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mendel5 / alternative-front-ends

Overview of alternative open source front-ends for popular internet platforms (e.g. YouTube, Twitter, etc.)
GNU Affero General Public License v3.0
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Add burhan-syed/troddit for Reddit.com + Discussion on proxied/ non-proxied services #32

Open tillcash opened 2 years ago

tillcash commented 2 years ago

https://github.com/burhan-syed/troddit

ltguillaume commented 2 years ago

I think it would be recommended by now to clearly distinguish between frontend projects that directly access the source's servers from your device (like this one) and those that "proxy" the requests through the frontend's server (like teddit, searx or invidious), so that users can see which of the frontends potentially offer an added privacy layer and which are only another/improved way to make use of the service.

mendel5 commented 2 years ago

Thanks for your input.

@ltGuillaume : I understand the need for privacy and that people might be interested in knowing whether a service accesses it's source directly or indirectly (like you described). But even if a service accesses it's source indirectly (=through a proxy) the user's information is not gone, it's just somewhere else (in this case at the proxy provider).

Example: If you watch a Youtube video directly on Youtube.com, Google knows your IP address and can identify you through cookies, etc. If you watch a Youtube video through Invidious, the operater of that Invidious instance can now identify you.

ltguillaume commented 2 years ago

@mendel5 That may be true, but these "proxying" front-ends have quite a few advantages over the others:

  1. They often have a privacy statement that is actually readable and privacy-conscious
  2. As you said, they do not expose your IP to the original service, which is way more likely to actually use it for tracking purposes
  3. They do not allow the original service to track you through its API and/or 3rd party trackers, because they aggregate searches/views of many users
  4. Oftentimes, you can even run run an instance of them yourself on hired server space if you find you can't trust any of the available instances

As such, I think a distinction between "proxying" and "unproxying" front-ends is pivotal.

Of course, they also have a downside: it's not possible to allow using accounts on the original services through those proxying front-ends, so the interaction with the service becomes only "passive".

mendel5 commented 2 years ago

What do you @ltGuillaume think about these flags:

ltguillaume commented 2 years ago

That would be great! Proxied/Non-proxied is most specific, but perhaps people don't know exactly what it would entail. A more user-friendly description could be "Anonymized access"?

mendel5 commented 2 years ago

A more user-friendly description could be "Anonymized access"?

I think "anonymized access" does not sufficiently illustrate from whom you are anonymous. You and I know that it refers to the original service provider, e.g. YouTube or Twitter. But a new user might not be aware of that. Therefore I would prefer [Indirect access/Proxy].

mendel5 commented 2 years ago

Btw Troddit (https://github.com/burhan-syed/troddit) was added with this commit: https://github.com/mendel5/alternative-front-ends/commit/a48f0ae2e8bf4580fce54bba3ca7434a07d6f853

ltguillaume commented 2 years ago

A more user-friendly description could be "Anonymized access"?

I think "anonymized access" does not sufficiently illustrate from whom you are anonymous. You and I know that it refers to the original service provider, e.g. YouTube or Twitter. But a new user might not be aware of that. Therefore I would prefer [Indirect access/Proxy].

What other "anonymized" is there than referring to the original service provider in this case? But either way, I'm ok with "proxied", but only because I know what it means... So you could explain what "proxied" means in a sentence at the top or something.

mendel5 commented 2 years ago

Today I wanted to add some flags to a few repositories in the list. The first project I tried to categorize as either [Proxy] or [Non-Proxy] is Invidious. But when I watch a video on Invidious, the actual video stream is accessed at googlevideo.com. Since googlevideo.com is operated by Google, would you classify Invidous as [Non-Proxy]?

ltguillaume commented 2 years ago

Invidious is optionally proxied fully, so you can choose to also proxy the video stream via the server, either via a cookie setting, or via the URL parameter local=true.

mendel5 commented 2 years ago

Can you maybe provide me with an overview whether the following projects are proxied or non-proxied?

Thank you!

ltguillaume commented 2 years ago

I know the following are proxied, the rest I'm not familiar with:

Mennaruuk commented 2 years ago

Footnote with regards to Nitter: Video streaming is not proxied by default.

I was reading the awesome-privacy list, and the owner mentions that "alternative clients will share your IP with the service as they make direct requests." He goes on to cite Barinsta and Bibliogram as two unofficial clients for Instagram. I looked at Bibliogram's requests and couldn't find my IP address there. A proxy is used. However, I can't definitively say one way or another.