23 ms·

Show HN: Fraidycat

807 points by kickscondor 7y ago

kickscondor 7y ago
So I built this - and its initial purpose was just to help me keep up on public TiddlyWikis (like philosopher.life) that I had discovered. But I couldn't get myself to rip off other news readers - I've not been satisfied with RSS and I disliked Google Reader. I didn't like that it basically created a second read-only email inbox - where I'm supposed to look through every message. And I didn't like that I lost the formatting and styling of the original hypertext. I much preferred just surfing my favorite sites periodically. As I began to add blogs, Twitter, YouTube support - it felt like I was connecting the whole Web, as if it was all one network, almost as if I viewed it like the government does. (Equipped with my own personal XKeyscore Lite.) I had felt isolated before - unable to see past whatever was being recommended to me on Twitter - but now I had a tool that forced me to rouse my dormant research skills. The task of reading, writing, publishing and hunting on the Web is a formidable one - and we're far from mastering it. It's no wonder that we abdicated to social networks that attempt to do it all for us. So yeah - Fraidycat is a very small attempt to move toward tools that give us some power. It really only adds the ability to assign "importance" to someone you are following - allowing you to track them without needing to be aware of them every second. But hey - it's four months old - I think it's a good start and hopefully others here can be encouraged by it to work on tools for the World-Wide Web again.
- atroche 7y ago
  I think you're exploring an important space here. Good luck! Also, the video essay you made about this (https://youtu.be/zgA4GzRsldI https://youtu.be/zgA4GzRsldI for anyone interested) is incredibly well-produced. I was expecting it to be someone mumbling over a screencast, but it's the total opposite.
  - gbasin 7y ago
    I felt the same. I almost never watch product videos, and I watched this one all the way through... very well done.
    - TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
      over-produced. not raw and real.
      - dvtrn 7y ago
        I see these as synonyms for: 'creative', personally. Seems 'on brand' with the rest of the site and product presentation.
      - h00dui 7y ago
        It's fun & pretty raw. It's also a great way to talk about the intention of this product.
  - growt 7y ago
    Sadly something like that will be no longer possible in Europe when the new copyright directive becomes law. But on the other hand it probably never was :(
    - m3at 7y ago
      How so? Citation needed. The website state: "Fraidycat doesn't communicate with a central server - unless your browser syncs Fraidycat's settings to a central server." So it seem fine by me.
      - growt 7y ago
        I was talking about the video.
  - skoodge 7y ago
    I had read through the page and figured that it's probably not for me, but then decided to watch the video based on this comment and it is absolutely amazing! It is not just incredibly well-produced, but at the same time whimsical and a poignant commentary on the current social network landscape. Some people might be put off by the video's style and it's definitely not in the vein of the typical startup product launch, but exactly that makes it the most memorable product launch video in a long time for me, since it's not afraid to show some personality.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  One of the things you've done that I really like is the focus on people instead of posts - this shifts the system away from favoring noisy or loud individuals which is the correct sort of shift in my opinion.
  - kickscondor 7y ago
    It's difficult to know what's better - some people may prefer to see posts, since they may want to find viral memes/videos/takes rather than to have to follow someone's output over time. It seems like a tradeoff to me - similar to short-term vs long-term. So it would be interesting for someone who loves news feeds to rethink them at some point.
- sailfast 7y ago
  I love this. Your video is right on, and I've felt this way since Google Reader disappeared and algo feeds took over. Definitely digging into this tonight.
- hoopism 7y ago
  This is a neat project. And based on your appreciation for things like Funny Mapguy (who I checked out after seeing your video) I think we have very similar taste in online culture. Good luck dude!
  - kickscondor 7y ago
    Hey thanks. Yeah I have followed Funny Mapguy for years and the amazing part is that he has not once mentioned maps or been funny in any of his videos. It's insane.
    - hoopism 7y ago
      So I was reminded on YT homepage to check him out again... I went through about 15-20 last drink reviews (descriptions). They are all 7-8s. I am super curious if he has ever not liked one now.
- haaaris 7y ago
  Hey, this is amazing! I'm currently working on www.inverse.network, a new way for groups to talk all over the web :) Would love to chat. haris@inverse.network
- jotm 7y ago
  So, I still don't really understand what it actually does, but for some reason I feel like it's a great idea :D. I'll put more time in playing with it.
- qqn 7y ago
  Fantastic! I will be playing with this. I have to know though: where's the original knight interviewer video?! Happens at 3m55s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgA4GzRsldI&t=3m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgA4GzRsldI&t=3m55s
  - kickscondor 7y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-pAWbqdyuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-pAWbqdyuY
    - qqn 7y ago
      oh lord yes
- yantrams 7y ago
  Very Neat! Gonna explore this to my heart's content. Huge fan of your personal website - all those writeups, thoughts on hypertext, decentralization and that dadaesque/surrealist aesthetic dripping everywhere. Discovered you when you listed my blog in one of your listicles. Good luck!
- ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
  If I understand correctly, is it a personal reddit/HN filled with content from websites you picked? If this is it then I think there is a big potential. Actually, there might be a bigger potential as a SaaS than a browser plugin. It'd be cool if you can share your newsfeed, or absorb other people's newsfeed.
  - lemagedurage 7y ago
    I feel like that would take away half the charm for me. I want people to be able to add many site connectors, like YouTube dl.
- dvtrn 7y ago
  I love this already. It's been one of my biggest gripes of social media that I can't just follow people and catch what they're up to on my terms, sans "the platform" nudging me to interact this way, like this, star that, react to that over there because someone three degrees of separation did it, watch a video someone uploaded of their dinner. I want to passively observe and interact if I want to. This is what I've wanted. It's like a living notepad file full of links Great work, excited to put this to work
- ohduran 7y ago
  I'm the #1 fan of Fraidycat, keep up the good work!
- indigoviolet 7y ago
  This is great. Would love to see an import from twitter/reddit subs feature in the extension.
- BrunoBernardino 7y ago
  This is very cool, congrats on launching! I’ve built something not too dissimilar, but focused on slowing down too, so instead of a feed with changes you get a daily digest of the new things that happened. It also allows you to view the regular formatting, etc. If you’re curious, it’s https://focusd.co https://focusd.co and I’d love to hear about what you learned with “figuring out” if there’s an RSS Feed for a given URL.
- tomgp 7y ago
  This really scratches and itch for me. I've felt similarly about RSS readers, they kind of work but as you point out most news feeds privilege the most voluminous posters at everyone else's expense. Love it.
- bakakid 7y ago
  im so glad this popped up again! I was trying to find it the other day but none of my searches or history rang a bell!
  - solstice 7y ago
    That's the main problem on the internet, I think: not finding stuff but finding it again!
- meremortals 7y ago
  I started using this earlier last week and I love it. Thanks for making it
  - kickscondor 7y ago
    Ah good to hear! Thanks for sticking with it.
- h0l0cube 7y ago
  After leaving social media, I've been wanting something like this for a long time, and considered 'scratching my own itch', as you have. I settled on Feedly being good enough. It still isn't great: e.g. the Android widget is hopeless; I miss out on content because links sometimes don't refresh for days. I'm using the free option, so maybe the paid option is better, but it's free offering hasn't convinced me this is a good idea. So I'm wondering whether to port all my follows over to fraidycat. Have you used Feedly or it's ilk before? How do you think it compares? Also, if I switch, how will you be keeping the lights on? Is there some monetization strategy in your mind?
  - kickscondor 7y ago
    Fraidycat doesn't have a central server - so even if I do get knocked off by Facebook Mafia, the software will still function just fine. Can't compare to Feedly, don't know anything about it.
    - h0l0cube 7y ago
      Oh right, I suppose I should have installed it first. I like that it's stand-alone. While there is much I don't like about Feedly, the things I do like are it's ability to make suggestions, and that also you can add things like YouTube links - like fraidycat. This means if Primitive Technology release a video, I know about it, and it comes up along with developer blogs I follow. The suggestions have been useful in discovering new blogs, but you can't have that with a stand-alone app... unless you provide a server for this. I'd happily provide my anonymized feed list to a server, if I get in return a bunch of adjacent content creators.
  - 3r8riacz 7y ago
    Minimo (written in Go) is a nice, clean, minimal self-hostable RSS reader that I can recommend trying out, supports importing Feedly exports, too. Works as a progressive web app in fullscreen when added to your Android home screen, no need for a separate app.
    - buovjaga 7y ago
- wpietri 7y ago
  Very interesting! And I'm fascinated by doing it as a browser plugin. Could you say more about why you chose this route?
  - kickscondor 7y ago
    Ease of installation and the ability to sync between browsers without folks needing to trust whether I can keep the service running or not.
- easygenes 7y ago
  Very cool. It reminds me of Netvibes and why I loved it so much when it first hit the scene circa 2006.
- dmvaldman 7y ago
  have you considered following hackernews profiles? (comments, posts, etc) also, best promo video of all time and amazing concept. we'd be great friends IRL. alas.
  - dtakuma 7y ago
    If I'm not misinterpreting you, you can already do this with rss : https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/ https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/
    - dmvaldman 7y ago
      thanks for sharing! did not know about this! this could be the foundation of what my request was implying. it's the data pipe, but would need the frontend the OP is building
    - dmvaldman 7y ago
      scratch everything i said. the tool can import any RSS feed. so you're 100% right, it can already do HN posts/comments/etc from specific people
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  This is very cool. I wish there was something like this for the various web serials I read. Keeping track of them all can be...cumbersome.
  - callahad 7y ago
    Couldn't this be that? If those serials are posted somewhere that has an RSS feed, you're good to go.
    - TulliusCicero 7y ago
      Huh, for some reason I thought RoyalRoad didn't have RSS feeds for its stories, but apparently it does. Nice!
- cableclasper 7y ago
  Really nice work! I'm playing with the app currently. Is there a way to set the default browser used to open links?
  - kickscondor 7y ago
    It should use whatever browser your operating system has set as the default. But please let me know if that is not the case.
    - cableclasper 7y ago
      My OS is arch linux. It seems like the app does not use xdg-open (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xdg-open https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xdg-open ). Setting the BROWSER environment variable also doesn't seem to work. I don't know any other way to set the default browser.
- dtakuma 7y ago
  This is the closer to what I imagined the Dip from "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell" would be that I have encountered so far - maybe I'm miss remembering and it was not a software at all but I have been looking for some kind of hub like this since I read that book. So glad I checked this link. Thanks for making it!
dmamills 7y ago
Very cool idea and fun execution!
celim307 7y ago
Great project, very clever
verumn 7y ago
I'm intrigued by what's going on in the "Internet K-Hole"
- floren 7y ago
  Posting found photographs, unless they've changed the site completely. It's fascinating at times, but frequently NSFW.
  - twic 7y ago
    A similar sort of thing (though usually SFW) crops up on r/oldschoolcool, eg: https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/fgi66k/my_dad_casually_grilling_my_brother_circa_1995/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/fgi66k/my_da...
overshard 7y ago
Very cool project and basically a modern RSS feed reader for a modern web where not everything has a standardized feed to digest. Which is a little sad... Something like this is really useful for what it does but I'm afraid of how much upkeep might be required if it's scraping pages (which would be required for some platform so it's unavoidable).
- kickscondor 7y ago
  Site scraping is definitely my biggest struggle - this is the primary reason it's taken me four months to get to this seemingly simple app ready to post here. I now have a pretty good system in place. I keep a master list of scraping rules that I can update without needing to re-release new Fraidycat versions. I also have an update coming that will allow me to scrape at different stages of the rendering process and to scrape external files that the rendered page relies on. (This will be used for TikTok support, for instance.) I realize this could be a bit of an arms race, but I don't think it has to be that way. Fraidycat doesn't syndicate the content - it encourages people to visit the actual site. So I believe a platform benefits from integrating well with it. Thanks for checking it out!
  - _sdfo 7y ago
    In case scraping doesn't work for a certain link, you could have a "limited" update feature: Download website html, compress and hash it and store locally; each update cycle, download it, compress, hash and compare to local copy. If it has changed, then simply light it up in the UI. For me, simply seeing that there's something new on the site I want tracked is enough information so I can visit it and check out the new article myself. Of course, false positives are a downside. Someone fixing a typo shouldn't count as an update. I'm sure the community can think of settings for the "update sensitivity" where level 0 requires at least a new tag to appear on the page, level 1 requires a change of at least N characters, and level 2 notifies on even a change of one character. I love this extension already and am willing to help out with PRs :-)
- isoprophlex 7y ago
  With a strong enough userbase, the scraping upkeep could be sourced from capable users?
whichquestion 7y ago
First, I’d like to say I really like this project, particularly how it takes the focus away from high frequency posters to active individuals. A possible feature that I would want to see is to be able to have a single tab that would allow for filtering based on the platform, tag, individual, etc.
- kickscondor 7y ago
  Ok - this sounds interesting. Can you describe it in more detail? Or like give me a practical example? Always glad to toss around ideas.
  - greycol 7y ago
    I believe they're advocating for an 'advanced search' type page. Something like these: https://www.novelupdates.com/series-finder/ https://www.novelupdates.com/series-finder/ https://www.google.com/advanced_search https://www.google.com/advanced_search Where you can search all your subscriptions by meta data (and possible keyword in post). An alternative but similar functionality would be a table where you can filter the columns. i.e columns might be Platform,Poster,Date,User Defined Tab[],Platform Tags,Summary So for instance you can show all posts in between 20200219 and 20200305 not on twitter or youtube that are either your tech or finance tab that have the word covid or corona in the summary. Great work by the way.
fenwick67 7y ago
> There is no news feed. Rather than showing you a massive inbox of new posts to sort through, you see a list of recently active individuals. No one can noisily take over this page, since every follow has a summary that takes up a mere two lines. I absolutely love this timeline algorithm and was just thinking about something similar last week. This way prolific posters don't flood my feed. We need more experiments like these.
- twic 7y ago
  I saw someone suggest this as a UI for Twitter a while ago. Can't remember where. But yes, it sounds brilliant!
  - ehsankia 7y ago
    I've muted so many people on Twitter due to their output being much larger than most of the other accounts I followed, drowning the rest. At the very least there should be some rate limiting feature, showing the X most popular posts in a given timeframe only.
crispyporkbites 7y ago
Nice, great design as well, is this a standard theme? Does this flag up a button on pages which I can follow when I'm on them? E.g. if I'm on a blog with RSS does a button appear so I can subscribe to it?
- kickscondor 7y ago
  The design is just a bunch of random colors. It's non-standard. I haven't added a button like that yet. It would require me to snoop on web requests that the browser is doing. And I'm reluctant to do that at the moment. I do like the recent idea of adding a bookmarklet: https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/99 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/99
  - crispyporkbites 7y ago
    You don't need to send anything back to the server for this, just a local parser based on the URL. Although the permissions system gives you access to all sites.
sairamkunala 7y ago
previously a similar service was present - FriendFeed. You could aggregate all your friend's feeds into a single location. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FriendFeed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FriendFeed They created and later opensourced Tornado(Python based HTTP framework for handling large number of threads)
- czottmann 7y ago
  I remember! Pouring one out for FF right now.
reggieband 7y ago
When the iPhone first allowed apps in an app store I had a conversation with another developer. We brainstormed an idea of an application that would allow you to aggregate all of your conversations with a person. Instead of opening the phone app, the messages app, facebook, twitter, etc. you would instead open the "Joe Smith" app and all of your conversations with that person across any medium would be aggregated in a single place. It is a bit like SoA vs. AoS (Structures of Arrays vs. Array of Structures). By transposing the relationship between app/person to be person/app it could change how we view social media. What I've found over the following 12 years is that application producers are extremely hostile to anything that would take the user out of their application. It reminds me of early 2000 era websites where external links on some sites were not allowed. The reason why RSS and similar aggregators do not work has nothing to do with technology. Any technology that allows you to follow the stars of a social media platform outside of that platform (or aggregate across platforms) will face a level of of opposition that is likely to be insurmountable.
- kickscondor 7y ago
  You're probably right. But don't forget that people are ultimately stronger than the platforms. Where is Snapchat now that TikTok arrived?
- derivagral 7y ago
  XMPP, RSS, and similar protocols feel like they died due to this. Technical stuff, sure, but I tend to view the technical reasons more as business justifications for lock-in than "legit" issues. I work in the micromobility vertical, which is facing some of these issues around trips, privacy, companies owning data, and cities wanting open data. Stuff like this [1] is popping up more and more. https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/10/transport-trip-planner-app-lyft-citibike-open-mobility-data/599650/ https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/10/transport-trip-p...
- GrinningFool 7y ago
  > Instead of opening the phone app, the messages app, > facebook, twitter, etc. you would instead open the "Joe > Smith" app and all of your conversations with that person > across any medium would be aggregated in a single place BlackBerry hub did this under BBOS10. The android app more-or-less does it as well. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blackberry.hub&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blackberry...
Jarwain 7y ago
I love the idea, I think it's Really Clever. I can't wait for mobile support, although I noticed the plan is for Firefox users and I'm still stuck on Chrome. I think a neat feature would be to group multiple sites together for a single individual. For example, following a web comic and connecting that with the artist's Twitter, as a single item. I'm curious as to whether it keeps track of which items I've seen or whether it only has a staleness measure
- kickscondor 7y ago
  Re: grouping. This is a feature called "bundling" that I'm halfway through finishing. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/63 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/63 It doesn't track unread items. This is a move away from the 'news feed' or 'inbox' approach to reading the Web.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
z0mbie42 7y ago
Wow, this idea of grouping messages is really great! I would really love to see a Mastodon (Fediverse?) client implementing it! Congrats @ author!
huxflux 7y ago
I'm in love with this!
bovermyer 7y ago
I love this. I've been looking for something to solve this particular problem for awhile now. Thanks!
chrischen 7y ago
This reminds me of MSN Messenger. Back then people abused the nickname feature to write a status message.
- solstice 7y ago
  I think this was used in Skype as well during the mid 00s
hrdwdmrbl 7y ago
Too bad Activity Stream (https://www.w3.org/Social/ https://www.w3.org/Social/ and https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/) never succeeded or else your project would be easy for anyone to implement.
- fenwick67 7y ago
  There's ActivityPub (https://activitypub.rocks/ https://activitypub.rocks/). Not that it's perfect.
giancarlostoro 7y ago
This is awesome, I've been meaning to code some sort of intranet for my home with something like this for myself. Maybe now this one will just be a link within my intranet. Still havent worked out what I want for my intranet entirely. There are so many web based solutions you could make your own (internal) cloud OS.
nanna 7y ago
I love this. And the video is amazing. I love the design, especially the bizarre loading screen. Initial UX thoughts from a elfeed user who imported their feeds with an opml: - It would be great if the enter and close buttons were in the same spot, instead of the close button jumping to the bottom, so you could open and close drawers more easily. - It'd be great if links could be shaded after they'd been opened, or marked somehow else as having been read. - Would love to be able to reorder tabs - Would be great if you could change the label for all the entries in a group in one go. Eg, I set the yellow geekface emoji for my tech follows, but I want to change this to a darker skinned variant without having to do so one-by-one. - After I've added my feeds and given them all categories, the home tab is empty and calls me to add follows. It's unclear if I'm waiting for feeds to update or something, or if I need to leave some uncategorised, etc. - Love the graphs but I'm not exactly sure what they mean. - As you'd expect from an emacs user, would love to have more keyboard binding. Cycle through, unfold this drawer, unfold all drawers, switch tab, etc. Thanks for this ace project!
- kickscondor 7y ago
  - Working on this. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/50 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/50 - Re: link colors. I think this is already the case for post titles. What platform did you try it on? - Re: reordering tabs. I've put this in the queue. Thank you. - Re: changing tabs. Part of this: https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/70 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/70 - Re: empty home tab. Good point. If home isn't wanted, maybe I make it go away... Hmm need to think about this. - Re: graphs. I've added a tooltip in the next release and cleared up the logic. More improvements will come with the upcoming design. - Re: keyboard shortcuts. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/68 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/68 Thank you for the very thorough review! I hope these will improve over the next month.
  - Quanttek 7y ago
    Re home: Maybe split it into two: an "uncategorized" tab and an "all" tab
isoprophlex 7y ago
This is the paradigmatically different internet I never knew I craved. I'm totally hooked on your idea: this is what the internet beyond 2020 should be. No more walled gardens and network effect lock-in; people first, apps second. Fantastic work.
andrewstuart 7y ago
This site should say what it is, right up front.
- kickscondor 7y ago
  My strategy is to build curiosity.
mcrump 7y ago
Your YT promo video needs to get to the point much much faster. 45 seconds tops. Save the cuteness for later or another video.
- kickscondor 7y ago
  This is the cuteness video. There is no other video.
AbraKdabra 7y ago
Whoa, that video is a whole trip on its own.
technics256 7y ago
Wow. The video and everything is extremely impressive. Are you an artist also? If not, you should be.
vasergen 7y ago
Wow, love it
pkamb 7y ago
> I use it to follow people This is something I have a real need for. Specifically, podcast hosts. I want to follow certain hosts and listen to every random show they're on. Some hosts do keep lists of their appearances across many shows: http://hypercritical.co/about/appearances/ http://hypercritical.co/about/appearances/ But that forces me to manually find the episodes and add each one to my podcast app. I want something that aggregates appearances into a cross-podcast RSS feed that I can subscribe to in my app. Automatically subscribe to every one of their appearances.
- kickscondor 7y ago
  This is a brilliant concept. Hosts could keep a feed of their appearances, but it would be interesting for someone to make a site that tracked this sort of thing (using user-submitted links I suppose).
  - severine 7y ago
    You should take a look at Listen Notes[1] and maybe talk to wenbinf[2,3]. [1] https://www.listennotes.com/ https://www.listennotes.com/ [2] https://github.com/wenbinf https://github.com/wenbinf [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wenbinf https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wenbinf
  - pkamb 7y ago
    found one: https://www.podchaser.com/creators https://www.podchaser.com/creators
  - chrisaldrich 7y ago
    https://huffduffer.com/ https://huffduffer.com/ is another good discovery/bookmarking tool for podcasts. It has RSS feeds for everything on the site including custom searches that could potentially pick up your favorite contributors. The bookmarking functionality also makes it easy for you to quickly add things you find to one or more followable feeds for the one-off guest appearances you may hear about. (Originally posted at boffosocko.com/2020/03/21/55769517/)
pletsch 7y ago
I like that you have a style for your UI that (at least looking at your other projects) is completely yours. I think more developers that release small projects all the time should do this.
goblin89 7y ago
Fraidycat is the first piece of open-source software I noticed using Blue Oak Model License.
- runxel 7y ago
  Nice! Didn't even know this exists. I'm a bit confused, tho: the only real content is: > This license gives everyone as much permission to work with this software as possible, while protecting contributors from liability. This doesn't really sound unambiguous to me (but maybe that's because English is not my native language). As comparison from The Unlicense: > Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any means. Somehow that's much clearer to me.
  - roryokane 7y ago
    The Purpose paragraph you quoted from https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/blob/master/LICENSE... is far from “the only real content”. That paragraph is a statement of intent, not a compression of the details into one sentence. It’s not supposed to be unambiguous. The next seven paragraphs on Acceptance, Copyright, Notices, Excuse, Patent, Reliability, and No Liability are the actual rules of the license. The Blue Oak Model License aims to be closer to the MIT License than to the Unlicense. The Unlicense releases the software into the public domain, which means, for example, that someone who makes a derivative work could release that work under a proprietary license. In contrast, the Notices section of the Blue Oak Model License, just like the third paragraph of the MIT License, requires derivative works to be released under the same license. I would say the Blue Oak Model License uses the idea of “freedom through self-imposed restrictions” more than both the Unlicense and the MIT License. I think the biggest difference between the MIT License and the Blue Oak Model License is that the MIT License doesn’t mention patents, which (some lawyers think) could allow authors of MIT-Licensed software to sue users for violating their patents used by the software. The Blue Oak Model License’s Patent section closes that loophole.
gto16108 7y ago
“Why do you have to bring cats into this?” Sincerely, Angela from The Office
wangii 7y ago
no offense, but really, get a life!
- kickscondor 7y ago
  I actually appreciate this advice and I do hope to get around to doing this one day.
  - heyoni 7y ago
    Get me one too while you’re out there
  - wangii 7y ago
    thanks! I honestly believe it's a waste of time to 'follow' anyone online. social media is a mistake, has almost 0 positive influence.
newtoday 7y ago
This is awesome! The design / branding itself is pleasantly unique and fun! @kickscondor feature idea: it would be awesome if users could share their feed sources as a community shared feed that one could switch to. Edit: I see now that ccktlmazeltov said the same 2 hours ago
- kickscondor 7y ago
  For feed sharing, here's where I'm putting ideas: https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/6 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/6 Thank you for the nice words.
listic 7y ago
I wish there was a way to follow someone's posts on, say, Twitter, but not re-posts. Is there an easy way to do that?
- kickscondor 7y ago
  Is this something you would want as a global option? Or would you do it on a case-by-case? I'm tempted to just add a "Show Reposts" in the filtering menu. That seems perhaps more useful (to me) than having to manage individual settings.
  - listic 7y ago
    I think a global option in the filtering menu would be just fine.
listic 7y ago
What does it mean there's no online sync for the binaries?
- kickscondor 7y ago
  The extensions will sync your list of follows between computers. So if you are logged in to Chrome on your work computer and you subscribe to dezz.ie, it'll show up when you log in to Chrome at home.
  - kyleee 7y ago
    Is there import/export functionality?
    - kickscondor 7y ago
      Yes - in OPML and JSON.
calmchaos 7y ago
Feedbro is better with more social media integration support. https://nodetics.com/feedbro/ https://nodetics.com/feedbro/
code_duck 7y ago
I like this idea. I'm very tired of trying to sift through publishers (individuals too) sorted by some opaque, perennially ineffective algorithm. Twitter, for instance - I follow hundreds of people, but my notifications are literally 100% Rick Wilson. I have absolutely no idea how they made this decision, but it's way off the mark. On Instagram, there's an account that's my favorite. I've liked every photo they post. They haven't shown up in my feed for months. Checked their account and they've been posting new content daily for 3 weeks. Meanwhile my fees shows me pics of some guy I don't care about at all walking his dog in vacation.
ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
feature request: I tried adding decrypt.co and could not, and then I couldn't leave the page to add a new thing.
- kickscondor 7y ago
  Ok - thank you. I'll sort this out!
joantune 7y ago
Circa 4 weeks ago I had the same core idea! I think this is very interesting to be able to follow people you respect or are interested in one way or another, regardless of the platform where you find them. A kind of global Twitter. This has potential to become the new version of a social network. Kudos on executing it PS: Initially I thought that the killer platform to adopt such a thing would be keybase! I even thought of tweeting to them, but then the idea just fleeted away. Oh well..
Krasnol 7y ago
Is there a way to actually add account login data so you can grab feeds from users who are not visible if not logged in? I see that happening on Instagram for example.
- kickscondor 7y ago
  This is in the plan. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/9 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/9 Just wanted to ensure the concept was solid before venturing into it. Also concerned about storage of credentials.
  - Krasnol 7y ago
    Perfect. Thank you. I really like it :)
dazuaz 7y ago
No spacing on top of the video almost killed me
jdpigeon 7y ago
I would really really love this for mobile. 90% of my mindless browsing that I'd like to take control of happens on my phone.
- kickscondor 7y ago
  This is huge for me too. You can follow progress here: https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/31 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/31
xvector 7y ago
This is amazing, I've been wanting something like this for a long time!
CitrusFruits 7y ago
I'm so in. I actually had an idea for something like this about a month ago. I'm not 100% sure how fraidycat operates, but I was thinking of some sort of social media aggregator that would only show updates at most once per day. The intention behind it being along a similar vein: to keep myself from doing the constant app switch and refresh just to make sure I wasn't missing out. Not that I would have ever executed, but I ditched the idea after looking through facebook's graph API and seeing that it wasn't feasible. I never thought of making it a browser extension though! Good job, this is awesome!
- kickscondor 7y ago
  That's very amusing - I originally intended Fraidycat to be "closed" except for a brief window between 7 PM and 7:10 PM - we must be on the same biorhythm. It does update throughout the day - but perhaps there is another extension that can block Fraidycat when you don't want the distractions. Thank you for the encouragement!
65934 7y ago
Literally the worst landing page and copy i"ve seen Bruh You gotta improve this
minusSeven 7y ago
I am getting a networkError when attempting to fetch resource on any instagram links...
- kickscondor 7y ago
  This is likely due to Firefox 'Strict' Tracking Protection. If you are okay turning it down to 'Standard', it will be fine. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/26 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/26 Not sure how to solve this. Firefox thinks Fraidycat is "calling home".
boznz 7y ago
"If only every network used RSS!" The big ones dont use RSS for a reason, they want you on the page to show adds. I expect they will start blocking access once you get above their radar. Good luck though.
fishbacon 7y ago
This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately, the way stuff gets to me. This might actually be what I was thinking about. Exciting times when something you thought you would have to build falls in your lap. I might contribute to this, thanks for making it :)
rukuu001 7y ago
I love this. - I love the way it looks - I love what it does - I love that it introduced me to philosophy.life
aWidebrant 7y ago
I like this a lot. It feels like a much healthier starting point than diving head first into the discovery feeds of the platforms.
dmitshur 7y ago
The idea of not letting one noisy person overshadow the more quiet ones reminds me of one of my old projects Latest Tweets [1]. It was a single page that displayed just a one latest tweet from everyone you followed on Twitter. I wanted to be able to see people who tweet indecently more easily. It stopped working after Twitter shut down the v1 API and I didn’t try to update it, but there was something intriguing about the premise compared to the traditional feed, and I miss being able to use it. I’m really glad to see this project that is much more polished and featureful! [1]: https://github.com/shurcooL-legacy/latest-tweets https://github.com/shurcooL-legacy/latest-tweets
Neff 7y ago
I was just looking for something like this - a way to aggregate all my chosen feeds across multiple services. It sort of feels like the next iteration of Fever[1] [1] - https://feedafever.com/ https://feedafever.com/
yunusabd 7y ago
FYI Someone put this on product hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/fraidycat https://www.producthunt.com/posts/fraidycat

807 points by kickscondor 7y ago

So I built this - and its initial purpose was just to help me keep up on public TiddlyWikis (like philosopher.life) that I had discovered. But I couldn't get myself to rip off other news readers - I've not been satisfied with RSS and I disliked Google Reader. I didn't like that it basically created a second read-only email inbox - where I'm supposed to look through every message. And I didn't like that I lost the formatting and styling of the original hypertext. I much preferred just surfing my favorite sites periodically. As I began to add blogs, Twitter, YouTube support - it felt like I was connecting the whole Web, as if it was all one network, almost as if I viewed it like the government does. (Equipped with my own personal XKeyscore Lite.) I had felt isolated before - unable to see past whatever was being recommended to me on Twitter - but now I had a tool that forced me to rouse my dormant research skills. The task of reading, writing, publishing and hunting on the Web is a formidable one - and we're far from mastering it. It's no wonder that we abdicated to social networks that attempt to do it all for us. So yeah - Fraidycat is a very small attempt to move toward tools that give us some power. It really only adds the ability to assign "importance" to someone you are following - allowing you to track them without needing to be aware of them every second. But hey - it's four months old - I think it's a good start and hopefully others here can be encouraged by it to work on tools for the World-Wide Web again.

atroche 7y ago
I think you're exploring an important space here. Good luck! Also, the video essay you made about this (https://youtu.be/zgA4GzRsldI https://youtu.be/zgA4GzRsldI for anyone interested) is incredibly well-produced. I was expecting it to be someone mumbling over a screencast, but it's the total opposite.
- gbasin 7y ago
  I felt the same. I almost never watch product videos, and I watched this one all the way through... very well done.
  - TedDoesntTalk 7y ago
    over-produced. not raw and real.
    - dvtrn 7y ago
      I see these as synonyms for: 'creative', personally. Seems 'on brand' with the rest of the site and product presentation.
    - h00dui 7y ago
      It's fun & pretty raw. It's also a great way to talk about the intention of this product.
- growt 7y ago
  Sadly something like that will be no longer possible in Europe when the new copyright directive becomes law. But on the other hand it probably never was :(
  - m3at 7y ago
    How so? Citation needed. The website state: "Fraidycat doesn't communicate with a central server - unless your browser syncs Fraidycat's settings to a central server." So it seem fine by me.
    - growt 7y ago
      I was talking about the video.
- skoodge 7y ago
  I had read through the page and figured that it's probably not for me, but then decided to watch the video based on this comment and it is absolutely amazing! It is not just incredibly well-produced, but at the same time whimsical and a poignant commentary on the current social network landscape. Some people might be put off by the video's style and it's definitely not in the vein of the typical startup product launch, but exactly that makes it the most memorable product launch video in a long time for me, since it's not afraid to show some personality.
vorpalhex 7y ago
One of the things you've done that I really like is the focus on people instead of posts - this shifts the system away from favoring noisy or loud individuals which is the correct sort of shift in my opinion.
- kickscondor 7y ago
  It's difficult to know what's better - some people may prefer to see posts, since they may want to find viral memes/videos/takes rather than to have to follow someone's output over time. It seems like a tradeoff to me - similar to short-term vs long-term. So it would be interesting for someone who loves news feeds to rethink them at some point.
sailfast 7y ago
I love this. Your video is right on, and I've felt this way since Google Reader disappeared and algo feeds took over. Definitely digging into this tonight.
hoopism 7y ago
This is a neat project. And based on your appreciation for things like Funny Mapguy (who I checked out after seeing your video) I think we have very similar taste in online culture. Good luck dude!
- kickscondor 7y ago
  Hey thanks. Yeah I have followed Funny Mapguy for years and the amazing part is that he has not once mentioned maps or been funny in any of his videos. It's insane.
  - hoopism 7y ago
    So I was reminded on YT homepage to check him out again... I went through about 15-20 last drink reviews (descriptions). They are all 7-8s. I am super curious if he has ever not liked one now.
haaaris 7y ago
Hey, this is amazing! I'm currently working on www.inverse.network, a new way for groups to talk all over the web :) Would love to chat. haris@inverse.network
jotm 7y ago
So, I still don't really understand what it actually does, but for some reason I feel like it's a great idea :D. I'll put more time in playing with it.
qqn 7y ago
Fantastic! I will be playing with this. I have to know though: where's the original knight interviewer video?! Happens at 3m55s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgA4GzRsldI&t=3m55s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgA4GzRsldI&t=3m55s
- kickscondor 7y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-pAWbqdyuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-pAWbqdyuY
  - qqn 7y ago
    oh lord yes
yantrams 7y ago
Very Neat! Gonna explore this to my heart's content. Huge fan of your personal website - all those writeups, thoughts on hypertext, decentralization and that dadaesque/surrealist aesthetic dripping everywhere. Discovered you when you listed my blog in one of your listicles. Good luck!
ccktlmazeltov 7y ago
If I understand correctly, is it a personal reddit/HN filled with content from websites you picked? If this is it then I think there is a big potential. Actually, there might be a bigger potential as a SaaS than a browser plugin. It'd be cool if you can share your newsfeed, or absorb other people's newsfeed.
- lemagedurage 7y ago
  I feel like that would take away half the charm for me. I want people to be able to add many site connectors, like YouTube dl.
dvtrn 7y ago
I love this already. It's been one of my biggest gripes of social media that I can't just follow people and catch what they're up to on my terms, sans "the platform" nudging me to interact this way, like this, star that, react to that over there because someone three degrees of separation did it, watch a video someone uploaded of their dinner. I want to passively observe and interact if I want to. This is what I've wanted. It's like a living notepad file full of links Great work, excited to put this to work
ohduran 7y ago
I'm the #1 fan of Fraidycat, keep up the good work!
indigoviolet 7y ago
This is great. Would love to see an import from twitter/reddit subs feature in the extension.
BrunoBernardino 7y ago
This is very cool, congrats on launching! I’ve built something not too dissimilar, but focused on slowing down too, so instead of a feed with changes you get a daily digest of the new things that happened. It also allows you to view the regular formatting, etc. If you’re curious, it’s https://focusd.co https://focusd.co and I’d love to hear about what you learned with “figuring out” if there’s an RSS Feed for a given URL.
tomgp 7y ago
This really scratches and itch for me. I've felt similarly about RSS readers, they kind of work but as you point out most news feeds privilege the most voluminous posters at everyone else's expense. Love it.
bakakid 7y ago
im so glad this popped up again! I was trying to find it the other day but none of my searches or history rang a bell!
- solstice 7y ago
  That's the main problem on the internet, I think: not finding stuff but finding it again!
meremortals 7y ago
I started using this earlier last week and I love it. Thanks for making it
- kickscondor 7y ago
  Ah good to hear! Thanks for sticking with it.
h0l0cube 7y ago
After leaving social media, I've been wanting something like this for a long time, and considered 'scratching my own itch', as you have. I settled on Feedly being good enough. It still isn't great: e.g. the Android widget is hopeless; I miss out on content because links sometimes don't refresh for days. I'm using the free option, so maybe the paid option is better, but it's free offering hasn't convinced me this is a good idea. So I'm wondering whether to port all my follows over to fraidycat. Have you used Feedly or it's ilk before? How do you think it compares? Also, if I switch, how will you be keeping the lights on? Is there some monetization strategy in your mind?
- kickscondor 7y ago
  Fraidycat doesn't have a central server - so even if I do get knocked off by Facebook Mafia, the software will still function just fine. Can't compare to Feedly, don't know anything about it.
  - h0l0cube 7y ago
    Oh right, I suppose I should have installed it first. I like that it's stand-alone. While there is much I don't like about Feedly, the things I do like are it's ability to make suggestions, and that also you can add things like YouTube links - like fraidycat. This means if Primitive Technology release a video, I know about it, and it comes up along with developer blogs I follow. The suggestions have been useful in discovering new blogs, but you can't have that with a stand-alone app... unless you provide a server for this. I'd happily provide my anonymized feed list to a server, if I get in return a bunch of adjacent content creators.
- 3r8riacz 7y ago
  Minimo (written in Go) is a nice, clean, minimal self-hostable RSS reader that I can recommend trying out, supports importing Feedly exports, too. Works as a progressive web app in fullscreen when added to your Android home screen, no need for a separate app.
  - buovjaga 7y ago
wpietri 7y ago
Very interesting! And I'm fascinated by doing it as a browser plugin. Could you say more about why you chose this route?
- kickscondor 7y ago
  Ease of installation and the ability to sync between browsers without folks needing to trust whether I can keep the service running or not.
easygenes 7y ago
Very cool. It reminds me of Netvibes and why I loved it so much when it first hit the scene circa 2006.
dmvaldman 7y ago
have you considered following hackernews profiles? (comments, posts, etc) also, best promo video of all time and amazing concept. we'd be great friends IRL. alas.
- dtakuma 7y ago
  If I'm not misinterpreting you, you can already do this with rss : https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/ https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/
  - dmvaldman 7y ago
    thanks for sharing! did not know about this! this could be the foundation of what my request was implying. it's the data pipe, but would need the frontend the OP is building
  - dmvaldman 7y ago
    scratch everything i said. the tool can import any RSS feed. so you're 100% right, it can already do HN posts/comments/etc from specific people
TulliusCicero 7y ago
This is very cool. I wish there was something like this for the various web serials I read. Keeping track of them all can be...cumbersome.
- callahad 7y ago
  Couldn't this be that? If those serials are posted somewhere that has an RSS feed, you're good to go.
  - TulliusCicero 7y ago
    Huh, for some reason I thought RoyalRoad didn't have RSS feeds for its stories, but apparently it does. Nice!
cableclasper 7y ago
Really nice work! I'm playing with the app currently. Is there a way to set the default browser used to open links?
- kickscondor 7y ago
  It should use whatever browser your operating system has set as the default. But please let me know if that is not the case.
  - cableclasper 7y ago
    My OS is arch linux. It seems like the app does not use xdg-open (https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xdg-open https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xdg-open ). Setting the BROWSER environment variable also doesn't seem to work. I don't know any other way to set the default browser.
dtakuma 7y ago
This is the closer to what I imagined the Dip from "Fall; or, Dodge in Hell" would be that I have encountered so far - maybe I'm miss remembering and it was not a software at all but I have been looking for some kind of hub like this since I read that book. So glad I checked this link. Thanks for making it!

dmamills 7y ago

Very cool idea and fun execution!

celim307 7y ago

Great project, very clever

verumn 7y ago

I'm intrigued by what's going on in the "Internet K-Hole"

floren 7y ago
Posting found photographs, unless they've changed the site completely. It's fascinating at times, but frequently NSFW.
- twic 7y ago
  A similar sort of thing (though usually SFW) crops up on r/oldschoolcool, eg: https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/fgi66k/my_dad_casually_grilling_my_brother_circa_1995/ https://www.reddit.com/r/OldSchoolCool/comments/fgi66k/my_da...

overshard 7y ago

Very cool project and basically a modern RSS feed reader for a modern web where not everything has a standardized feed to digest. Which is a little sad... Something like this is really useful for what it does but I'm afraid of how much upkeep might be required if it's scraping pages (which would be required for some platform so it's unavoidable).

kickscondor 7y ago
Site scraping is definitely my biggest struggle - this is the primary reason it's taken me four months to get to this seemingly simple app ready to post here. I now have a pretty good system in place. I keep a master list of scraping rules that I can update without needing to re-release new Fraidycat versions. I also have an update coming that will allow me to scrape at different stages of the rendering process and to scrape external files that the rendered page relies on. (This will be used for TikTok support, for instance.) I realize this could be a bit of an arms race, but I don't think it has to be that way. Fraidycat doesn't syndicate the content - it encourages people to visit the actual site. So I believe a platform benefits from integrating well with it. Thanks for checking it out!
- _sdfo 7y ago
  In case scraping doesn't work for a certain link, you could have a "limited" update feature: Download website html, compress and hash it and store locally; each update cycle, download it, compress, hash and compare to local copy. If it has changed, then simply light it up in the UI. For me, simply seeing that there's something new on the site I want tracked is enough information so I can visit it and check out the new article myself. Of course, false positives are a downside. Someone fixing a typo shouldn't count as an update. I'm sure the community can think of settings for the "update sensitivity" where level 0 requires at least a new tag to appear on the page, level 1 requires a change of at least N characters, and level 2 notifies on even a change of one character. I love this extension already and am willing to help out with PRs :-)
isoprophlex 7y ago
With a strong enough userbase, the scraping upkeep could be sourced from capable users?

whichquestion 7y ago

First, I’d like to say I really like this project, particularly how it takes the focus away from high frequency posters to active individuals. A possible feature that I would want to see is to be able to have a single tab that would allow for filtering based on the platform, tag, individual, etc.

kickscondor 7y ago
Ok - this sounds interesting. Can you describe it in more detail? Or like give me a practical example? Always glad to toss around ideas.
- greycol 7y ago
  I believe they're advocating for an 'advanced search' type page. Something like these: https://www.novelupdates.com/series-finder/ https://www.novelupdates.com/series-finder/ https://www.google.com/advanced_search https://www.google.com/advanced_search Where you can search all your subscriptions by meta data (and possible keyword in post). An alternative but similar functionality would be a table where you can filter the columns. i.e columns might be Platform,Poster,Date,User Defined Tab[],Platform Tags,Summary So for instance you can show all posts in between 20200219 and 20200305 not on twitter or youtube that are either your tech or finance tab that have the word covid or corona in the summary. Great work by the way.

fenwick67 7y ago

> There is no news feed. Rather than showing you a massive inbox of new posts to sort through, you see a list of recently active individuals. No one can noisily take over this page, since every follow has a summary that takes up a mere two lines. I absolutely love this timeline algorithm and was just thinking about something similar last week. This way prolific posters don't flood my feed. We need more experiments like these.

twic 7y ago
I saw someone suggest this as a UI for Twitter a while ago. Can't remember where. But yes, it sounds brilliant!
- ehsankia 7y ago
  I've muted so many people on Twitter due to their output being much larger than most of the other accounts I followed, drowning the rest. At the very least there should be some rate limiting feature, showing the X most popular posts in a given timeframe only.

crispyporkbites 7y ago

Nice, great design as well, is this a standard theme? Does this flag up a button on pages which I can follow when I'm on them? E.g. if I'm on a blog with RSS does a button appear so I can subscribe to it?

kickscondor 7y ago
The design is just a bunch of random colors. It's non-standard. I haven't added a button like that yet. It would require me to snoop on web requests that the browser is doing. And I'm reluctant to do that at the moment. I do like the recent idea of adding a bookmarklet: https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/99 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/99
- crispyporkbites 7y ago
  You don't need to send anything back to the server for this, just a local parser based on the URL. Although the permissions system gives you access to all sites.

sairamkunala 7y ago

previously a similar service was present - FriendFeed. You could aggregate all your friend's feeds into a single location. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FriendFeed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FriendFeed They created and later opensourced Tornado(Python based HTTP framework for handling large number of threads)

czottmann 7y ago
I remember! Pouring one out for FF right now.

reggieband 7y ago

When the iPhone first allowed apps in an app store I had a conversation with another developer. We brainstormed an idea of an application that would allow you to aggregate all of your conversations with a person. Instead of opening the phone app, the messages app, facebook, twitter, etc. you would instead open the "Joe Smith" app and all of your conversations with that person across any medium would be aggregated in a single place. It is a bit like SoA vs. AoS (Structures of Arrays vs. Array of Structures). By transposing the relationship between app/person to be person/app it could change how we view social media. What I've found over the following 12 years is that application producers are extremely hostile to anything that would take the user out of their application. It reminds me of early 2000 era websites where external links on some sites were not allowed. The reason why RSS and similar aggregators do not work has nothing to do with technology. Any technology that allows you to follow the stars of a social media platform outside of that platform (or aggregate across platforms) will face a level of of opposition that is likely to be insurmountable.

kickscondor 7y ago
You're probably right. But don't forget that people are ultimately stronger than the platforms. Where is Snapchat now that TikTok arrived?
derivagral 7y ago
XMPP, RSS, and similar protocols feel like they died due to this. Technical stuff, sure, but I tend to view the technical reasons more as business justifications for lock-in than "legit" issues. I work in the micromobility vertical, which is facing some of these issues around trips, privacy, companies owning data, and cities wanting open data. Stuff like this [1] is popping up more and more. https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/10/transport-trip-planner-app-lyft-citibike-open-mobility-data/599650/ https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/10/transport-trip-p...
GrinningFool 7y ago
> Instead of opening the phone app, the messages app, > facebook, twitter, etc. you would instead open the "Joe > Smith" app and all of your conversations with that person > across any medium would be aggregated in a single place BlackBerry hub did this under BBOS10. The android app more-or-less does it as well. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blackberry.hub&hl=en_US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blackberry...

Jarwain 7y ago

I love the idea, I think it's Really Clever. I can't wait for mobile support, although I noticed the plan is for Firefox users and I'm still stuck on Chrome. I think a neat feature would be to group multiple sites together for a single individual. For example, following a web comic and connecting that with the artist's Twitter, as a single item. I'm curious as to whether it keeps track of which items I've seen or whether it only has a staleness measure

kickscondor 7y ago
Re: grouping. This is a feature called "bundling" that I'm halfway through finishing. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/63 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/63 It doesn't track unread items. This is a move away from the 'news feed' or 'inbox' approach to reading the Web.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

z0mbie42 7y ago

Wow, this idea of grouping messages is really great! I would really love to see a Mastodon (Fediverse?) client implementing it! Congrats @ author!

huxflux 7y ago

I'm in love with this!

bovermyer 7y ago

I love this. I've been looking for something to solve this particular problem for awhile now. Thanks!

chrischen 7y ago

This reminds me of MSN Messenger. Back then people abused the nickname feature to write a status message.

solstice 7y ago
I think this was used in Skype as well during the mid 00s

hrdwdmrbl 7y ago

Too bad Activity Stream (https://www.w3.org/Social/ https://www.w3.org/Social/ and https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/) never succeeded or else your project would be easy for anyone to implement.

fenwick67 7y ago
There's ActivityPub (https://activitypub.rocks/ https://activitypub.rocks/). Not that it's perfect.

giancarlostoro 7y ago

This is awesome, I've been meaning to code some sort of intranet for my home with something like this for myself. Maybe now this one will just be a link within my intranet. Still havent worked out what I want for my intranet entirely. There are so many web based solutions you could make your own (internal) cloud OS.

nanna 7y ago

I love this. And the video is amazing. I love the design, especially the bizarre loading screen. Initial UX thoughts from a elfeed user who imported their feeds with an opml: - It would be great if the enter and close buttons were in the same spot, instead of the close button jumping to the bottom, so you could open and close drawers more easily. - It'd be great if links could be shaded after they'd been opened, or marked somehow else as having been read. - Would love to be able to reorder tabs - Would be great if you could change the label for all the entries in a group in one go. Eg, I set the yellow geekface emoji for my tech follows, but I want to change this to a darker skinned variant without having to do so one-by-one. - After I've added my feeds and given them all categories, the home tab is empty and calls me to add follows. It's unclear if I'm waiting for feeds to update or something, or if I need to leave some uncategorised, etc. - Love the graphs but I'm not exactly sure what they mean. - As you'd expect from an emacs user, would love to have more keyboard binding. Cycle through, unfold this drawer, unfold all drawers, switch tab, etc. Thanks for this ace project!

kickscondor 7y ago
- Working on this. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/50 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/50 - Re: link colors. I think this is already the case for post titles. What platform did you try it on? - Re: reordering tabs. I've put this in the queue. Thank you. - Re: changing tabs. Part of this: https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/70 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/70 - Re: empty home tab. Good point. If home isn't wanted, maybe I make it go away... Hmm need to think about this. - Re: graphs. I've added a tooltip in the next release and cleared up the logic. More improvements will come with the upcoming design. - Re: keyboard shortcuts. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/68 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/68 Thank you for the very thorough review! I hope these will improve over the next month.
- Quanttek 7y ago
  Re home: Maybe split it into two: an "uncategorized" tab and an "all" tab

isoprophlex 7y ago

This is the paradigmatically different internet I never knew I craved. I'm totally hooked on your idea: this is what the internet beyond 2020 should be. No more walled gardens and network effect lock-in; people first, apps second. Fantastic work.

andrewstuart 7y ago

This site should say what it is, right up front.

kickscondor 7y ago
My strategy is to build curiosity.

mcrump 7y ago

Your YT promo video needs to get to the point much much faster. 45 seconds tops. Save the cuteness for later or another video.

kickscondor 7y ago
This is the cuteness video. There is no other video.

AbraKdabra 7y ago

Whoa, that video is a whole trip on its own.

technics256 7y ago

Wow. The video and everything is extremely impressive. Are you an artist also? If not, you should be.

vasergen 7y ago

Wow, love it

pkamb 7y ago

> I use it to follow people This is something I have a real need for. Specifically, podcast hosts. I want to follow certain hosts and listen to every random show they're on. Some hosts do keep lists of their appearances across many shows: http://hypercritical.co/about/appearances/ http://hypercritical.co/about/appearances/ But that forces me to manually find the episodes and add each one to my podcast app. I want something that aggregates appearances into a cross-podcast RSS feed that I can subscribe to in my app. Automatically subscribe to every one of their appearances.

kickscondor 7y ago
This is a brilliant concept. Hosts could keep a feed of their appearances, but it would be interesting for someone to make a site that tracked this sort of thing (using user-submitted links I suppose).
- severine 7y ago
  You should take a look at Listen Notes[1] and maybe talk to wenbinf[2,3]. [1] https://www.listennotes.com/ https://www.listennotes.com/ [2] https://github.com/wenbinf https://github.com/wenbinf [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wenbinf https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=wenbinf
- pkamb 7y ago
  found one: https://www.podchaser.com/creators https://www.podchaser.com/creators
- chrisaldrich 7y ago
  https://huffduffer.com/ https://huffduffer.com/ is another good discovery/bookmarking tool for podcasts. It has RSS feeds for everything on the site including custom searches that could potentially pick up your favorite contributors. The bookmarking functionality also makes it easy for you to quickly add things you find to one or more followable feeds for the one-off guest appearances you may hear about. (Originally posted at boffosocko.com/2020/03/21/55769517/)

pletsch 7y ago

I like that you have a style for your UI that (at least looking at your other projects) is completely yours. I think more developers that release small projects all the time should do this.

goblin89 7y ago

Fraidycat is the first piece of open-source software I noticed using Blue Oak Model License.

runxel 7y ago
Nice! Didn't even know this exists. I'm a bit confused, tho: the only real content is: > This license gives everyone as much permission to work with this software as possible, while protecting contributors from liability. This doesn't really sound unambiguous to me (but maybe that's because English is not my native language). As comparison from The Unlicense: > Anyone is free to copy, modify, publish, use, compile, sell, or distribute this software, either in source code form or as a compiled binary, for any purpose, commercial or non-commercial, and by any means. Somehow that's much clearer to me.
- roryokane 7y ago
  The Purpose paragraph you quoted from https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/blob/master/LICENSE.md https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/blob/master/LICENSE... is far from “the only real content”. That paragraph is a statement of intent, not a compression of the details into one sentence. It’s not supposed to be unambiguous. The next seven paragraphs on Acceptance, Copyright, Notices, Excuse, Patent, Reliability, and No Liability are the actual rules of the license. The Blue Oak Model License aims to be closer to the MIT License than to the Unlicense. The Unlicense releases the software into the public domain, which means, for example, that someone who makes a derivative work could release that work under a proprietary license. In contrast, the Notices section of the Blue Oak Model License, just like the third paragraph of the MIT License, requires derivative works to be released under the same license. I would say the Blue Oak Model License uses the idea of “freedom through self-imposed restrictions” more than both the Unlicense and the MIT License. I think the biggest difference between the MIT License and the Blue Oak Model License is that the MIT License doesn’t mention patents, which (some lawyers think) could allow authors of MIT-Licensed software to sue users for violating their patents used by the software. The Blue Oak Model License’s Patent section closes that loophole.

gto16108 7y ago

“Why do you have to bring cats into this?” Sincerely, Angela from The Office

wangii 7y ago

no offense, but really, get a life!

kickscondor 7y ago
I actually appreciate this advice and I do hope to get around to doing this one day.
- heyoni 7y ago
  Get me one too while you’re out there
- wangii 7y ago
  thanks! I honestly believe it's a waste of time to 'follow' anyone online. social media is a mistake, has almost 0 positive influence.

newtoday 7y ago

This is awesome! The design / branding itself is pleasantly unique and fun! @kickscondor feature idea: it would be awesome if users could share their feed sources as a community shared feed that one could switch to. Edit: I see now that ccktlmazeltov said the same 2 hours ago

kickscondor 7y ago
For feed sharing, here's where I'm putting ideas: https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/6 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/6 Thank you for the nice words.

listic 7y ago

I wish there was a way to follow someone's posts on, say, Twitter, but not re-posts. Is there an easy way to do that?

kickscondor 7y ago
Is this something you would want as a global option? Or would you do it on a case-by-case? I'm tempted to just add a "Show Reposts" in the filtering menu. That seems perhaps more useful (to me) than having to manage individual settings.
- listic 7y ago
  I think a global option in the filtering menu would be just fine.

listic 7y ago

What does it mean there's no online sync for the binaries?

kickscondor 7y ago
The extensions will sync your list of follows between computers. So if you are logged in to Chrome on your work computer and you subscribe to dezz.ie, it'll show up when you log in to Chrome at home.
- kyleee 7y ago
  Is there import/export functionality?
  - kickscondor 7y ago
    Yes - in OPML and JSON.

calmchaos 7y ago

Feedbro is better with more social media integration support. https://nodetics.com/feedbro/ https://nodetics.com/feedbro/

code_duck 7y ago

I like this idea. I'm very tired of trying to sift through publishers (individuals too) sorted by some opaque, perennially ineffective algorithm. Twitter, for instance - I follow hundreds of people, but my notifications are literally 100% Rick Wilson. I have absolutely no idea how they made this decision, but it's way off the mark. On Instagram, there's an account that's my favorite. I've liked every photo they post. They haven't shown up in my feed for months. Checked their account and they've been posting new content daily for 3 weeks. Meanwhile my fees shows me pics of some guy I don't care about at all walking his dog in vacation.

ccktlmazeltov 7y ago

feature request: I tried adding decrypt.co and could not, and then I couldn't leave the page to add a new thing.

kickscondor 7y ago
Ok - thank you. I'll sort this out!

joantune 7y ago

Circa 4 weeks ago I had the same core idea! I think this is very interesting to be able to follow people you respect or are interested in one way or another, regardless of the platform where you find them. A kind of global Twitter. This has potential to become the new version of a social network. Kudos on executing it PS: Initially I thought that the killer platform to adopt such a thing would be keybase! I even thought of tweeting to them, but then the idea just fleeted away. Oh well..

Krasnol 7y ago

Is there a way to actually add account login data so you can grab feeds from users who are not visible if not logged in? I see that happening on Instagram for example.

kickscondor 7y ago
This is in the plan. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/9 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/9 Just wanted to ensure the concept was solid before venturing into it. Also concerned about storage of credentials.
- Krasnol 7y ago
  Perfect. Thank you. I really like it :)

dazuaz 7y ago

No spacing on top of the video almost killed me

jdpigeon 7y ago

I would really really love this for mobile. 90% of my mindless browsing that I'd like to take control of happens on my phone.

kickscondor 7y ago
This is huge for me too. You can follow progress here: https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/31 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/31

xvector 7y ago

This is amazing, I've been wanting something like this for a long time!

CitrusFruits 7y ago

I'm so in. I actually had an idea for something like this about a month ago. I'm not 100% sure how fraidycat operates, but I was thinking of some sort of social media aggregator that would only show updates at most once per day. The intention behind it being along a similar vein: to keep myself from doing the constant app switch and refresh just to make sure I wasn't missing out. Not that I would have ever executed, but I ditched the idea after looking through facebook's graph API and seeing that it wasn't feasible. I never thought of making it a browser extension though! Good job, this is awesome!

kickscondor 7y ago
That's very amusing - I originally intended Fraidycat to be "closed" except for a brief window between 7 PM and 7:10 PM - we must be on the same biorhythm. It does update throughout the day - but perhaps there is another extension that can block Fraidycat when you don't want the distractions. Thank you for the encouragement!

65934 7y ago

Literally the worst landing page and copy i"ve seen Bruh You gotta improve this

minusSeven 7y ago

I am getting a networkError when attempting to fetch resource on any instagram links...

kickscondor 7y ago
This is likely due to Firefox 'Strict' Tracking Protection. If you are okay turning it down to 'Standard', it will be fine. https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/26 https://github.com/kickscondor/fraidycat/issues/26 Not sure how to solve this. Firefox thinks Fraidycat is "calling home".

boznz 7y ago

"If only every network used RSS!" The big ones dont use RSS for a reason, they want you on the page to show adds. I expect they will start blocking access once you get above their radar. Good luck though.

fishbacon 7y ago

This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately, the way stuff gets to me. This might actually be what I was thinking about. Exciting times when something you thought you would have to build falls in your lap. I might contribute to this, thanks for making it :)

rukuu001 7y ago

I love this. - I love the way it looks - I love what it does - I love that it introduced me to philosophy.life

aWidebrant 7y ago

I like this a lot. It feels like a much healthier starting point than diving head first into the discovery feeds of the platforms.

dmitshur 7y ago

The idea of not letting one noisy person overshadow the more quiet ones reminds me of one of my old projects Latest Tweets [1]. It was a single page that displayed just a one latest tweet from everyone you followed on Twitter. I wanted to be able to see people who tweet indecently more easily. It stopped working after Twitter shut down the v1 API and I didn’t try to update it, but there was something intriguing about the premise compared to the traditional feed, and I miss being able to use it. I’m really glad to see this project that is much more polished and featureful! [1]: https://github.com/shurcooL-legacy/latest-tweets https://github.com/shurcooL-legacy/latest-tweets

Neff 7y ago

I was just looking for something like this - a way to aggregate all my chosen feeds across multiple services. It sort of feels like the next iteration of Fever[1] [1] - https://feedafever.com/ https://feedafever.com/

yunusabd 7y ago

FYI Someone put this on product hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/fraidycat https://www.producthunt.com/posts/fraidycat