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Firefox extension to redirect x.com to xcancel.com
- 2Gkashmiri 9mo agovery good. i find it annoying that whenever there is a new browser extension on HN, i ask for a "firefox version" to which the response is almost always kneejerk "eww no" or something to that end. So to see a firefox extension, that's refreshing. I hope you continue working on it and help improve the extension ecosystem
- CalRobert 9mo agoThe same people bemoaning the war on general purpose computing or the surveillance state happily using Chrome has always been a truly bizarre disconnect I’ve never understood. Maybe it’s age? I used Firefox since firebird, and Phoenix, and Netscape, but saying “try Firefox” might feel like talking about an archaeological relic to a 28 year old who has never even seen Firefox running.
- Dansvidania 9mo agoAre other chromium based browsers also problematic ?
- Telaneo 9mo agoThey all rely on Google and Chromium's browser engine in the end, so make of that what you will. Firefox (plus its derivatives) and Safari are the only two other options if you want a different browser engine today.
- 2Gkashmiri 9mo agoOh but mah brave. How tone deaf can people be? I talked to brave supporters and they all say "Firefox is a pita to modify" but we have had waterfox and other derivatives, floorp and others for decades. In the end, Brendan is the one who does not like Firefox for personal reasons and that's why brave isn't based on Firefox. Personal reasons but brave fanboys don't see it
- self_awareness 9mo agoThis is generally sad. People hate a service, but they depend on it so much they create whole codebases to cope with it. Depending on things we hate is a tragedy. How about just admitting the things you hate? Then you can just drop it and live a happier life. Unless you are of course somehow required/forced to use X, then I'm all for projects like these.
- dmit 9mo agoMore of a "Ugh, I clicked a mystery link, and it's Twitter" situation for me. A rare case for sure, but I'm petty enough that adding even one (legit, non-bot) MAU irks me.
- DoctorOW 9mo agoThere's Twitter links on the frontpage of HN right now. Sure, I don't have an account but until _nobody_ interesting has an account I have to use XCancel. The UX for signed out users is deliberately bad.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- rsynnott 9mo agoI assume the use case is for people who don't have a twitter account but encounter twitter links from time to time (Twitter's been broken for non-logged-in users since shortly after Naughty Old Mr Car took over, and even before his reign was sometimes flaky for them).
- BikiniPrince 9mo agoBroken? They curbed abuse and view botting while increasing their user base. Working as intended.
- wolvoleo 9mo agoUnfortunately the alternatives aren't much better. Bluesky now does the same BS where they demand an account if you just want to read replies to a tweet or whatever they call that at bluesky. And there is no bskycancel.com yet.
- dudefeliciano 9mo agoIs there any way to view trending topics on nitter/xcancel?
- hexbin010 9mo agohttps://libredirect.github.io/ https://libredirect.github.io/ does this for many other services and has a good reputation
- contravariant 9mo agoThey should really update those links. Could be a coincidence but about half seemed to redirect me to a service that was discontinued or continued under a different name.
- hexbin010 9mo agoAh I hadn't realised development is falling behind a bit (addon last released 6 months ago, though it's possible it doesn't need updating I guess)
- contravariant 9mo agoCould just be the webpage to be fair, but it's not a great look. After trying a few others I do think I was a bit unlucky with my first few tries.
- dmit 9mo agoI'm using https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ https://einaregilsson.com/redirector/ with a couple custom rules. Unfortunately, it appears the author has died (https://github.com/einaregilsson/Redirector#tribute https://github.com/einaregilsson/Redirector#tribute), and the project is in a maintenance state. But it does exactly everything I need, and I disabled the auto-update, so I should be safe from any takeover attacks. Thank you, Einar.
- forgotpwd16 9mo agoWas going to mention Redirector too. Excellent tool/extension. Didn't know about Einar. It seems the next most prolific contributor has taken over maintenanceship. But, yeah, for time being works fine as is. (Didn't know tool was that old--has existed ~20y!--either.)
- gerdesj 9mo agoGreat stuff. I've just installed it and tested it on a link from a HN topic which worked exactly as advertised.
- mentalgear 9mo agoGreat - instant install !
- littlecranky67 9mo agoIs there something similar for Instagram?
- DarkFuture 9mo agoYes I've been using this: - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/social-switch/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/social-switch... And set it to ImgInn for Instagram
- Noaidi 9mo agoLibRedirect will do it for several websites. https://libredirect.github.io/ https://libredirect.github.io/
- aembleton 9mo agohttps://imginn.com/ https://imginn.com/ Use this extension to setup a redirect https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/redirector/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/redirector/
- nashashmi 9mo agoPublishing workarounds like this terrifies me the service will no longer work soon.
- danielfalbo 9mo agoI also like to redirect ^https?://instagram.com/(.*) to https://imginn.com/$1 https://imginn.com/$1 But I never trust extensions, I do it manually.
- ides_dev 9mo agoI didn't know about Imginn, so thanks!
- aceazzameen 9mo agoHow do you do it manually?
- _vufv 9mo agoYou can add this as a bookmark in your browser, and just click it to toggle between x.com and xcancel.com javascript:(function(){const p=['https://x.com','https://xcancel.com'],u=location.href,i=p.findIndex(x=>u.startsWith(x));if(i!==-1)location.href=p[(i+1)%p.length]+u.slice(p[i].length)})();
- dobladov 9mo agoI do something similar since I don't want to trust yet another extension, I made a small Tampermonkey script. https://gist.github.com/dobladov/62c4be59d774347cb480b115969a5f72 https://gist.github.com/dobladov/62c4be59d774347cb480b115969...
- nickthegreek 9mo agothat still gives X the impression though, which some are not to keen on.
- merpkz 9mo agoTwitter used to have a mobile version which was almost usable compared to regular, what happened to that? Doesn't seem to be working or it's actively redirecting me back to regular.
- candiddevmike 9mo agoMost of the social media websites now hide content behind a login. It really sucks with so many restaurants that put their menu only on Facebook.
- insin 9mo agoThe mobile version has just been a different flavour of the same React Native for Web app since New Twitter happened in 2019.
- WebReflection 9mo agoI used to have an extension per each domain then I've decided to publish regurlator https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/regurlator/jfgfmidmfgfajfmhbfhbkidjnhgdfinl https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/regurlator/jfgfmidm... ... this case would be like `^https:\/\/(?:x|twitter)\.com\/(.+)?$` `https://xcancel.com/$1 https://xcancel.com/$1` so you have a single extension with as many rules as you like and you can download/share/restore rules with ease (it's just a JSON file).
- RockstarSprain 9mo agoWas just looking for a more general extension like this, thanks! Just a small nitpick / feature request: I try not to install extensions that require "Read and change all your data on all websites" permission, so may I ask you to change it to something less general, such as requiring access to specific websites once the corresponding new URL is added to a white list? I saw some Chrome extensions doing this as of late.
- layla5alive 9mo ago+1, but it's not a small nitpick, principle of least privilege should be applied here.
- iso1631 9mo ago127.0.0.1 x.com in the hosts file does the job for me, but then I just want to avoid drive-by twits rather than see what they are saying
- danielktdoranie 9mo ago[flagged]
- peterpost2 9mo agoIsn't that what you are doing as well with your comment?
- throwfaraway135 9mo ago* * *
- FriendlyMike 9mo ago[flagged]
- sandblast 9mo ago[flagged]
- Dansvidania 9mo ago[flagged]
- wizzwizz4 9mo agoWithout commenting on Mike's tone in this instance, nobody can be universally friendly, in all situations: many friendlinesses conspire to yield an aggregate unfriendliness, so it's important to avoid those particular friendlinesses (or otherwise mitigate the issue). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- Dansvidania 9mo agoSure. Let’s go with restrictively selective friendly Mike.
- wizzwizz4 9mo agoRapidly-discerning selectively-friendly Mike.
- actionfromafar 9mo ago[flagged]
- consz 9mo ago
- kzrdude 9mo agoI see that many of you still call it twitter. I get if it's a protest, but current X seems very unlike twitter, so I don't understand why it should be called by that name.
- have_faith 9mo agoX is just an awkward name to say out loud, I don’t think most people have given it much thought.
- nemomarx 9mo agoX is just a really weird name. It's not natural to say "someone posted this on X" to me, and we had like a decade of Twitter and talking about it.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- ImPostingOnHN 9mo agoThe term "X" is already in common usage: primarily as a letter. If I said "I saw on X" out loud, most people would have no idea what I was talking about; "They saw on _a letter_?"; "Are they saying some kind of algebra?"; "Did they forget where they saw it and X is a placeholder?"; etc. You could disambiguate by saying "X Dot Com", but that's longer and more awkward to say than Twitter. Essentially, "X" as a name for Twitter is a confusing, poorly-forced meme that most folks don't care to entertain.
- egorfine 9mo agoWhy would I call Twitter something else?
- immibis 9mo agoBecause it's a completely different website now, even though it happens to have the same user database.
- reify 9mo agoI dont use x, but I use this for redirects to reddit; I create a two bookmarks in a folder called redirects in the bookmarks toolbar for easy access. when I click on a link to reddit, I click on the bookmark and it automatically redirects to reddit.nerdvpn.de or redlib.privacyredirect.com. there are many others javascript:(function(){if (location.host.endsWith('.reddit.com') && (location.host !='new.reddit.com') ) location.host='redlib.privacyredirect.com';})() javascript:(function(){if (location.host.endsWith('.reddit.com') && (location.host !='new.reddit.com') ) location.host='reddit.nerdvpn.de';})() here is the same thing for x.com redirects to xcancel.com javascript:(function(){if (location.host.endsWith('.x.com') && (location.host !='new.x.com') ) location.host='xcancel.com ';})() saves having loads of addons
- vivzkestrel 9mo ago- i ll tell you an even better option, dont! - like honestly, dont. i have realized lately that x is full of ragebaiting and other algorithmic stuff to make you invested into it. - you ll never have even an ounce of mind the moment you open anything on x - good time to make a new year resolution, delete your account on x and say a permanent goodbye. they are trying hard to lure you back in
- blell 9mo agoAll social media is flaming garbage. And before the “I’m very smart” types come, HN is not social media. It is a forum.
- knocknock 9mo agoDon't look at the "For you" curated feed. If you only look at the "Following" feed and you follow sane, smart people, then your experience on X will be much better.
- vivzkestrel 9mo agoi have tried that multiple times. the algorithm is sneaky af. slowly and steadily it starts pushing ragebaiting posts to you even if you dont intend to. eventually one fine day you open your account and boom, we are back to fighting over inconsequential stuff
- Geenirvana 9mo agoThank you. I am not a heavy user and I genuinely did not know this was an option. My experience is so bad I feel embarrassed opening the application in public. You may have saved my sanity
- addandsubtract 9mo agoWhy would sane, smart people still be on twitter?
- zwnow 9mo ago[flagged]
- judiisis 9mo agohttps://github.com/pritkr/predirect https://github.com/pritkr/predirect is also there for many frontends like invidious,searxng,nitter,scribe etc,it's default list of instances is currently outdated but it's customisable
- shevy-java 9mo agoElon killed twitter. I don't think this extension helps restore the original twitter, so it is a bit pointless.
- insin 9mo agoIf that's more like what you're after, Control Panel for Twitter [1] has a bunch of features which undo some of the X-era changes (including continuing to use it via twitter.com, and using the old Messages interface instead of Chat) It obviously can't fix the damage done to the product as a whole, nor the result of the peverse incentives introduced by boosted Tweets and Premium payouts, but it can lessen some of the personal effect of those (e.g. hiding replies from Premium accounts you don't follow) and keep you on a purely chronological timeline of nothing but what the people you follow are actually saying when X tries to make it otherwise (just last week they tried to make Following algorithmic by default) [1] https://soitis.dev/control-panel-for-twitter https://soitis.dev/control-panel-for-twitter
- mikae1 9mo agoDon't use an extension for every redirect. Use https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/redirector https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/redirector to write redirects for all sites.
- berkes 9mo agoI deleted my Twitter right before Elon bought it. Aside from political or social reasons, X is a terrible platform. More often than not, I get a blank page, something didn't load. If I get content, it's (randomly) behind a registration-wall. Or it shows confusing cookie banners that half the time don't even work. (Dev console full of js errors) So I don't even bother anymore. This service is technically so fragile and unstable, it's not worth the click. Aside from how it's socially and businesswise broken. Because I have looked into some of the errors and issues and they'll only occur for "anonymous users" and not for twitter users. They're oftencaused by (normal vanilla) adblockers or privacy protection. So I dare say they're either malicious, deliberate. Or lack of interest/resources for non-registered and/or privacy-aware users
- londons_explore 9mo agoI think you're hitting all the various bot walls. They sometimes deliberately break and show stale content so bots and scrapers don't know they're blocked. If you're logged in everything just works.
- berkes 9mo ago> If you're logged in everything just works. That's my point. That's the problem I am addressing. You present that as a solution. I presented it as a problem.
- brightball 9mo agoI find the combination of a Grok button on every post to real time fact check it, along with eventual notifications when a Community Note is added to something you previously interacted with goes a long way to making it the most trustable of all social media platforms. I don’t see any similar attempts to transparently live fact check on any other platform.
- Timon3 9mo agoWhy does "a Grok button on every post to real time fact check it" increase your trust, given the obvious and open control Musk has over it? When Grok disagreed with him, he kept saying they'd "fix" it, and that's not to mention that infamous "white genocide" issue. It's undeniable that Musk is using his control to align Grok with his own opinions. How does that not decrease your trust? I can't understand the thought process.
- anthk 9mo agoLibredirect will do for tons of domains. If you use Dillo, with dilloc (from a git build, you need socket control support in the configure flag) and a menu command you can do it but not automatically. Maybe w3m has some plugin to achieve the same too. Also: https://farside.link https://farside.link
- thisisit 9mo agoThere is Libredirect which does the same and more: https://github.com/libredirect/browser_extension https://github.com/libredirect/browser_extension https://libredirect.github.io/ https://libredirect.github.io/
- NoGravitas 9mo agoPeople are recommending a lot of these more general redirectors, but libredirect is my favorite.
- neoCrimeLabs 9mo agoThis is the extension I use: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/ https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/redirector/ https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/redirector/ Not only do I translate x.com -> xcancel.com, but - cnn.com -> text.cnn.com - youtube.com -> inv.nadeko.net - instagram.com -> imginn.com And more. Regular expressions allow translations of paths for the redirection, so it does not just happen at the top level.
- venusenvy47 9mo agoI can't tell you how happy you have made me with this post. This is such a great extension. Instagram, especially, is such a nightmare to navigate.
- Bender 9mo agoThat looks rather useful. Do you by chance have an export of your current redirects and if so could you sftp them to sftp scratch@scratch.newsdump.org cd pub put _your_redirect_export.json # or whatever the extension is
- Aissen 9mo agoIt's quite simple but unusable on Firefox Mobile :-/ (Cannot edit Sites).
- geo255 9mo agoYou actually can edit your redirects in Firefox Mobile (at least it works in Nightly). There is a focus bug in the Edit Redirects popup. Tap the Edit Reditects button. Nothing seems to happen, but then tap the back-arrow at the top. Go to your Firefox tab switcher, and you should now see a "REDIRECTOR" tab. This is the editor.
- clgeoio 9mo agoCare to share your redirects?
- timbit42 9mo ago
- Schmerika 9mo agoWow, a useful and relevant post. Shame that it's connected to Elon Musk and must therefore be flagged here :/
- maelito 9mo agoWhy was it flagged ?
- joecool1029 9mo agoI just found this for redirecting mobile safari, works really well: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/redirect-web/id1571283503 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/redirect-web/id1571283503 I do prefer to use nitter.poast.org, xcancel has some annoying bot/ddos protection that makes it take longer to load.
- surplusvalue 9mo agoi just set up caddy proxy to redirect x.com to xcancel.com { local_certs order reverse_proxy before file_server } x.com, www.x.com { tls internal reverse_proxy https://xcancel.com { header_up Host xcancel.com } } I think I installed my caddy cert on my devices so the browser wouldn't throw a fit, but this works on my mobile devices as well with a dns record to point to this caddy instance (and a wireguard tunnel back home). any improvements to this approach would be appreciated.
- perrohunter 9mo agoWhat a waste of time