Nitter-and-other-internet-reclamation-projects.md (3623B)
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- title: Nitter and other Internet reclamation projects
- date: 2021-09-23
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- The world wide web has become an annoying, ultra-commercialized space. Many
- websites today are prioritizing the interests of the company behind the domain,
- at the expense of the user's experience and well-being. This has been a
- frustrating problem for several years, but lately there's been a heartwarming
- trend of users fighting back against the corporate web and stepping up to help
- and serve each other's needs in spite of them, through what I've come to think
- of as Internet reclamation projects.
- I think the first of these which appeared on my radar was [Invidious][inv],
- which scrapes information off of a YouTube page and presents it in a more
- pleasant, user-first interface— something which [NewPipe][np] also does
- well for Android. These tools pry data out of YouTube's hands and present it on
- a simple UI, designed for users first, with no ads or spyware, and with nice
- features YouTube would never add, like download links, audio mode, and offline
- viewing. It shows us what users want, but YouTube refuses to give.
- [inv]: https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
- [np]: https://drewdevault.com/2019/04/02/NewPipe-represents-the-best-of-FOSS.html
- [nt]: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter
- Another project which has been particularly successful recently is [Nitter][nt],
- which does something similar for Twitter. Twitter's increasingly draconian
- restrictions on who can access what data, and their attitude towards logged-out
- users in particular, has been a great annoyance to anyone who does not have, and
- does not want, a Twitter account, but who may still encounter Twitter links
- around the web. Nitter has been quite helpful in de-crapifying Twitter for these
- folks. I have set up an automatic redirect in my browser which takes me straight
- to Nitter, and I never have to see the shitty, user-hostile Twitter interface
- again.
- [Bibliogram][bi] is another attempt which has done its best to fix Instagram,
- but they have [encountered challenges][bi issues] with Instagram's strict rate
- limits and anti-scraping measures. Another project, [Teddit][td], is attempting
- to fix Reddit's increasingly anti-user interface, and [Libreddit][lr] has
- similar ambitions.
- [bi]: https://sr.ht/~cadence/bibliogram/
- [bi issues]: https://git.sr.ht/~cadence/bibliogram-docs/tree/master/docs/Instagram%20rate%20limits.md#tldr-what-does-it-mean-if-an-instance-is-blocked
- [lr]: https://github.com/spikecodes/libreddit
- [td]: https://codeberg.org/teddit/teddit
- All of these services are more useful, more accessible, and more inclusive than
- their corporate counterparts. They work better on older browsers and low-end
- devices. They have better performance. They aren't spying on you. In short,
- they are rejecting the [domestication of their users][domesticate] that the
- platforms they interact with have been trying to do. Their efforts are part of
- an inspiring trend of internet activism which rejects the corporate shells and
- walled gardens without giving up the useful data they have stolen away inside.
- [domesticate]: https://seirdy.one/2021/01/27/whatsapp-and-the-domestication-of-users.html
- Here are some more services full of user-hostile behavior I'd like to see
- replaced with user-first, high performance, FOSS frontends:
- - GitLab and GitHub
- - ~~Medium et al~~ 2021-11-08: Check out [scribe.rip](https://scribe.rip)!
- [0]: https://github.com/mozilla/readability
- I would be happy to redirect myself away from any of these services for a
- faster, lighter weight, more inclusive, user-first experience. Any others you'd
- like to see?