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This 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 trag

This 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 10mo ago
More 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 10mo ago
There'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 10mo ago
[deleted]
rsynnott 10mo ago
I 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 10mo ago
  Broken? They curbed abuse and view botting while increasing their user base. Working as intended.
wolvoleo 10mo ago
Unfortunately 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.
- rsynnott 10mo ago
  Huh, no it doesn't? Threads work fine when logged out on Bluesky (unless a post has been set by the author to logged-in users only, in which case it'll be hidden; this is fairly rare tho).
  - forgotpwd16 10mo ago
    To add to that, this option only limits visibility on official Bluesky app/website. The data for this post is still available and third-party clients can make use of it. Hence what GP asks already exists: https://skyview.social/ https://skyview.social/.
    - wolvoleo 10mo ago
      Thanks!
- hagbard_c 10mo ago
  A bigger problem with BS is the rabid and - to use a phrase often used by them - toxic user base which seems to derive energy from pouring its frenzied opinions on whatever Trump, Musk and those in their general surroundings are supposed to be guilty of. If there was ever a case of the pot telling the kettle it is black it is the b.s. pouring out of a substantial fraction of the denizens of BS who have turned the place into what they accuse X of being and then some.
  - arghandugh 10mo ago
    You are correct - modern society is disgustingly intolerant of child pornography and dictatorships. Child pornography and dictatorships are good, and there should be more of it.
  - immibis 10mo ago
    What have they turned it into? Be specific. You say it turned into "what they accuse X of being" but I don't know what that is.
mikkupikku 10mo ago
Honestly I barely see the use of this, I've ""needed"" to read a twitter thread like once in my life, I can't imagine needing it so often that a dedicated extension makes sense. Also, I only adopt new browser plugins very sparingly, because the chance of some random extension getting bought out by a shadowy ad and malware firm is way too high, and Mozilla doesn't assure me with the level of vetting they do (nonexistent, compared to F-Droid or any mainstream linux distro.) Why is this such a problem for Mozilla? They even try to make it difficult to get extensions from anybody but them, so a third party extension store that actually does due diligence is basically off the table. I can't even install extensions straight from a developer's github, which wouldn't be as good as a trusted 3rd party repo, but still better than Mozilla's status quo. In fact, so called userscripts loaded through one trusted extension actually feel a lot safer than normal extensions.
debugnik 10mo ago
Define depending. I don't post on it and I don't care much about its algorithmic timeline, but if I didn't use it I'd miss out on the announcements and posts from several people and companies I'm interested in. The alternative is cutting myself out from those, not just from Twitter itself.
saubeidl 10mo ago
I hate X, its anti-user patterns and how its oligarch owner uses it to manipulate discourse to steer society towards his right-wing extremist views. That being said, many public figures have not made the same judgement and post their communications there. Should I just stop informing myself on the public discourse because the place it happens got taken over by a shady character? I think using code to liberate the discourse from its would-be manipulator is the most reasonable thing to do and a reflection of true hacker ethics.
- balops 10mo ago
  [dead]
- self_awareness 10mo ago
  Your "true hacker ethics" results in the person still using X to distribute information, so you're actually powering the popularity of X.
  - saubeidl 10mo ago
    I can't control what other people do, unfortunately. But I can choose to engage on my own terms.
- distracted_boy 10mo ago
  Do you apply the same logic to owners of popular newspapers such as BBC, CNN, Fox News etc? Since X is still highly popular, will you ever reconsider your position? Just curious, not looking for a fight or debate.
  - saubeidl 10mo ago
    > Do you apply the same logic to owners of popular newspapers such as BBC, CNN, Fox News etc? Of course! It's always important to consider the agenda behind any media. > Since X is still highly popular, will you ever reconsider your position? I don't see how popularity is a factor. It has data I want in a system I don't support, so I exfiltrate the data.
jacobthesnakob 10mo ago
Agree. I have the X domain blacklisted in my Pihole. Remember when Reddit mods made a whole show of virtue signaling about banning links to X, but most of those same subreddits’ top content (and 20% of the front page) was screenshots of X? A lot of people are unwilling to withstand even a bit of discomfort to stand up for their supposed principles.
- theshrike79 10mo ago
  TBH posting twitter screenshots doesn't give any revenue, data or clicks to Musk, which is what we want. There are still people who only post stuff on Twitter whose opinion I kinda want to hear, but I'm not creating an account there.
- 4k93n2 10mo ago
  it doesnt sound sustainable anyway, you would need somebody to go through each post to check for twitter screenshots. blocking a certain domain is automated, i would imagine
doublerabbit 10mo ago
> How about just admitting the things you hate? Then you can just drop it and live a happier life. I hate X and have never used it. Any link that resolves to Twitter will instantly become a closed tab; still waiting for that happier life.
- self_awareness 10mo ago
  If more people behaved like this, X would never be a problem, because it wouldn't exist. But most people are opportunists and just want to use, without thinking about consequences.
hagbard_c 10mo ago
I never liked Twitter and I like X just as little but I don't 'hate' them. I use libredirect to redirect to my own instances of Nitter, Redlib and Invidious (and more services but these are the 'big' one) not because I 'hate' X, Reddit and YouTube but because I don't want them to track me, I don't like ads and using these services through proxies makes then work on hardware which would totally bog down were it not for the proxies. It is amazing how much useless guff can be cut away from these while improving the user experience.
saagarjha 10mo ago
A lot of people used to use Twitter before it got bought out and made worse.
kzrdude 10mo ago
The idea that we can independently decide what to ignore in life is a fallacy I think. Not read regularly sure, but we need to know what's written on X in some cases when it could be important for news or politics.
- missingdays 10mo ago
  Is twitter the only way to get the information you need?
  - retsibsi 10mo ago
    When the information is "what exactly did person X tweet", then yeah. I'm in favour of mostly avoiding X, and I make a point of not spending significant time on it or actively participating. But sometimes, I want to follow a link to a tweet that someone whose work I'm reading thinks is relevant -- or I want to see what a specific person has been saying publicly lately, and it happens that X is one of the main places they do that.
- lelanthran 10mo ago
  > we need to know what's written on X in some cases when it could be important for news or politics. If it's that important, you'll see it elsewhere in no time at all.
Krssst 10mo ago
Somewhat related: more than half of my Firefox extensions are to fix YouTube (no shorts, no autoplay in playlists, more videos on the home page, no AI dubs or title translation (plus sponsorblock)). I don't hate it but I hate its progressive enshittification. Though that's quite different from X; while the issues with YouTube are mostly plain old enshittification, the issues I have with X are more political (thus, I do hate it).
- Dansvidania 10mo ago
  Which ones do you use?
  - Krssst 10mo ago
    I use the following: * No autoplay on playlists: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/no-playlist-autoplay-for-yt/ https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/no-playlist-auto... * No translations and AI dubs: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-no-translation/ https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-no-trans... * No YouTube shorts: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hide-youtube-shorts/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hide-youtube-... * More videos on the home page / smaller thumbnails: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-tweaks/ https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-tweaks/ (to be fair, it could probably replace the "No YT shorts" one) Not sure how safe those are, but since they only require access to data for youtube domains I assume if there was a leak it would not be too bad.
pavlov 10mo ago
Xcancel.com is a site that archives discussions that took place on a site I don't want to visit. What's wrong with that? Similarly archive.org maintains copies of the Fox News website in the past. I don't see that as sad. If anything, it's a way to keep these sites accountable because they can't just memory-hole the content they once hosted.
Telaneo 10mo ago
> How about just admitting the things you hate? Then you can just drop it and live a happier life. These are two very separate things. I hate X. That doesn't mean I hate the few remaining people on there who still post things I wish to see. It's an annoyingly good source of artwork. Many migrated/dualpost to Bluesky, but far from all. For some similar real world example:s I hate (all?) the local grocery stores and other shops I buy food from. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop buying food from them. I'm not a fan of any of the local electronics shops, but sometimes they're the only choice if I want a local warranty, which I wouldn't get if I imported one. The actually good option in both of these cases simply doesn't exist in the first place, and doing nothing is rarely a desirable option.
retsibsi 10mo ago
I think you're either over- or underthinking this. I don't want to have an X account, but I do sometimes want to follow a link to a specific tweet and be able to view the surrounding context. So sites like xcancel and nitter are useful to me.
- self_awareness 10mo ago
  So, in other words, you want the cargo, but without the tiring "pay for it" aspect?
  - retsibsi 10mo ago
    > So, in other words, you want the cargo, but without the tiring "pay for it" aspect? I'm not trying to be difficult, but I'm not quite sure what this means! In literal terms, I want the ability to read tweets, see threads and replies, and view a user's tweets chronologically, and I don't think the second and third things are possible on X.com without an account. I don't want an account for various reasons, including that I don't want any temptation to become a regular or active user.

dmit 10mo ago

More 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 10mo ago

There'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 10mo ago

[deleted]

rsynnott 10mo ago

I 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 10mo ago
Broken? They curbed abuse and view botting while increasing their user base. Working as intended.

wolvoleo 10mo ago

Unfortunately 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.

rsynnott 10mo ago
Huh, no it doesn't? Threads work fine when logged out on Bluesky (unless a post has been set by the author to logged-in users only, in which case it'll be hidden; this is fairly rare tho).
- forgotpwd16 10mo ago
  To add to that, this option only limits visibility on official Bluesky app/website. The data for this post is still available and third-party clients can make use of it. Hence what GP asks already exists: https://skyview.social/ https://skyview.social/.
  - wolvoleo 10mo ago
    Thanks!
hagbard_c 10mo ago
A bigger problem with BS is the rabid and - to use a phrase often used by them - toxic user base which seems to derive energy from pouring its frenzied opinions on whatever Trump, Musk and those in their general surroundings are supposed to be guilty of. If there was ever a case of the pot telling the kettle it is black it is the b.s. pouring out of a substantial fraction of the denizens of BS who have turned the place into what they accuse X of being and then some.
- arghandugh 10mo ago
  You are correct - modern society is disgustingly intolerant of child pornography and dictatorships. Child pornography and dictatorships are good, and there should be more of it.
- immibis 10mo ago
  What have they turned it into? Be specific. You say it turned into "what they accuse X of being" but I don't know what that is.

mikkupikku 10mo ago

Honestly I barely see the use of this, I've ""needed"" to read a twitter thread like once in my life, I can't imagine needing it so often that a dedicated extension makes sense. Also, I only adopt new browser plugins very sparingly, because the chance of some random extension getting bought out by a shadowy ad and malware firm is way too high, and Mozilla doesn't assure me with the level of vetting they do (nonexistent, compared to F-Droid or any mainstream linux distro.) Why is this such a problem for Mozilla? They even try to make it difficult to get extensions from anybody but them, so a third party extension store that actually does due diligence is basically off the table. I can't even install extensions straight from a developer's github, which wouldn't be as good as a trusted 3rd party repo, but still better than Mozilla's status quo. In fact, so called userscripts loaded through one trusted extension actually feel a lot safer than normal extensions.

debugnik 10mo ago

Define depending. I don't post on it and I don't care much about its algorithmic timeline, but if I didn't use it I'd miss out on the announcements and posts from several people and companies I'm interested in. The alternative is cutting myself out from those, not just from Twitter itself.

saubeidl 10mo ago

I hate X, its anti-user patterns and how its oligarch owner uses it to manipulate discourse to steer society towards his right-wing extremist views. That being said, many public figures have not made the same judgement and post their communications there. Should I just stop informing myself on the public discourse because the place it happens got taken over by a shady character? I think using code to liberate the discourse from its would-be manipulator is the most reasonable thing to do and a reflection of true hacker ethics.

balops 10mo ago
[dead]
self_awareness 10mo ago
Your "true hacker ethics" results in the person still using X to distribute information, so you're actually powering the popularity of X.
- saubeidl 10mo ago
  I can't control what other people do, unfortunately. But I can choose to engage on my own terms.
distracted_boy 10mo ago
Do you apply the same logic to owners of popular newspapers such as BBC, CNN, Fox News etc? Since X is still highly popular, will you ever reconsider your position? Just curious, not looking for a fight or debate.
- saubeidl 10mo ago
  > Do you apply the same logic to owners of popular newspapers such as BBC, CNN, Fox News etc? Of course! It's always important to consider the agenda behind any media. > Since X is still highly popular, will you ever reconsider your position? I don't see how popularity is a factor. It has data I want in a system I don't support, so I exfiltrate the data.

jacobthesnakob 10mo ago

Agree. I have the X domain blacklisted in my Pihole. Remember when Reddit mods made a whole show of virtue signaling about banning links to X, but most of those same subreddits’ top content (and 20% of the front page) was screenshots of X? A lot of people are unwilling to withstand even a bit of discomfort to stand up for their supposed principles.

theshrike79 10mo ago
TBH posting twitter screenshots doesn't give any revenue, data or clicks to Musk, which is what we want. There are still people who only post stuff on Twitter whose opinion I kinda want to hear, but I'm not creating an account there.
4k93n2 10mo ago
it doesnt sound sustainable anyway, you would need somebody to go through each post to check for twitter screenshots. blocking a certain domain is automated, i would imagine

doublerabbit 10mo ago

> How about just admitting the things you hate? Then you can just drop it and live a happier life. I hate X and have never used it. Any link that resolves to Twitter will instantly become a closed tab; still waiting for that happier life.

self_awareness 10mo ago
If more people behaved like this, X would never be a problem, because it wouldn't exist. But most people are opportunists and just want to use, without thinking about consequences.

hagbard_c 10mo ago

I never liked Twitter and I like X just as little but I don't 'hate' them. I use libredirect to redirect to my own instances of Nitter, Redlib and Invidious (and more services but these are the 'big' one) not because I 'hate' X, Reddit and YouTube but because I don't want them to track me, I don't like ads and using these services through proxies makes then work on hardware which would totally bog down were it not for the proxies. It is amazing how much useless guff can be cut away from these while improving the user experience.

saagarjha 10mo ago

A lot of people used to use Twitter before it got bought out and made worse.

kzrdude 10mo ago

The idea that we can independently decide what to ignore in life is a fallacy I think. Not read regularly sure, but we need to know what's written on X in some cases when it could be important for news or politics.

missingdays 10mo ago
Is twitter the only way to get the information you need?
- retsibsi 10mo ago
  When the information is "what exactly did person X tweet", then yeah. I'm in favour of mostly avoiding X, and I make a point of not spending significant time on it or actively participating. But sometimes, I want to follow a link to a tweet that someone whose work I'm reading thinks is relevant -- or I want to see what a specific person has been saying publicly lately, and it happens that X is one of the main places they do that.
lelanthran 10mo ago
> we need to know what's written on X in some cases when it could be important for news or politics. If it's that important, you'll see it elsewhere in no time at all.

Krssst 10mo ago

Somewhat related: more than half of my Firefox extensions are to fix YouTube (no shorts, no autoplay in playlists, more videos on the home page, no AI dubs or title translation (plus sponsorblock)). I don't hate it but I hate its progressive enshittification. Though that's quite different from X; while the issues with YouTube are mostly plain old enshittification, the issues I have with X are more political (thus, I do hate it).

Dansvidania 10mo ago
Which ones do you use?
- Krssst 10mo ago
  I use the following: * No autoplay on playlists: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/no-playlist-autoplay-for-yt/ https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/no-playlist-auto... * No translations and AI dubs: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-no-translation/ https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-no-trans... * No YouTube shorts: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hide-youtube-shorts/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hide-youtube-... * More videos on the home page / smaller thumbnails: https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-tweaks/ https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/youtube-tweaks/ (to be fair, it could probably replace the "No YT shorts" one) Not sure how safe those are, but since they only require access to data for youtube domains I assume if there was a leak it would not be too bad.

pavlov 10mo ago

Xcancel.com is a site that archives discussions that took place on a site I don't want to visit. What's wrong with that? Similarly archive.org maintains copies of the Fox News website in the past. I don't see that as sad. If anything, it's a way to keep these sites accountable because they can't just memory-hole the content they once hosted.

Telaneo 10mo ago

> How about just admitting the things you hate? Then you can just drop it and live a happier life. These are two very separate things. I hate X. That doesn't mean I hate the few remaining people on there who still post things I wish to see. It's an annoyingly good source of artwork. Many migrated/dualpost to Bluesky, but far from all. For some similar real world example:s I hate (all?) the local grocery stores and other shops I buy food from. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop buying food from them. I'm not a fan of any of the local electronics shops, but sometimes they're the only choice if I want a local warranty, which I wouldn't get if I imported one. The actually good option in both of these cases simply doesn't exist in the first place, and doing nothing is rarely a desirable option.

retsibsi 10mo ago

I think you're either over- or underthinking this. I don't want to have an X account, but I do sometimes want to follow a link to a specific tweet and be able to view the surrounding context. So sites like xcancel and nitter are useful to me.

self_awareness 10mo ago
So, in other words, you want the cargo, but without the tiring "pay for it" aspect?
- retsibsi 10mo ago
  > So, in other words, you want the cargo, but without the tiring "pay for it" aspect? I'm not trying to be difficult, but I'm not quite sure what this means! In literal terms, I want the ability to read tweets, see threads and replies, and view a user's tweets chronologically, and I don't think the second and third things are possible on X.com without an account. I don't want an account for various reasons, including that I don't want any temptation to become a regular or active user.