronological twitter feed with configurable filters?)

Re: Nitter: Alternative Twitter Front-End

#23

Post by the_third_wave »

gizdan wrote: post #15
ruined wrote: post #11

privacy redirect is a browser extension that can automatically redirect twitter links to the nitter instance of your choice. it also handles youtube->invidious, instagram->bibliogram, reddit->teddit, and more firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-redir... chrome https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-redirect/p...

It's a shame Mozilla butchered Firefox mobile, cos this still doesn't work on it.

It does work on Firefox Android but the extension is not part of the default set. You need to use a version of Firefox that supports Custom Add-on Collections like a Nightly build or the F-Droid Fennec build. Once you've got this installed you need to enable the debug menu by tapping the Firefox logo on the 'About Firefox' screen five times (see [1] for more info), add the Firefox ID and repo name for a repo with the required extension in the 'Custom Add-on collection' section and install the extension the normal way. Luckily the author of PrivacyRedirect has created just such a repo [2] which you can you to install the extension without the need for a Firefox ID (which I do not have and do not want, I'm still waiting for an easy way to run a Firefox auth/sync server on my own hardware) or having to create such a repo yourself.

Once installed you'll quickly find out the 'More options' page - on which you can configure which servers are used for redirection - does not appear. Fortunately the actual URL is entered in the location bar, it just doesn't open the page. Simply press the button, then close the 'Settings' page using the arrow on the top-left of the screen, then select the location bar (which should now contain a moz-extension: URL) and press enter on the keyboard.

The extension works fine, at least for me, on Firefox Developer Nightly on Android.

[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2020/09/29/expanded-extensio...

[2] https://github.com/SimonBrazell/privacy-redirect/issues/140#...

Re: Nitter: Alternative Twitter Front-End

#24

Post by zedeus »

jchw wrote: post #3

When Nitter first came around, it was incredible. It really goes to show just how easy it would be for Twitter to provide a fast and accessible version of their site if that was their goal. Too bad it isn’t and Nitter instances will forever run into rate limiting.

The old rate limit errors were false flags caused by a bug in the API token parser. Nitter instances have yet to run into a real rate limit.

Re: Nitter: Alternative Twitter Front-End

#25

Post by zedeus »

ruined wrote: post #10
argvargc wrote: post #4

Could this be used as a base to fork the existing ecosystem away from centralised control and back to its users? Say using decentralised storage and a synched side chain?

twitter ratelimits nitter servers, so you'd need every individual user (or a good portion of users) running a personal server and then you'd have to collate the data somehow. and at that level of effort it would be easier to just convince people to use mastodon.

This isn't actually true, the "Instance has been rate limited" error was a false flag. It turned out to be a bug in the API token parser, found and fixed by a contributor. Nitter instances have yet to run into a real rate limit.

Re: Nitter: Alternative Twitter Front-End

#28

Post by fshbbdssbbgdd »

the_third_wave wrote: post #23
gizdan wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a shame Mozilla butchered Firefox mobile, cos this still doesn't work on it.

It does work on Firefox Android but the extension is not part of the default set. You need to use a version of Firefox that supports Custom Add-on Collections like a Nightly build or the F-Droid Fennec build. Once you've got this installed you need to enable the debug menu by tapping the Firefox logo on the 'About Firefox' screen five times (see [1] for more info), add the Firefox ID and repo name for a repo with the…

Sounds like people were getting tricked into installing dodgy extensions, so they had to build a Proof of Nerd system.

Re: Nitter: Alternative Twitter Front-End

#29

Post by the_third_wave »

fshbbdssbbgdd wrote: post #28
the_third_wave wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does work on Firefox Android but the extension is not part of the default set. You need to use a version of Firefox that supports Custom Add-on Collections like a Nightly build or the F-Droid Fennec build. Once you've got this installed you need to enable the debug menu by tapping the Firefox logo on the 'About Firefox' screen five times (see [1] for more info), add the Firefox ID and repo name for a repo with the…

Sounds like people were getting tricked into installing dodgy extensions, so they had to build a Proof of Nerd system.

PoN - add some blockchain and build a currency out of it - NerdCoin.

No, I assume the real reason to be the fact that many extensions need to be adapted to mobile as can be gleaned from the non-appearance of the 'More options' page in PrivacyRedirect. Mozilla just chose a rather clunky and ham-fisted way to keep untested extensions from running on mobile. They could have added a simple option to allow untested extensions from the standard repo with a disclaimer of such a configuration not being supported.

Re: Nitter: Alternative Twitter Front-End

#30

Post by edgyquant »

hobo_mark wrote: post #22
RenoCommenter wrote: post #13

This might be a shot in the dark, but: is there a Twitter "frontend"* that is as clean/compact as HN or even old.reddit? I get it was made with phones in mind, and that its primary use case is real-time news and short messages from influencers, but, as someone who primarily consumes social media on a desktop and whose interactions with the platform consist of reading tweets from niche accounts, i've found the way Twi…

There certainly are. I quickly wrote one 'mvp' for myself and it is the primary way I interact with twitter since several years, but it does the bare minimum I need and I never had time to clean it up and publish it (also I do not know whether anyone would pay for a cleaned up, purely chronological twitter feed with configurable filters?)

Probably wouldn't pay for it. Release it as open source.
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