[HN Gopher] Show HN: TwitterToNitter. A bookmarklet that makes r...
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       Show HN: TwitterToNitter. A bookmarklet that makes reading on
       Twitter easier
        
       Author : mg
       Score  : 66 points
       Date   : 2022-09-23 13:14 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (github.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
        
       | MonkeyMalarky wrote:
       | Fantastic. I don't have a twitter account and it's really
       | annoying to open a link and find out twitter thinks it's adult
       | content (often not really) and get a login page. Or just scroll
       | too far into the replies get hit with a login.
        
       | westcort wrote:
       | Here is the same code, except you can just drag and drop the code
       | into your bookmarks bar:
       | 
       | https://locserendipity.com/Nitter.html
       | 
       | What a great idea!
       | 
       | Edit: Please note that this will only work for desktop browsers
        
         | pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
         | The instructions provided in the README (about manually
         | bookmarking a bookmarklet link) reflects the careful process
         | that has to be followed to use bookmarklets on mobile browsers.
         | The instructions to _drag and drop this bookmarklet_ (or even
         | _long press and copy the link destination_ ) will fail for
         | anyone who's not using a traditional desktop/laptop form factor
         | computer system.
        
           | westcort wrote:
           | Thanks! I have added that disclaimer.
        
       | imron wrote:
       | The existence of something like nitter demonstrates 2 things:
       | 
       | 1. There is massive demand for the product Twitter has on offer.
       | 
       | 2. Twitter is utterly incompetent at capitalizing on that demand.
       | 
       | This has been true more or less for Twitter's entire existence.
        
       | cglong wrote:
       | I wish this was a browser extension so the redirection could
       | happen automatically! Would probably function similar to [1].
       | 
       | [1]: https://github.com/Jdhaimson/smilealways
        
         | hadrien01 wrote:
         | I use Privacy Redirect: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
         | US/firefox/addon/privacy-redir... It also works for Invidious
         | and Bibliogram, but I only use it for Nitter.
        
         | codetrotter wrote:
         | There was also this from the other day.
         | 
         | LibRedirect: Redirect YouTube, Twitter, Instagram to privacy
         | friendly services
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32916318
        
         | mg wrote:
         | I prefer bookmarklets for a few reasons:
         | 
         | Compatibility: Bookmarklets work on all devices. Deskop, iOS
         | and Android.
         | 
         | Security: I can easily read and understand the code. They only
         | run when I invoke them. While extensions have access to
         | everything you do an any page, bookmarklets only have access to
         | the page where you invoke them.
         | 
         | Flexibility: They are easy to change. For example in this one,
         | I will probably update the array of Nitter instances regularly.
         | 
         | Usability: I can organize them just like my other bookmarks.
         | 
         | Sharing: I can put the bookmark in just a line of text in a
         | text file with an explanation. As I did here. No need to dabble
         | with extension repositories of Firefox and Chrome, as you would
         | have to with extensions. I don't even know how it would work
         | for other browsers.
        
           | ramesh31 wrote:
           | They are great for us developers who can vet every line. But
           | extremely dangerous for non technical users.
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | You can just use any of the twitter/website redirector browser
         | plugins to forward https://twitter.com/[X] to
         | https://farside.link/nitter/[X]
        
         | Hitton wrote:
         | Except for the random choosing of instances it's easy to do
         | with Redirector:
         | 
         | https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/redirector/ocgpenf...
         | 
         | https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/
         | 
         | Userscripts don't work too well for this, because you have to
         | either check all links everywhere or delay redirection to only
         | after you reached the page.
        
         | kixiQu wrote:
         | Tampermonkey scripts combine well with this kind of thing, IMO;
         | I use bookmarklets for stuff I only want to happen on command
         | (https://maya.land/bookmarklets/readable/) and Tampermonkey to
         | automatically or conditionally invoke bits
         | (https://maya.land/user-scripts/hypothesis/)
        
         | calvinmorrison wrote:
         | I use "nitter redirect" for firefox.
         | 
         | I actually don't like it, I spend more time on twitter now
        
       | awinter-py wrote:
       | cannot believe twitter web ux is as bad as it is
       | 
       | feel like it's half not their fault (scrolling is hard to
       | customize in the DOM), half mostly of their fault (you can use
       | columns to make infinite-scroll interfaces less neurologically
       | grating), and half totally their fault (giant dom hierarchy that
       | ruins my ram, loading recirc before content, zero confidence when
       | ctrl-clicking something whether it will actually open in a new
       | tab)
        
         | recursive wrote:
         | The reason it's hard to customize scrolling is probably that it
         | worked perfectly well in the first place. The solution is to
         | stop messing with it.
        
           | andirk wrote:
           | I often feel like every advancement in web UI is a downgrade.
           | In other words, bring back <blink> and <marquee>.
        
       | mnd999 wrote:
       | It's pretty easy to host your own Nitter instance too (I do) if
       | you want to avoid the rate limiter errors.
        
         | Macha wrote:
         | This does negate some of the privacy from Twitter advantages,
         | especially if hosted in your home network. Of course nitter
         | also has the privacy from instance operator question, and your
         | two options are basically to use a small list of instances you
         | trust or such a large pool of instances that the instance
         | operator has very little to link together
        
       | stefanvdw1 wrote:
       | I've been wanting to make a browser extension that does this for
       | multiple sites.
       | 
       | Besides Nitter, what other options exists out there for sites
       | such as Reddit or Instagram?
        
         | qjx wrote:
         | for reddit there's teddit.net
         | 
         | for instagram there was bibliogram.art which unfortunately shut
         | down recently due to instagram's tactics
        
           | moneywoes wrote:
           | What did IG do?
        
       | jonas-w wrote:
       | I'm using libredirect, i never see the original frontend and it
       | works like a charm.
       | 
       | Related discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32916318
        
       | berkut wrote:
       | Mildly off-topic, but...
       | 
       | One minor annoyance I have with one of the "open" Nitter hosting
       | sites I use to follow Twitter accounts is that Nitter seems (at
       | least on iOS) to save bookmarks with the original twitter URL
       | instead of the Nitter one I'm currently viewing, and I then have
       | to manually edit the bookmark URL to correct it...
       | 
       | Does anyone know if it's possible to control this (with an
       | option?) if I were to host Nitter myself (open source I guess,
       | but still)?
        
         | pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
         | The bookmarked URL is under the control of your browser. Could
         | you provide more detail?
        
       | Recursing wrote:
       | I recently found out that you can just click "log in" and then
       | click the "X" in the top left to close the modal, without
       | actually logging in.
       | 
       | Previously I was using this bookmarklet:
       | 
       | javascript:(function()%7Bdocument.querySelector("html").style%5B'
       | overflow'%5D %3D 'visible'%7D)()%3B
        
       | otsaloma wrote:
       | I used to use a Nitter redirect extension, but whatever Nitter
       | instance I was using was unbearably slow. I've now been using
       | https://github.com/MaySoMusician/breakthrough-twitter-login-... .
       | It seems to work fine (if login wall is your gripe with Twitter).
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | beckman466 wrote:
       | it would be easier if twitter just ported itself to Secure
       | Scuttlebutt or the myriad other p2p/dweb projects.
        
         | elil17 wrote:
         | The reality is that Twitter will never do that. They have
         | absolutely no reason to.
        
           | kdmdlsp wrote:
           | Regulation could give them a reason to, but there's a
           | conflict of interest when the controlling interests in
           | government would prefer to ask the FBI to suppress
           | inconvenient speech[0] on the dominant platforms.
           | 
           | 0: https://www-bbc-
           | com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.com/news/...
        
       | basicoperation wrote:
       | I use a share screen shortcut in iOS to do something similar.
       | 
       | Very simplistic, but here's a link if anyone would find it
       | useful:
       | https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/ac27cb797ddc479784f22631d69...
        
       | ewuhic wrote:
       | There's also an extension called "alternative frontends", which
       | does that and even more[0]
       | 
       | [0]: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/alternative-
       | fronte...
        
         | Kuinox wrote:
         | Given count of 7 users, are you perhaps the author ?
        
       | aquova wrote:
       | Nitter is an excellent alternative. The only thing stopping me
       | from 100% using it, as I have for Reddit->Libreddit and
       | Youtube->Invidious is the lack of some sort of timeline. I tried
       | setting up an RSS feed for it, but I mostly use Twitter to follow
       | artists I like, and it wasn't easy to browse. Fortunately, there
       | is a pull request for this feature
       | (https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/pull/363) but it's been sitting
       | for a while.
        
         | Ambolia wrote:
         | You can separate users with commas on nitter to get a
         | chronological timeline:
         | https://nitter.net/ID_AA_Carmack,PeterZeihan
         | 
         | Otherwise you can get RSS links from nitter and add them to the
         | browser extension Fraidycat, I'm not 100% happy with it but
         | it's decent to follow RSS links in a sort of timeline kind of
         | way:
         | 
         | https://fraidyc.at/
        
           | bjelkeman-again wrote:
           | That Fraidycat app is really very interesting. Thanks, I am
           | going to try that out.
        
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       (page generated 2022-09-23 23:01 UTC)