This new update feels like a downgrade.

[Kostrol]

Why all these changes? Was more than happy with previous options before last update.

Good old checkboxes replaced with awkward UX to navigate for instances. Update instances is gone, same with measure latency. Auto redirect gone too? so many features now gone..

[Impeta]

My sentiments exactly. I'm not sure what's going on really. I couldn't really justify myself to keep using software who dumbs itself down to the no-return point, so I won't update until this is remedied and reconsidered. Really not content with current direction.

[stemy2]

Additionally, the wikipedia redirection is gone too. Plz give us the old version back !

[ManeraKai]

I know, me and @IkelAtomig don't have much time (university and school) to maintain all of the so buggy and even questionable features LibRedirect had:

• Removed Update instances bc the logic behind it got so complex.
• Removed Latency test bc it made the code so complex and hard to maintain. Also, people started caring about latency instead of the trustworthiness of the instance owner which is very very wrong.
• Removed Auto redirect bc of Invidious's giving 500 for unavailable videos. Also, it's so uncontrollable and should have a waiting countdown page even. In theory, you should have selected good trustworthy instances instead of just picking all the lousy and good ones and slapping an auto redirection logic. If an instance is dead or something, press Switch Instance.
• Removed Unify Settings bc of the so many problems it gave us. We took a really stupid responsibility of "maintaining cookies" which should be none of LibRedirect's business.

Yes LibRedirect has less features, but is now less buggy, faster, smaller in size, and easier to maintain. I know many of you won't like this, but this was the least harming decision we could take.

[stemy2]

Why did you removed the wikipedia redirections ?

[mid-kid]

Thanks for the clarification, indeed, testing instances was broken, and enabling them all out of the box was a bad user experience. I'm just glad someone's maintaining the program at all. However, I'll mention I really liked being able to toggle the specific instance from the addon menu. Especially given many instances go down and up at irregular intervals, and I prefer rotating to slightly lesser used instances, being able to disable one whenever it didn't work was great.

[mativiters]

I am heartbroken. In my country of Iran many websites are slowed down by the government in addition to the original websites being outright blocked, so I used latency tests to find nice piped/invidious/libreddit/etc alternatives (youtube, reddit, twitter and so on are all banned here). I had introduced this extension to many people I knew because of this feature in particular. Also wikiless and neuters were both nice, as Reuters is banned in Iran and I used it to read news. I'll either have to open the website or perhaps downgrade the extension manually.

[ManeraKai]

@mativiters If you can it's better to recommend a specific instance you trust for them that you tested previously and trust t's instance owner.

[ManeraKai]

Why did you removed the wikipedia redirections ?

https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/more-alternative-privacy-frontends-for-popular-sites/14/3?u=ikel

Wikiless - It was recommended here 11 but I currently don’t see the point. As far as I can tell, you can browser Wikipedia perfectly fine without JS (I tried with Tor Browser on safest setting). Browsing through the site also does not require an account. No ads aren’t really a privacy enhancement, and Wikipedia isn’t a exactly full of ads, so this is not a concern. Finally, and I should mention this now that I’m still looking at the first option, “proxying” to another service isn’t necessarily a privacy enhancement, or even desired by default. People can use other tools (Tor or a VPN) if they want to hide their IP. With a frontend, Wikipedia might not get your IP, but the Wikiless instance is. Why do you trust the instance operator more?

[mativiters]

@ManeraKai Here we cannot even open the first page of most instances, I don't know what sorcery the government is up to. So we're forced to go with the fastest instance (beggars can't be choosers as they say)

Btw wikiless was nice as I edit on wikipedia with my account logged in and browse on Wikipedia anonymously on wikiless. It also has a nice dark theme. Also it would drop the occasional wikipedia messages popping up at the top of articles.

[umbralOptimatum]

I support your decision to remove hard-to-maintain feature bloat. I'd much rather LibRedirect continue providing a useful service than become another abandoned privacy addon falling into disrepair. Thank you for all the hard work.

That said, I'm confused by the changes to instance selection UI. Clearly grouping active instances at the top is useful—but they also show up below as though they can be added a second time? And as mid-kid said, being able to toggle the open instance from the addon menu was very convenient and I don't understand why it was removed.

[Kostrol]

I know, me and @IkelAtomig don't have much time (university and school) to maintain

Understandable of course, thank you for your contributions and maintaining of this amazing project. There's no replacement currently out there that i know of.

* Removed Latency test bc it made the code so complex and hard to maintain. Also, people started caring about latency instead of the trustworthiness of the instance owner which is very very wrong.

What constitutes as untrustworthy to you? Just wondering whatever selections you have made out within LibRedirect can be considered trustworthy enough if it's randomly hosted. For youtube I always check the default instance lists of whatever Piped have put out to see what most people are subscribed to, against how close the servers are to me ect. and for example search engine certificates like searxng, but there are a lot of those, same with libreddit. Keeping to a few instances that seems most stable and maintained vs switching between many different ones for every new search, i don't know which is better. Other than that you can never be sure either way who to trust i feel like... Cloudflare CDN based ones of course I will never use and I'm happy they are listed in red.

* Removed Auto redirect bc of Invidious's giving 500 for unavailable videos. 

Fair enough, i only use one frontend instance anyway because i want to track subscriptions, so for login/accounts i like to keep those minimal. But this was useful for libreddit instances. Of course there's still manual switching so thanks for that.

Overall i can live with the compromises, however the new way to select instances is very hard for me to navigate, i prefer to toggle the ones i wanted to be used instead of this plus, remove and yellow colored system. And of course like mentioned by others here, toggling off a specified instance from the page if it's offline, just a process of elimination.. i hope this can be brought back.

[IkelAtomig]

That said, I'm confused by the changes to instance selection UI.

This is being discussed internally for a better way or reinstate the old one.

[IkelAtomig]

i prefer to toggle the ones i wanted to be used instead of this plus, remove and yellow colored system.

Well, The problem is you have selected for example, piped.kavin.rocks instances. But the Official list removes them from the list. When you hit update next time, The logic is confused that whether it should be removed or not and stucks or break the instance. So, We reset all the selection during update. But now, When you open settings page, Instance list is fetched every time. So as to avoid this resets and preserve your settings. That's why, Custom Instance is also prioritized first.

oggling off a specified instance from the page if it's offline, just a process of elimination.. i hope this can be brought back.

I think you mean option in the popup which was top of all the above. I literally forget about it when looking for bugs. Probably commented out or removed. Will look onto it.

[Oppen]

I feel a bit torn making this comment, as I value every open source contributor's time and don't want to be entitled to it. But at the same time, I'd much rather have those features be buggy/half-maintained than not have them at all. I sued all of those with the exception of toggle tab, and with many instances being rather unstable having auto redirect and unified settings feels like a must for the extension to actually be useful.

[Kostrol]

with many instances being rather unstable having auto redirect

You can use Shift+Alt+L to instantly switch instance should there be something wrong. To be fair, auto redirecting was handy but was slow, this shortcut once you learn it is more practical.

But at the same time, I'd much rather have those features be buggy/half-maintained than not have them at all

I'm all for options but I'll take these changes and a responsive maintained and secure extension and have them explore better options if they get more people invested in the project later. Still leagues ahead in features than the other alternatives which are either dead or in a hiatus.

What matters most to me is that the instances are somewhat kept in check regularly and kept up to date so you're not redirected to some harmful site instead.

[Oppen]

You can use Shift+Alt+L to instantly switch instance should there be something wrong. To be fair, auto redirecting was handy but was slow, this shortcut once you learn it is more practical.

Good to know, but it only solves a half of the issue. I still lose any customization For sites like Reddit is specially annoying as the most sensible usage (IMO) is to subscribe to a few topics, save an interesting thread, etc.

Still leagues ahead in features than the other alternatives which are either dead or in a hiatus.

That's certainly true.

[shruuub]

Why did you removed the wikipedia redirections ?

https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/more-alternative-privacy-frontends-for-popular-sites/14/3?u=ikel

Wikiless - It was recommended here 11 but I currently don’t see the point. As far as I can tell, you can browser Wikipedia perfectly fine without JS (I tried with Tor Browser on safest setting). Browsing through the site also does not require an account. No ads aren’t really a privacy enhancement, and Wikipedia isn’t a exactly full of ads, so this is not a concern. Finally, and I should mention this now that I’m still looking at the first option, “proxying” to another service isn’t necessarily a privacy enhancement, or even desired by default. People can use other tools (Tor or a VPN) if they want to hide their IP. With a frontend, Wikipedia might not get your IP, but the Wikiless instance is. Why do you trust the instance operator more?

Trusting a massive company which nowadays almost has a information monopol known to have bad moderation (Removing articles, users, changes) is a bit diffrent to trusting yourself or a friend (or just another privacy advocate) hosting the instance.

[ManeraKai]

Trusting a massive company which nowadays almost has a information monopol known to have bad moderation (Removing articles, users, changes) is a bit diffrent to trusting yourself or a friend (or just another privacy advocate) hosting the instance.

I'm not saying to go directly to wikipedia.org with your raw IP address, I mean to use the Tor browser and then to Wikipedia, or a VPN you trust it's owner (could be a friend even).

[shruuub]

Trusting a massive company which nowadays almost has a information monopol known to have bad moderation (Removing articles, users, changes) is a bit diffrent to trusting yourself or a friend (or just another privacy advocate) hosting the instance.

I'm not saying to go directly to wikipedia.org with your raw IP address, I mean to use the Tor browser and then to Wikipedia, or a VPN you trust it's owner (could be a friend even).

Yup. But, that brings a bit more inconvenience, and libredirect is basically an addon that trys to bring more convenience (not having to copy a link, look for an instance and changing the url and then accessing it.

[ManeraKai]

(not having to copy a link, look for an instance and changing the url and then accessing it.

There's no need to "copy and modify urls" if you're using the Tor browser and typing in wikipedia.org directly?

[shruuub]

(not having to copy a link, look for an instance and changing the url and then accessing it.

There's no need to "copy and modify urls" if you're using the Tor browser and typing in wikipedia.org directly?

Yes, but you do need to open the tor browser and establish a connection. (Not a big deal, but I'm trying to point the general "efford")

[mojo-jojo-7]

As someone who has some experience working alongside developers, I can sympathize with the team's reasoning here. Different people use the tools devs build differently. You can never please everyone. So, for decisions like this, it comes down to a balance between what's doable and what's on demand.

I just want to provide some comments on the changes and the conversation so far:

• Most instances are run by people or organizations with none or very little record. So, the trustworthiness of most instances is not that high. Just pick the instance list from the project pages and leave the judgement to the end users. If a user feels something is missing, they can always add it manually. Finally, the dev team can mark the instances they think are trustworthy with a star as a recommendation.
• As to what sites to provide redirects for, why remove something a fraction of the users might be using when there are no downsides? (To the extent I can see at least, if I am missing something, please feel free to correct) Basically, when you can provide choice without making it too hard for yourselves, try to do it.
• While adblockers, VPNs or TOR are alternatives, they are not a replacement for alternative frontends. The latter do much more, and nothing can replace the convenience that comes with this extension IMO.

In any case, much appreciation for the team behind LibRedirect! This has been one of my favorite extensions for a while now.

[ManeraKai]

As to what sites to provide redirects for, why remove something a fraction of the users might be using when there are no downsides? (To the extent I can see at least, if I am missing something, please feel free to correct) Basically, when you can provide choice without making it too hard for yourselves, try to do it.

Technically the only "major" performance compromise to adding a lot more frontends even when they are disabled is this function which gets triggered every time you open the popup. Other than that, you are right there are no downsides to adding more frontends. Just that the settings sidebar will get a little long and might need a sorting design concept.

[vendillah]

Hello; I would just like to mention that wikiless gives a very thorough list on why a proxy is considered appropriate in their README. I did not read every single listed fact, but from my understanding, the proxy was made to hide users (' IP) from the NSA mainly.

For example, you can read:

One of the documents revealed by Snowden shows that both Wikipedia and Wikimedia has been listed as a so-called "Appid" in the XKeyscore – a program that covers "nearly everything a typical user does on the internet" – to identify web traffic, meaning that wiki related web traffic is something that NSA finds valuable.[6]

Not saying that the proxies are therefore more trustworthy, but just to add why the proxy has been made in first-place, which can be useful for those people wondering who they're actually hiding from (and if needed at all).

For those who want to get auto-redirects to wikiless; Privacy Redirect still works with that and that's what I'm using right now.

[ManeraKai]

@Vendillah from where the hell you brought this README link? Is this a fork or something?

[meatspinner]

TBF, the original README on codeberg also says the same thing: https://web.archive.org/web/20220915050914/https://codeberg.org/orenom/Wikiless/src/branch/main/README.md

[isuseterful]

Automatic redirection when an instance is down also seems to have dissapeared which makes the extension esentially useless besides doing simple redirections. I am not trying to be disrespectful but after this update you are better off using Redirector with Fireside.

Edit: The shortcut for switching the instance (typically Shift+Alt+L) also doesn't seem to be working anymore although it is still listed in the shortcut settings page.

[ManeraKai]

@meatspinner no no I agree with his point, I just want to know where did wikiless go. Like I can't even find the instances anymore.

[ManeraKai]

The shortcut for switching the instance (typically Shift+Alt+L) also doesn't seem to be working anymore although it is still listed in the shortcut settings page.

@isuseterful it's working?

[mojo-jojo-7]

Seems like Wikiless got into trouble last year according to this reddit thread. Never knew this.

@isuseterful @ManeraKai the shortcut now only works when used on a tab with selected instances open. I used to use it to switch from Invidious to Piped for example, but that doesn't work anymore. Like I said in an earlier comment: different people, different usecases.

[ManeraKai]

I used to use it to switch from Invidious to Piped for example, but that doesn't work anymore

@mojo-jojo-7 This specific issue is answered in the Docs and there's a way to do it: https://libredirect.github.io/docs.html#preferred_instance

[mojo-jojo-7]

@ManeraKai I feel so dumb, thanks lol

[ManeraKai]

@mojo-jojo-7 there were performance issues and storage issues with implementing this that's why we removed it.

[Terkyz]

What happened to the "Toggle Redirect" context button? No longer exists or was it changed places?

[ManeraKai]

It's now called Redirect to original, right click on the LibRedirect icon to see it.

[Terkyz]

Oh, I saw it, thank you, I didn't know that the addons had contextual menus.

[ManeraKai]

I may add it to the popup, but we'll see.

[Terkyz]

That would be great but there are really other methods on LibRedirect to fulfill this function, although a little more rustic. My advice is that don't complicate yourself by implementing it if it takes a lot of work, the main LibRedirect function it works as it should and that's what's important.

And I would like to add that the button allows me to change from an instance to the original site but not on the contrary, if I'm on Reddit, there's no button to redirect to an instance, I don't know if this is a desired behaviour or it's a bug, but I think it's important to mention it.

[vendillah]

@Vendillah from where the hell you brought this README link? Is this a fork or something?

Ups, apologies, I should have checked. I saw the (official) README before (so remembered it existed), but forgot how I got there. I think I just searched for "wikiless github" through duckduckgo and stumbled on this one? ;p Anyhow, the reference to the previously linked official(?) README seems to say the same.

To answer: I don't know! (still.) I has opened and closed issues. Someone's fork for their server? :o

[Mrnofish]

Yes LibRedirect has less features, but is now less buggy, faster, smaller in size, and easier to maintain. I know many of you won't like this, but this was the least harming decision we could take.

It actually makes more sense than dev folks might have expected, however it does feel a little like the feature set has been pruned a touch too aggressively.

Getting rid of Wikipedia redirects altogether seems to me like a prime example of crossing some previously unseen line in the sand.

The other features listed in your post can be easily appreciated as excessively complicated and perhaps not all that useful to the wider user base, and Bibliogram's status makes a case for its removal, however Wikipedia seems a bit gratuitous in my humble opinion.

I sincerely hope the dev team will be willing to reconsider the Wikipedia decision.

[throwaway-d]

I'm fine with removing other features but Unify Settings is the only reason I use LibRedirect instead of Redirector. So I will keep the old version 2.3.4 and use https://github.com/einaregilsson/Redirector for new frontends.

[Impeta]

Yes LibRedirect has less features, but is now less buggy, faster, smaller in size, and easier to maintain. I know many of you won't like this, but this was the least harming decision we could take.

@ManeraKai That's not a good compromise. You have irrefutably gone long and beyond to strip the convenience out of your extension purely for the sake of the extension's robustness, which was already strong and light to begin with (at least on user's perspective). You think you must've done it for the greater good, but in the end, you have only done it worse for everyone but only yourself (as it has been demonstrably shown here).

I don't really follow your claiming of having thought a lot about this among your intern peers, when if you're really have, you would fund 2.3.4 as the last stable version and advised people to it, before would you partake on your own deep reconsiderations on direction and philosophy with Libredirect, and start refactoring good parts of it. You would have queried your audience about a new branch for Libredirect to take onwards and asked the public's opinion and help on deciding and questioning about your starting ideas. You would be in good faith as to understand that the needs of developers and your users must be meet and, therefore, make for a good compromise to inline among. Libredirect is absolutely one of the most cooperative focused projects, featuring nearly tens, maybe hundreds of people to have contributed to it, thanks to instances they voluntarily host, offered in your extension, and with that, you have plunged in and butchered it against the very nature is it based on.

While I won't exactly dispute with you for the loss of every single feature here, that's not still to leave it unsaid about your fundamental misstep here, and the plenty more users you had undoubtedly disappointed to an extent here. You feared for this outcome, yet you decided to pursuit it. Very unwise move.

I strongly disagree. This is the most harming decision you have ever thought. And unfortunately, it tells a lot about you as developer. I made words of appraisal on you and your fellow developers before, but here, it has impacted me enough as to make me reconsider your true maneuver of a professional leader coder. Especially, when you had closed this issue as discreetly. You have made the bed, and now you won't lie on it. It would be wise to open it back up.

While mine words are too much to swallow, they aren't as unfounded, given your past errors as well, some of which could have been easily as avoided were you had tested your extension just a bit more or asked for our insight. This isn't any different.

I'm sorry, but until this is reverted or made up or so, I will pin myself on 2.4.3. Next time, please, don't hesitate to check your userbase more often. Thank you for the extension, but also, please try to learn on your wrongs. :confused:

An addendum: if you really don't have much affordable time to maintain this anymore, you can freely hand it to some else. Or even, leave it as abandoned while still functioning and featureful. Either is better than a crippled tool.

[mid-kid]

It's easy to talk when you don't maintain things for free. It's much harder to stand up and do anything about it, however.

[Impeta]

@mid-kid The point here to make, is not that I want to push these developers into absolute exhaustion for only the absolute sake of the userbase, but that they didn't ever really open a query with the users and spoke us beforehand about the stakes with Libredirect. Where's the communication between the users and the developers? There was none, far as I'm afraid of. The downgrading update was pushed on us with no whatsoever preceding advise.

It's not to make their lifes any worse, but just ask them to reconsider their priorities on communication overall.

[KaKi87]

Automated redirect was the only reason why I was using LibRedirect for oftenly rate-limited platforms like Quora & Tiktok.

If an instance is dead or something, press Switch Instance.

This is bearable on desktop, but not on mobile.

[ManeraKai]

This is bearable on desktop, but not on mobile.

You're right, will keep that in mind.

[Oppen]

@lmpeta take a chill pill. Your comment sounds like you're accusing of bad faith someone who was donating their time all along. Note I'm as frustrated as you at the extension not serving my needs as well as before (as I commented previously, the two features I found the most useful are gone), but I think you're going a bit too far. The maintainer did a lot for the community, not only with libredirect but maintaining some of the frontends AFAIR, and we should all be thankful. If you accuse someone of bad faith, the least you could do is fork and maintain those features for all of us, right?

[WAZAAAAA0]

Small guide on how to stay on LibRedirect version 2.3.4 forever.

ON FIREFOX-BASED BROWSERS:

1. uninstall the newer LibRedirect version
2. visit https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/file/4020597/libredirect-2.3.4.xpi to install the correct one
3. navigate to LibRedirect's respective "Manage Extension" menu and turn off auto-updates for it (click puzzle icon -> click gear icon -> Settings -> Manage Extension -> Allow automatic updates: Off)

ON CHROME-BASED BROWSERS:

1. uninstall the newer LibRedirect version
2. download with right click -> Save link as... https://github.com/libredirect/libredirect/releases/download/v2.3.4/libredirect-2.3.4.crx and extract it to a newly created folder (crx is just a zip archive)
3. edit manifest.json to delete line 70 in order to kill the update check mechanism "update_url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libredirect/libredirect/master/src/updates/updates.xml",
4. navigate to chrome://extensions/ -> enable Developer Mode -> F5 to refresh the page -> drag'n'drop the folder with the modded extension to install it

[compaq213]

Small guide on how to stay on LibRedirect version 2.3.4 forever.

ON FIREFOX-BASED BROWSERS:

1. uninstall the newer LibRedirect version

2. visit https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/file/4020597/libredirect-2.3.4.xpi to install the correct one

3. navigate to LibRedirect's respective "Manage Extension" menu and turn off auto-updates for it (click puzzle icon -> click gear icon -> Settings -> Manage Extension -> Allow automatic updates: Off)

ON CHROME-BASED BROWSERS:

1. uninstall the newer LibRedirect version

2. download with right click -> Save link as... https://github.com/libredirect/libredirect/releases/download/v2.3.4/libredirect-2.3.4.crx and extract it to a newly created folder (crx is just a zip archive)

3. edit `manifest.json` to delete _line 70_ in order to kill the update check mechanism `"update_url": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/libredirect/libredirect/master/src/updates/updates.xml",`

4. navigate to `chrome://extensions/` -> enable Developer Mode -> F5 to refresh the page -> drag'n'drop the folder with the modded extension to install it

thanks a lot

[TecnikOfficial]

the only reason i switched from privacy redirect extension to libredirect ws tht "latency checker" feature now it is also gone very disappointed :(