7 ms·

On one hand, this is unfortunate since X always directs me to a login page, and Nitter was the only way I could view whatever gets posted nowadays. On the other

On one hand, this is unfortunate since X always directs me to a login page, and Nitter was the only way I could view whatever gets posted nowadays. On the other hand, the cynical side of me is thankful that I have no more desirable means to see the contents of posts on X. Edit: a similar thing happened with Reddit and Teddit(?). API restrictions effectively killed alternative frontends, so I simply don't look at Reddit posts anymore. I am aware of old.reddit.com, but in the case of Reddit I preferred the alternative frontends not only for no-JS compatibility, but also a (possibly false) sense of privacy

superhumanuser 3y ago
I have not been to Reddit after they effectively shut down RiF.
loceng 3y ago
[flagged]
sphars 3y ago
While it is unmaintained now due to the API changes, Libreddit (reddit frontend) is still working for me. Granted, I self-host it, and I'm the only user so I never hit the rate limit, but no issues at all, save for some of the changes reddit has made (namely the new share links)
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- MallocVoidstar 3y ago
  It's been forked by a maintainer as redlib: https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib
  - sphars 3y ago
    Thanks for posting, I'll check this out. I knew that maintainer was working on a fork, but I never saw it advertised.
- lucb1e 3y ago
  The repository says at the top in a HUGE FONT that "Libreddit is currently not operational" and the website just shows a oneliner saying Germans are not allowed to read that page. The issue tracker talks of forking and stuff. Doesn't feel too welcoming or functional. But in actuality it works just fine? Is the message simply wrong when you plug in your own api key and stay in the free tier of reddit's API?
  - sphars 3y ago
    I think that message was to let users know it's basically on it's last legs and could 100% stop at anytime. When the API changes started, most all of the instances ran into rate limits due to the number of requests. But it works just fine until that rate is hit. Like I mentioned, I've been running my own private instance and I've never hit the rate limit so it's been working fine for me. And I don't know about any API key. AFAIK, Libreddit uses the publicly available JSON, no need for a key (hence why it's read-only). Since it's still working for me, those JSON endpoints must still be available, just highly rate limited now
    - lucb1e 3y ago
      Oh, that's cool! Sounds like it should suffice for my usage also, which is extraordinarily light since they shut down reddit-is-fun. I've mostly replaced that with mastodon, not the same concept but serves a similar "let's scroll and see what's new" function. After doing some analysis (a while ago) on reddit comment/submission rates before and after the boycott and new rate limits, it seems either only a tiny tiny fraction actually left reddit and/or reddit benefited from the negative publicity as much as or more than they lost. Since nothing has changed since then, I suppose there's no point in me staying off the platform anymore, especially if I'm not contributing with OC submissions or comments. Libreddit sounds like a good way to do that, thanks :)
  - SushiHippie 3y ago
    > and the website just shows a oneliner saying Germans are not allowed to read that page. Curious which website do you mean? The official instance is not online anymore. And I'm not aware of an official libreddit website.
- Share6323 3y ago
  Interesting, I thought they completely disabled the APIs
AstroJetson 3y ago
Yep, it will be easier to cut the X habit off. I'll miss Nitter, but I'll be happier in the long run. I was a Reddit Apollo user, and it was easier to wean off of Reddit when I had to use their horrible app or their website. Even using old.reddit has been painful.
- jjackson5324 3y ago
  Interesting because the content I get on X is far, far more valuable than HN + Reddit + Facebook combined. It’s the only place you can follow subject matter experts and get their real time thoughts. I think people on HN just don’t know how to use Twitter? If you want to use it effectively, you have to utilize lists. Curate your own lists or find someone you respect and follow their lists. If someone is posting things you don’t enjoy then remove them. Frankly, if X is causing you to be angry/depressed then a big part of that is on you.
  - superhumanuser 3y ago
    Why is this reply getting downvoted?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - jjackson5324 3y ago
      I'm guessing 1) HN readers don't like Elon Musk (I don't like him either) so they don't like Twitter 2) I implied HN readers are doing something wrong (as any other human being, they don't like being told that) 3) I (slightly) insulted the intelligence of HN readers by saying they didn't know how to use Twitter and they really don't like that I've just gotten downvotes and no one's responded with any actual rebuttals so I don't think what I've posted is wrong.
      - jameshart 3y ago
        You are missing the fact that, for many of us who used to enjoy Twitter in exactly the way you described, X no longer fills that need, because the subject matter experts whose real-time thoughts we used to follow have left the platform, and all that remains are people whose real-time thoughts we don't generally want to hear. That may differ from your experience - your real-time expert community might be different than mine. But for a lot of us who actually used to enjoy Twitter, what you're describing is no longer to be found there.
duxup 3y ago
I'm inclined to have the same wishes. There's a weird world of outrage about twitter ... on twitter by people who keep providing content for twitter. I don't get that. The further downside being that all the alternatives I've dipped my toes in, the content is pretty much similar to twitter and all the alternatives are offering are various back end type differences, but the same content. So personally I'm not particularly happy with those either.
- yterdy 3y ago
  People are working through their grief, knowing that a utility that is essentially the modern postal service was sold to someone who is essentially the modern Hearst.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    But Twitter is/was not a utility, not a “modern post office” not a “town square” (before someone tries to bring up that terrible analogy too) and really doesn’t deserve people’s grief. It’s yet another corporate-owned and controlled messaging app and we are seeing the inevitable result of that control.
    - ticos 3y ago
      Not really a utility, but it meant that someone at the parks and rec department with virtually zero computer skills could let everyone know when things were closed due to rain and when they were open again.
    - nomilk 3y ago
      > Twitter is/was not a utility I've found no substitute for getting breaking news on a specific topic (e.g. natural disasters, war, politics, sport). Google News is second best, but the sites it indexes are at the absolute least 20 minutes behind twitter. Zite was my favourite app from many, many years ago. But it was good at collating daily reading, not for up to the minute/second curation. For certain topics that are time sensitive, I haven't found anything that comes close to twitter.
twelvechairs 3y ago
Reddit the non-profit frontends are still working (redreader for android is good). Twitter, instagram etc. there's nothing even this reasonable. Begs the question what will the future open web forum/discussion place be? Lemmy doesn't seem to have really hit the simplicity to attract users
giancarlostoro 3y ago
> API restrictions effectively killed alternative frontends, so I simply don't look at Reddit posts anymore. They recently did a poll to users, asking which UI you use most. I put old reddit because it is. I cannot understand how in what? 6+ years they developed new reddit and still don't have true feature parity? This tells me they don't have their priorities in line, and they want to IPO to boot. Personally I think some websites don't really have any need to become publicly traded companies, I rather they become profitable and not controllable by the whims of tech illiterate investors.
dinvlad 3y ago
I've recently learned that Twitter can actually be quite good for building genuine connections online, but it takes a very conscious effort and a lot of diligence
- throwup238 3y ago
  I'm sure that could be said for Erowid or any number of sites with a discussion forum function.
  - dinvlad 3y ago
    I was cynical about X like that too, but recently learned some good techniques that make a lot of difference to the overall experience. And then there's really nothing like it, in terms of reach. Also, it's easy to see bad in everything, and then all we see is bad. But there're good things to find as well, it's just a matter of what we focus on..
    - alwa 3y ago
      What are some of the good techniques you’ve found success with?
      - throwup238 3y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy
        dinvlad 3y ago
        Thanks, had a laugh!
      - dinvlad 3y ago
        A lot of the things described here, for example: https://publiclab.co/building-in-public https://publiclab.co/building-in-public
monero-xmr 3y ago
Well the “experts” among us here, WaPo, and the NYT predicted Twitter would surely collapse after firing their SREs and admin that were crucial to keeping the servers running. Any day now Twitter will collapse and all of us will be saved. Surely
- viraptor 3y ago
  Here's a challenge: find an article from either wapo or nyt which actually predicted a sure collapse. And I mean a collapse as you said rather than issues with operations. (which they had many of since the takeover) I may have missed one if it exists, but I'd bet they didn't publish anything that certain.
  - monero-xmr 3y ago
    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/business/media/twitter-users-confessions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/business/media/twitter-us... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/technology/twitter-glitches-features.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/technology/twitter-glitch... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/opinion/elon-musk-twitter-chaos.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/opinion/elon-musk-twitter...
    - jph00 3y ago
      None of these 3 articles "predict a sure collapse". One of them reports on what twitter users were saying, one reports on technical problems occurring at that time, and one is an opinion piece titled "Elon Musk Has No Idea What He’s Doing at Twitter" (but which doesn't predict a collapse AFAICT).
    - crotchfire 3y ago
      Zing.
    - viraptor 3y ago
      The first link is reporting about users panicking and one of the few comments from NYT itself is "Though there are no official signs that Twitter is going anywhere,...". The second documents actual issues and makes no predictions. Even the third one which is just an opinion piece about how bad of a decision maker Elon is doesn't come close to suggesting a collapse. Please read the actual articles.
hexage1814 3y ago
Ironically enough, to me what it bothers me the most on twitter is how bad and slow its front-end is. Sure, I'm not a fan of having to use an account, but if twitter at least had a nitter instance, like literally the same front-end, I would have way less problems with that.
globalnode 3y ago
twitter and facebook have mostly been garbo for me, what i would like to know is where are the interesting mathematicians and software engineers posting now? or have they had enough too. i suspect that may be the case.
Tenemo 3y ago
I still use Reddit is Fun (RiF) with no problems. There's a ReVanced version, you provide with your API key and it works like it always had.

superhumanuser 3y ago

I have not been to Reddit after they effectively shut down RiF.

loceng 3y ago

[flagged]

sphars 3y ago

While it is unmaintained now due to the API changes, Libreddit (reddit frontend) is still working for me. Granted, I self-host it, and I'm the only user so I never hit the rate limit, but no issues at all, save for some of the changes reddit has made (namely the new share links)

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
MallocVoidstar 3y ago
It's been forked by a maintainer as redlib: https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib https://github.com/redlib-org/redlib
- sphars 3y ago
  Thanks for posting, I'll check this out. I knew that maintainer was working on a fork, but I never saw it advertised.
lucb1e 3y ago
The repository says at the top in a HUGE FONT that "Libreddit is currently not operational" and the website just shows a oneliner saying Germans are not allowed to read that page. The issue tracker talks of forking and stuff. Doesn't feel too welcoming or functional. But in actuality it works just fine? Is the message simply wrong when you plug in your own api key and stay in the free tier of reddit's API?
- sphars 3y ago
  I think that message was to let users know it's basically on it's last legs and could 100% stop at anytime. When the API changes started, most all of the instances ran into rate limits due to the number of requests. But it works just fine until that rate is hit. Like I mentioned, I've been running my own private instance and I've never hit the rate limit so it's been working fine for me. And I don't know about any API key. AFAIK, Libreddit uses the publicly available JSON, no need for a key (hence why it's read-only). Since it's still working for me, those JSON endpoints must still be available, just highly rate limited now
  - lucb1e 3y ago
    Oh, that's cool! Sounds like it should suffice for my usage also, which is extraordinarily light since they shut down reddit-is-fun. I've mostly replaced that with mastodon, not the same concept but serves a similar "let's scroll and see what's new" function. After doing some analysis (a while ago) on reddit comment/submission rates before and after the boycott and new rate limits, it seems either only a tiny tiny fraction actually left reddit and/or reddit benefited from the negative publicity as much as or more than they lost. Since nothing has changed since then, I suppose there's no point in me staying off the platform anymore, especially if I'm not contributing with OC submissions or comments. Libreddit sounds like a good way to do that, thanks :)
- SushiHippie 3y ago
  > and the website just shows a oneliner saying Germans are not allowed to read that page. Curious which website do you mean? The official instance is not online anymore. And I'm not aware of an official libreddit website.
Share6323 3y ago
Interesting, I thought they completely disabled the APIs

AstroJetson 3y ago

Yep, it will be easier to cut the X habit off. I'll miss Nitter, but I'll be happier in the long run. I was a Reddit Apollo user, and it was easier to wean off of Reddit when I had to use their horrible app or their website. Even using old.reddit has been painful.

jjackson5324 3y ago
Interesting because the content I get on X is far, far more valuable than HN + Reddit + Facebook combined. It’s the only place you can follow subject matter experts and get their real time thoughts. I think people on HN just don’t know how to use Twitter? If you want to use it effectively, you have to utilize lists. Curate your own lists or find someone you respect and follow their lists. If someone is posting things you don’t enjoy then remove them. Frankly, if X is causing you to be angry/depressed then a big part of that is on you.
- superhumanuser 3y ago
  Why is this reply getting downvoted?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - jjackson5324 3y ago
    I'm guessing 1) HN readers don't like Elon Musk (I don't like him either) so they don't like Twitter 2) I implied HN readers are doing something wrong (as any other human being, they don't like being told that) 3) I (slightly) insulted the intelligence of HN readers by saying they didn't know how to use Twitter and they really don't like that I've just gotten downvotes and no one's responded with any actual rebuttals so I don't think what I've posted is wrong.
    - jameshart 3y ago
      You are missing the fact that, for many of us who used to enjoy Twitter in exactly the way you described, X no longer fills that need, because the subject matter experts whose real-time thoughts we used to follow have left the platform, and all that remains are people whose real-time thoughts we don't generally want to hear. That may differ from your experience - your real-time expert community might be different than mine. But for a lot of us who actually used to enjoy Twitter, what you're describing is no longer to be found there.

duxup 3y ago

I'm inclined to have the same wishes. There's a weird world of outrage about twitter ... on twitter by people who keep providing content for twitter. I don't get that. The further downside being that all the alternatives I've dipped my toes in, the content is pretty much similar to twitter and all the alternatives are offering are various back end type differences, but the same content. So personally I'm not particularly happy with those either.

yterdy 3y ago
People are working through their grief, knowing that a utility that is essentially the modern postal service was sold to someone who is essentially the modern Hearst.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  But Twitter is/was not a utility, not a “modern post office” not a “town square” (before someone tries to bring up that terrible analogy too) and really doesn’t deserve people’s grief. It’s yet another corporate-owned and controlled messaging app and we are seeing the inevitable result of that control.
  - ticos 3y ago
    Not really a utility, but it meant that someone at the parks and rec department with virtually zero computer skills could let everyone know when things were closed due to rain and when they were open again.
  - nomilk 3y ago
    > Twitter is/was not a utility I've found no substitute for getting breaking news on a specific topic (e.g. natural disasters, war, politics, sport). Google News is second best, but the sites it indexes are at the absolute least 20 minutes behind twitter. Zite was my favourite app from many, many years ago. But it was good at collating daily reading, not for up to the minute/second curation. For certain topics that are time sensitive, I haven't found anything that comes close to twitter.

twelvechairs 3y ago

Reddit the non-profit frontends are still working (redreader for android is good). Twitter, instagram etc. there's nothing even this reasonable. Begs the question what will the future open web forum/discussion place be? Lemmy doesn't seem to have really hit the simplicity to attract users

giancarlostoro 3y ago

> API restrictions effectively killed alternative frontends, so I simply don't look at Reddit posts anymore. They recently did a poll to users, asking which UI you use most. I put old reddit because it is. I cannot understand how in what? 6+ years they developed new reddit and still don't have true feature parity? This tells me they don't have their priorities in line, and they want to IPO to boot. Personally I think some websites don't really have any need to become publicly traded companies, I rather they become profitable and not controllable by the whims of tech illiterate investors.

dinvlad 3y ago

I've recently learned that Twitter can actually be quite good for building genuine connections online, but it takes a very conscious effort and a lot of diligence

throwup238 3y ago
I'm sure that could be said for Erowid or any number of sites with a discussion forum function.
- dinvlad 3y ago
  I was cynical about X like that too, but recently learned some good techniques that make a lot of difference to the overall experience. And then there's really nothing like it, in terms of reach. Also, it's easy to see bad in everything, and then all we see is bad. But there're good things to find as well, it's just a matter of what we focus on..
  - alwa 3y ago
    What are some of the good techniques you’ve found success with?
    - throwup238 3y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy
      - dinvlad 3y ago
        Thanks, had a laugh!
    - dinvlad 3y ago
      A lot of the things described here, for example: https://publiclab.co/building-in-public https://publiclab.co/building-in-public

monero-xmr 3y ago

Well the “experts” among us here, WaPo, and the NYT predicted Twitter would surely collapse after firing their SREs and admin that were crucial to keeping the servers running. Any day now Twitter will collapse and all of us will be saved. Surely

viraptor 3y ago
Here's a challenge: find an article from either wapo or nyt which actually predicted a sure collapse. And I mean a collapse as you said rather than issues with operations. (which they had many of since the takeover) I may have missed one if it exists, but I'd bet they didn't publish anything that certain.
- monero-xmr 3y ago
  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/business/media/twitter-users-confessions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/14/business/media/twitter-us... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/technology/twitter-glitches-features.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/08/technology/twitter-glitch... https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/opinion/elon-musk-twitter-chaos.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/10/opinion/elon-musk-twitter...
  - jph00 3y ago
    None of these 3 articles "predict a sure collapse". One of them reports on what twitter users were saying, one reports on technical problems occurring at that time, and one is an opinion piece titled "Elon Musk Has No Idea What He’s Doing at Twitter" (but which doesn't predict a collapse AFAICT).
  - crotchfire 3y ago
    Zing.
  - viraptor 3y ago
    The first link is reporting about users panicking and one of the few comments from NYT itself is "Though there are no official signs that Twitter is going anywhere,...". The second documents actual issues and makes no predictions. Even the third one which is just an opinion piece about how bad of a decision maker Elon is doesn't come close to suggesting a collapse. Please read the actual articles.

hexage1814 3y ago

Ironically enough, to me what it bothers me the most on twitter is how bad and slow its front-end is. Sure, I'm not a fan of having to use an account, but if twitter at least had a nitter instance, like literally the same front-end, I would have way less problems with that.

globalnode 3y ago

twitter and facebook have mostly been garbo for me, what i would like to know is where are the interesting mathematicians and software engineers posting now? or have they had enough too. i suspect that may be the case.

Tenemo 3y ago

I still use Reddit is Fun (RiF) with no problems. There's a ReVanced version, you provide with your API key and it works like it always had.